The 2nd COGAIN Annual Conference on Communication by Gaze Interaction COGAIN 2006: ‘Gazing into the Future’ 4-5 September 2006 Turin, Italy Overview The conference provides a unique focus on communication by eye-gaze. It concentrates on the use of eye-gaze primarily for users with different types of disabilities in the context of interacting with computer applications, environment control and mobility. The conference has a strong involvement with disabled users and forms a vital bridge between those who develop gaze measurement and communication systems, those who research into the construction and use, and those who actually use, or could use, the systems. There is a strong emphasis in the conference on a range of subjects from technical issues to disabled user requirements and usability issues. The conference is the second annual conference of COGAIN, a European Union funded research Network of Excellence, which comprises 25 universities, manufacturers and end-user organizations. The theme of the conference is defining the future in terms of a research agenda for gaze-based communication. Format of the Conference The conference will be run over two days: Day 1 (Monday 4th September, 2006): Academic Sessions Day 2 (Tuesday 5th September, 2006): User and Industry Sessions The academic sessions (Day 1) depart from the traditional format of paper presentations and instead will take the form of 4 workshops. The proceedings will be in three parts: a collection of short papers from participants published on the conference web-site and made available at the conference; an edited summary of the workshop sessions in the form of text and video and a special edition of the Journal of Universal Access in the Information Society, which will contain papers from invited participants based on their short papers and contributions to the workshop sessions. Each workshop will have a theme around which the short papers will be collected, and the session chair will present a state-of-the-art position summary for each theme, together with a series of issues for the conference participants to address. All participants are invited to submit a short position paper that summarises their own work to date, and where they believe the priorities for the future lie. The provisional set of themes is: Eyetracking systems: low-cost systems, mobile systems, software, algorithms, calibration techniques and issues, integration with operating systems, standards. Gaze-aware communication software: eye-typing systems, interfaces to common applications, end-user configuration, gaze-aware applications, edutainment. Integration of gaze with other modalities: multimodal interaction, user performance and preference studies, attentive interfaces, gaze and brain integration. Human factors and user-related issues: Requirements for various disabled user groups, measuring usability with disabled groups, usability issues with gaze-based systems, case studies of user experience with gaze communication, training in the use of gaze-communication. The user and industry sessions (Day 2) will follow a similar format to the successful event held in Copenhagen during COGAIN 2005 Conference. The sessions will contain presentations from users of gaze-based systems, from representatives of end-user organizations and from industry, as well as opportunities for end users and researchers to try out the latest systems from the participating manufacturers. One of the most valuable aspects of last year's meeting was the opportunity it gave the academic research community and industry to meet, listen to, and observe users of gaze-based systems, and to understand their priorities and needs for system design and use. Furthermore, the session will provide manufacturers an ideal and unique opportunity to showcase their products to a highly specialist audience of those active and interested in gaze-based communication. Photographs of last year's event are available at http://www.cogain.org/photos. Important Dates Submission of short papers: 31st May 2006 Notification of acceptance: 30th June 2006 Workshops at Conference: 4th September 2006 Invitation to submit Journal Papers: 30th September 2006 Deadline for Submission of Journal Papers: 31st January 2007 Submission of Papers Authors are requested to submit their short papers (c. 1000 - 1500 words) using the COGAIN conference format (for a template and instructions, see http://www.cogain.org/cogain2006). A condition of acceptance is that at least one of the authors will attend the conference. Best papers will be invited to submit full long papers for a special issue in the Universal Access in the Information Society (UAIS) journal. The special edition editors in consultation with the editor in chief of the journal will distribute the papers to three reviewers who are experts in the field. The text should be clear enough to allow reviewers to judge the potential of the paper's suitability for COGAIN 2006. The suitability of the paper will be judged on the following criteria: * Originality * Statements of main results obtained so far (need not be final results) * Clear identification of future research needs * Clarity of presentation * Technical soundness Authors are requested to email their paper for consideration to Howell Istance: howell.istance@cogain.org +44 (0)116 2506103 Conference Co-Chairs Howell Istance (De Montfort University) Laura Farinetti (Politecnico di Torino) More information is available at http://www.cogain.org/cogain2006