Policy Approved by the CHI Steering Committee 20 August 2019
Updated: 1 May 2025 – Version 1.1
Status: Active
Introduction
This document describes the policy for ‘comped’ (i.e., free) registration, accommodation, and travel for volunteers at the CHI conference. The CHI conference is run by volunteers and supported by staff contracted for very specific purposes, e.g., security at conference facilities, audio/visual support, and ACM staff. Other people, including students, academics, or practitioners who help organize the conference, are volunteers, i.e., they do not receive remuneration and are not provided with free registration.
This policy describes how CHI General Chairs (GCs) handle requests from volunteers who ask for free registrations. So many people do so much work to organize CHI, and allowing for free registration or other compensation would require changing the current budget of the CHI conference, which would significantly increase registration costs for all attendees. This policy makes clear that exceptions are an explicit and important element of this policy. Exceptions are handled at the discretion of the GCs, with approval from the CHI Steering Committee (CHI SC). In general, our policy is:
COMPS (i.e., free registration at the CHI conference): Only those who cannot attend the majority of the conference sessions because of the requirements of their assigned volunteering role receive a free CHI conference registration. Note that volunteers sometimes choose not to attend sessions, but that is their prerogative (as the costs are taken from the conference budget) and is different from being unavailable to attend due to assigned volunteering tasks.
TRAVEL: Travel can be supported if that person needs to be at the conference to do an assigned volunteering task and cannot pay for travel from their funds. Travel compensation can not be given as a reward for volunteer effort. Travel cost coverage by the CHI conference should be the last option.
Conference Registration Compensation
- GCs and Technical Program Chairs (TPCs) (for a CHI conference n) receive a free registration for the year (n) from the CHI conference n budget as they will be busy throughout the conference and will not be able to attend most of the sessions.
- GCs and TPCs receive free registration for the year prior (n – 1) from their n conference budget if and only if they attend the CHI conference (n – 1) for planning meetings, for learning from the year (n – 1), and to attend handover meetings to prepare year (n). GCs and TPCs handover processes are structured by guidelines from the CHI SC.
- GCs have the prerogative to provide free registrations to GC assistants and/or TPC assistants for the CHI conference n and/or CHI conference (n – 1) from the CHI conference n budget if they cannot attend the majority of the conference sessions because of necessary volunteering tasks.
- GCs have the prerogative to provide free registrations for the Student Volunteer Chairs for the CHI conference n from its budget.
- In exceptional cases, other volunteers can get free registration at the discretion of the GCs, but only if their duties require that they can not attend the vast majority of the conference sessions because of the requirements of their assigned volunteering role. These exceptional cases are handled with oversight from the GC Liaison. Also see, SIGCHI Complimentary Registration, Conference Courtesies, and Conference Support Guidelines for SIGCHI Sponsored Conferences for more information.
Accommodation Compensation
- Room blocks and hotel discounts for attending the CHI conference n are to be allocated by the GCs (depending on their availability and number) and should support the accommodation of GCs, TPCs, GC assistants, TPC assistants, and Student Volunteer Chair from the CHI conference n budget.
- No other chairs should receive accommodation compensation for attending CHI n.
- No accommodation compensation is provided for attending CHI (n – 1).
Travel Compensation
- No volunteer in the CHI conference organization is entitled to travel compensation to attend the conference.
Kickoff Meeting
Each GC and TPC team is entitled to one kickoff meeting paid from the CHI conference n budget. Travel and accommodation are supported for all members invited to the kickoff meeting. The GCs decide whom to invite with oversight from the GC Liaison, and efforts should be made to minimize attendees and costs. This may vary year to year with different conference foci, but it is recommended to include a representative from the GCs, TPCs, Paper Chairs, Interactive Demonstration Chairs, GC Liaison, TPC Liaison, Accessibility Chairs, Student Volunteer Chairs, ACM representatives, and conference planning staff (e.g., Executive Events).
Site Visits
Each GC and TPC team is entitled to a site visit paid from the CHI conference n budget. Travel and accommodation are supported to visit the site of the CHI conference n. Decisions on on-site visits are made by the GCs with oversight from the GC Liaison, and efforts should be made to minimize attendees and costs. We recognize that site visits are of particular importance when the conference is in a location where the GCs and TPCs do not reside. In general, there should be at least one site visit in which one of each (of the GCs, TPCs, Student Volunteer chairs, and accessibility chairs) sees the venue paid from by the CHI conference n.
Note: The kickoff meeting sometimes provides the opportunity to host a site visit.