Cobi: communitysourcing large-scale conference scheduling

Abstract

Creating a good schedule for a large conference such as CHI requires taking into account the preferences and constraints of organizers, authors, and attendees. Traditionally, the onus of planning is placed entirely on the organizers and involves only a few individuals. Cobi presents an alternative approach to conference scheduling that engages the entire community to take active roles in the planning process. The Cobi system consists of a collection of crowdsourcing applications that elicit preferences and constraints from the community, and software that enable organizers and other community members to take informed actions toward improving the schedule based on collected information. We are currently piloting Cobi as part of the CHI 2013 planning process.