The event was attended by five distinguished guests, Mr Dave Roberts (IBM Ease of Use, Warwick), Dr Charles Crook (Psychology, Loughborough University) and Dr Andrew Tolmie (Interactive Learning, University of Strathclyde), and Dr Kim Issroff (University College, London). Richard Harper (University of Surrey) was also invited but had to cancel at the very last minute because of a funeral. Fortunately, Dr Josie Taylor (Open University) also attended the event and agreed at the last minute to act as a discussant.
Roberts gave an overview of the work and approach of his group at IBM. Crook and Tolmie discussed their current work in the use of different kinds of interactive technology in university settings. Issroff (assisted by Dr Mike Scaife, Sussex and Dr Josie Taylor, OU) acted as discussants to the student presentations and posed questions for the breakout sessions that were associated with each theme.
There were 23 student presentations about their research, 8 other students participated in the discussions and reviews, but did not formally present their work. In addition 7 members of faculty from COGS and 5 visiting guests from academia and commerce added their weight to the event.
The two days were organized around four sessions, each of which addressed a particular question:
These questions were used as the focus for student presentations as well as for the small group breakout discussion sessions All students were also asked to act as reviewers for their peers' papers and presentations. This mix of formal presentation, focused discussion, feedback and review allowed students to gain valuable experience and develop skills that will be useful to them as they further their research careers. They were able to hear about the work of role models from within industry and academia and discuss their ideas with fellow students and senior academics alike. New collaborations and friendships were forged as a result and an email discussion list has been set up to support continuing communication.
Each session consisted of student presentations (typically 5 per session), each followed by a an initial reaction from another student previously assigned to that task. At the end of each session there was a reaction from the discussant who suggested questions for the breakout groups. Each breakout group was organized so as to have a mix of students of different backgrounds together with one or more of either the invited speakers or COGS staff members. Finally breakout groups reported back in the closing part of each session. The idea was both to discuss issues of interest as well as provide practice for the students in presenting, critiquing and summarizing discussion.
The proceedings were prepared ahead of time and the student presentations were put up on the web and a printed version was supplied to all participants. All the papers can be found at.
The event was very well organised and run by three COGS PhD students: Ann Light, Pablo Romero and Fabrice Retkowsky. They gained valuable experience of what it takes to design and run an event like this.
In addition to the formal breakout sessions there was a plenty of time for informal discussion at the coffee breaks and over lunch. There was also a dinner on the first night. The students were particularly pleased to be able to mix and discuss issues freely with the invited speakers who took care to join in all parts of the event and not ``jet in'', give their talks and leave.
This is now the third annual HCT workshop that we have run, and our impression is that it provides a very useful forum for PhD students in the general area of Human Centred Technology and cognate disciplines.
