HCI Researcher Wellbeing

CHI 2022 Researcher Wellbeing Workshop

Researcher Wellbeing and Best Practices in Emotionally Demanding Research

Call for Participation

Researcher Wellbeing and Best Practices in Emotionally Demanding Research is a one-day remote workshop that will be held as part of the 2022 ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

Submission Deadline: February 17th, 2022
Acceptance Notification: March 3rd, 2022
Workshop Day: April 13th or 14th, 2022

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) researchers operate in a variety of contexts, including death, illness, online harassment, and structural oppression and violence, that can be emotionally demanding. Given the many challenges associated with this type of research, HCI scholars have started to discuss practices and strategies for supporting researchers in carrying out emotionally demanding work. Nascent works in this domain call attention to the need for more thoroughly developed guidelines and resources.

In this workshop, we will bring together a group of HCI researchers who conduct emotionally demanding research to discuss self-care principles and strategies related to mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing for conducting this type of work. We will develop a series of best practices, guidelines, and resources for researcher wellbeing that can be distributed to the broader HCI community.

For complete details, please read our proposal.

Workshop Topics

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HCI Researcher Experiences

At the center of our workshop is a need to better understand and support the experiences of HCI researchers who operate in emotionally demanding research contexts. It’s important to support researcher wellbeing so that individuals can sustainably conduct emotionally demanding research or recognize when it might be time to step away.

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The Role of Collaborators and Teams

HCI researchers who conduct emotionally demanding research often work with others, including advisors and research teams. To understand support in the context of these relationships, we will create opportunities to discuss workshop participants’ experiences and needs when collaborating with others.

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The Role of Institutional Support

Our final workshop topic will address the institutions that HCI researchers operate within. Institutional awareness and support is an important aspect of emotionally demanding research. We will discuss institutional norms as they relate to supporting researcher wellbeing as well as institutional responsibilities and the types of support that are necessary for researchers and teams.

Workshop Goals

1 Develop Best Practices and Guidelines

We will work together to develop guidelines and best practices for HCI researchers conducting emotionally demanding research. Our goal is to develop actionable strategies that workshop participants can use outside of the scope of the workshop (e.g., in their everyday research practice, to share with their teams). Using discussions from our workshop topics, we will develop best practices that are inclusive of the many different roles individuals have when conducting emotionally demanding work (e.g., advisor, student, industry researcher) and that can help researchers quickly orient to conducting emotionally demanding work.

2 Launch an Online Repository of Community-Curated Wellbeing Resources

We will begin to establish a crowdsourced list of wellbeing-related resources (e.g., trauma-informed and wellbeing trainings, materials for student researchers) that workshop participants have used. We will host this list of resources in a collaborative spreadsheet, such as Google Sheets, and circulate it with workshop attendees. Following the workshop, we will make this repository available on the workshop’s website so that the resources may be accessed by the broader HCI community. Generating a list of resources is a way to support workshop participants and others in continuously educating and caring for themselves.

3 Call for Papers Related to HCI Researcher Wellbeing in Emotionally Demanding Research

Following the workshop, we intended to release a special call for papers (CFP) related to the wellbeing experiences (e.g., challenges and strategies) of HCI researchers who conduct emotionally demanding work. We will reach out to the editors of publication venues (e.g. ACM Interactions, ACM TOCHI) to solidify a venue for publication so that workshop attendees and others will have the opportunity to share their experiences engaging in emotionally demanding research. Releasing a CFP allows us to keep conversations moving forward beyond the boundaries of the workshop and promotes continued engagement from workshop members who may be interested in speaking to their specific and diverse experiences.

4 Document the Experiences of HCI Researchers who Conduct Emotionally Demanding Research

At the end of the workshop, the organizers will share an exit survey asking workshop attendees to share their workshop submissions for data analysis with the goal of manuscript submission to a peer-reviewed venue. The default sharing option will be to opt out. However, participants may select to opt in to sharing their workshop submission when filling out the exit survey. Giving or withholding consent for the collection of these workshop materials does not impact workshop participation (and occurs after the workshop has taken place). In addition to asking attendees to share their workshop submissions, we will record select portions of the workshop. Large group discussions, described in the workshop structure below, will be recorded as a way to collate and assemble best practices and resources. We will remind participants that these parts of the workshop are recorded. Small group discussions occurring in breakout rooms will not be recorded. Co-authorship of the resulting publication will be offered, provided that contributors agree to member check interpretation of their data.

5 Build and Sustain a Community of HCI Researchers who Conduct Emotionally Demanding Research

Finally, our goal with this workshop is to bring together HCI researchers across sectors and career stages who are engaged in emotionally demanding research. Community-building plays an important role within any type of research. We see community here as a way to start to establish a broad network for supporting one another beyond this one-day event. By creating a space where individuals who conduct emotionally demanding research can come together, we support new relationships and future conversations around this type of work. To sustain the community building facilitated by the workshop, we will create asynchronous and continuous ways of staying in touch (e.g., a dedicated Slack).

Workshop Structure

10 minutes

Introduction. Organizers will welcome attendees and present the workshop goals and topics.

30 minutes

Small group discussion #1. Attendees will meet the members of their group and discuss their experiences with one of the workshop topics, summarizing commonalities and important differences across the group. These summaries will contribute to the development of researcher wellbeing guidelines and best practices.

30 minutes

Large group discussion #1. A member of each small group will share what their group discussed in the previous 30 minutes. Namely, summaries and insights related to one of the workshop topics that will facilitate guideline and best practice development.

15 minutes

Break #1. Workshop attendees can use this break in any capacity they would like; such as, stepping away from their computer or joining other attendees in a breakout room.

30 minutes

Small group discussion #2. Groups can decide to continue their previous conversations related to one of the workshop topics or move to a new workshop topic.

30 minutes

Large group discussion #2. A group member will share summaries and insights based on the discussions of their small group.

15 minutes

Break #2. During the second break, the organizers will consolidate and share notes from the two large group discussions. They will synthesize across these discussions to put together a first draft of researcher wellbeing guidelines and best practices. Following the break, this draft will be collaboratively shared with workshop participants (i.e., one draft will be shared per small group).

20 minutes

Small group discussion #3. Group members will provide feedback on the first draft of researcher wellbeing guidelines and best practices. The groups will edit, add to, and raise questions about the guidelines.

20 minutes

Large group discussion #3. During the final large group discussion, a member of each small group will describe their group’s feedback to the first draft of the researcher wellbeing guidelines and best practices.

10 minutes

Closing. We will conclude with a brief summary of the ground covered during the workshop. We will also address next steps with respect to other workshop goals and outcomes (e.g., sharing the next draft of the researcher wellbeing guidelines and best practices, launching a repository, a call for papers, documenting experiences).

Join us!

If interested in joining this workshop, we ask that you respond to a brief survey that includes questions related to:

your positionality and the type of work you conduct;
your experiences conducting emotionally demanding research;
the self-care practices or principles you've incorporated into your research; and
descriptions of wellbeing-related resources that you've used or recommended.

Though all of the survey questions are optional, please address at least one to help us understand your experience with conducting emotionally demanding research. Each survey response is limited to a maximum of 500 words. Your responses will not be shared publicly.

If accepted, at least one author is required to attend the workshop. You must register for the workshop and for at least one day of the conference.

🔗 Apply to the Workshop

Organizers

Jessica L. Feuston (she/her) is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research involves using online ethnographic methods to understand how members of marginalized groups, primarily individuals with psychosocial disability, experience being online. Her research aims to develop design recommendations for social media platforms that center and support the needs of people with marginalized identities and mitigate the online harms that these individuals encounter.

Arpita Bhattacharya (she/her) is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the University of California, Irvine in the Department of Informatics. Her primary research is in the human centered design of technologies for health, specifically focusing on mental health.

Nazanin Andalibi (she/her) is an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan School of Information. Dr. Andalibi's research is in HCI, CSCW, and Social Computing. She studies the interplay between marginality and technology. Her research examines how marginality is experienced, enacted, facilitated, or disrupted in and as mediated through sociotechnical systems.

Elizabeth A. Ankrah (she/her) is a Ph.D. student at the University of California, Irvine in the Department of informatics. Her research focuses on the co-design and evaluation of socio-technical interventions to support the lifestyle and chronic illness management of adolescents and young adults. Currently she works specifically with adolescent and young adult childhood cancer survivors.

Sheena Erete (she/her) is an associate professor in the College of Computing and Digital Media at DePaul University. Her work focuses on co-designing sustainable technologies, practices, and policies with community organizations to counter structural oppression using equity-centered, justice-oriented, assets-based approaches to research and design.

Mark Handel (he/him) is a UX Researcher in Facebook’s London office, supporting the Central Integrity team. His work focuses on issues around suicide, self-injury, child safety, bullying and harassment, and in-product interventions to support people through these experiences.

Wendy Moncur (she/her) researches lived experience in the Digital Age. Her research focuses on online identity, reputation, trust, and cybersecurity, drawing on HCI, psychology, sociology, digital anthropology, and design. She is particularly interested in how technology can support challenging life transitions, such as the end of life and relationship breakdowns.

Sarah Vieweg (she/her) is a researcher at Twitter where she works on the Health team. She focuses on issues of privacy, misleading information, and also partners with the Human Rights team.

Jed R. Brubaker (he/him) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Information Science. He conducts research in social computing focused on how identity is designed, represented, and experienced in socio-technical systems. His research typically focuses on sensitive topics including death, grief, trauma, and marginalized groups and experiences.

Questions?

Contact jessica [dot] feuston [at] colorado.edu with any workshop-related questions.

🔗 Apply to the Workshop

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