This is funding to support a Doctoral Consortium (workshop) of promising doctoral students and distinguished research faculty to be held in conjunction with the HCOMP 2014 Conference on Human Computation & Crowdsourcing, sponsored by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI). The Consortium will enhance the scientific workforce in this emerging research area by developing a group of promising young researchers interested in human computation and crowdsourcing. The award will also enable these young researchers to attend the HCOMP 2014 conference, thus allowing them to interact with other researchers and conference events; to learn of potential career paths within academia and industry; to access an international network of researchers who can support their professional development; and to observe the interdisciplinary nature, diversity and interrelationships of research in human computation.
The HCOMP 2014 Doctoral Consortium will be a research-focused meeting of an international group of selected Ph.D. candidates with a panel of distinguished research faculty. The Doctoral Consortium Chairs will select six additional distinguished researchers to serve as faculty mentors; this group also will serve as the review committee for student applications. Students will be selected based on a paper giving an overview of the student's dissertation research, an explanation of why the students wants to participate in the Doctoral Consortium, a CV, and an advisor's letter of support. The PIs will give preference to students who are most in need of mentoring and joining a peer group.
The full-day workshop event will include activities to guide the research of these promising young researchers. The Consortium will allow participants to interact with established researchers and with other students, through presentations, question-answer sessions, panel discussions, and invited presentations. Each participant will give a short presentation on their research and will receive feedback from at least one faculty mentor and from fellow students. The Consortium will include activities led by the faculty, such as a panel discussion, to give students more information about the process and lessons of research and life in academia and industry. To further integrate the Doctoral Consortium participants into the conference itself, students will have a chance to present their work as posters in an interactive poster session and their papers will be posted online on the workshop webpage. These activities will benefit the participants by offering each fresh perspectives and comments on their work from researchers outside their own institution, both from faculty and other students; providing a supportive setting for mutual feedback on participants' current research and guidance on future research directions; and enabling participants to form a cohort of new researchers.
