When: October 23-24, 2026

Submissions Due: Saturday, January 10 or Monday, March 30 (see below)

Submission Portal: Submit your proposal via this Qualtrics form

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group on the Design of Communication (SIGDOC) invites undergraduate and graduate students to submit a proposal to this year’s Student Research Competition (SRC). The SRC offers a forum for students to present their original research at an ACM-sponsored conference before a panel of judges and attendees. Participants also have the option of preparing an Extended Abstract to be published in the conference proceedings.

See the Call for Submissions below, or download the CFP as a PDF.

SRC CFP

Undergraduate and graduate students are invited to submit proposals (400 to 600 words) on topics related to communication design, technical communication, and/or user experience including, but not limited to:

  • Content strategy
  • User experience design and experience architecture
  • Learning systems and environments
  • Open source design solutions
  • Collaborative platforms
  • Design methods and principles
  • Digital humanities and design
  • Project management
  • Information design and architecture
  • International and intercultural communication design
  • Computer-mediated communication
  • Social impacts of technical communication

Proposals will be submitted through a web form. Up to 20 undergraduate and 20 graduate students will be selected to enter the SRC, to be held at SIGDOC 2026 in St. Paul, MN, USA. Students must attend in-person to compete in the SRC. This year’s SRC will include a first round poster session on October 23 and second round presentation October 24.

SIGDOC will offer a limited number of travel grants and will host workshops intended to help participants win travel grants from their own institutions. Students will be responsible for conference registration fees and are responsible for the SIGDOC student membership, which is $25 per year. There are monetary awards for the 1st ($500), 2nd ($300), and 3rd place ($200) winners in both the undergraduate and graduate divisions.

Schedule

We have a two track approach to submission intended to allow students with developed projects more time to write optional extended abstracts for the conference proceedings, while accommodating students who develop their projects in Spring 2026. To participate in the SRC, please observe the following due dates:

 

Track A

Track B

Proposal submissions due

Jan 10

Mar 30

Notifications of acceptance

Feb 1

Apr 24

Draft extended abstracts (optional)

Mar 30

May 22

Abstract feedback returned

Apr 24

Jun 12

Final extended abstracts (optional)

Jun 30

Jun 30

 

What is the SRC?

The SRC consists of two rounds of competition at the conference, as well as the possibility to move on to a grand finals competition at a later date. A list of SRC’s from other ACM Special Interest Groups for 2026 are available here: https://src.acm.org/submissions. You may also check out SIGDOC SRC extended abstracts published in the conference proceedings in past years here: https://dl.acm.org/conference/doc/proceedings.

Three Rounds of Competition

1 Poster Session: The first round of competition is a poster session. This is your opportunity to present your research in the areas specified in the Call for Submissions. Judges will review the posters live and speak to participants about their research; five semi-finalists from each division (undergraduate and graduate) will be chosen to present at the second round of the competition.

2 Oral Presentation: Semi-finalists continue by giving a short oral presentation of their research before a panel of judges, with supporting slides/visual aids. Evaluations are based on the presenter’s knowledge of their research area, contribution of the research, and the quality of the oral and visual presentation. Three winners will be chosen in each division (undergraduate and graduate) and will receive a medal and $500, $300, and $200, respectively.

3 The SRC Grand Finals: First-place undergraduate and graduate student winners from the SRC have the option to advance to the SRC Grand Finals. A different panel of judges evaluates SIGDOC winners against winners from other ACM Special Interest Groups online. Three undergraduates and three graduates will be chosen as the SRC Grand Finals winners.

Requirements for Participation

The requirements for participation in the SRC are:

  • You must be a current SIGDOC student member
  • If selected, you must register for the SIGDOC 2026 conference
  • You must still be a student at the time of the conference
  • You must apply by submitting a SRC proposal of 400-600 words on a topic of relevance to SIGDOC
  • Students may propose individual or team-based research
  • For teams, at least one person should be designated by the team to attend the conference and make the oral presentation
  • If you have proposed to the main SIGDOC conference, you may propose to the SRC only if you are proposing a different project

Frequently Asked Questions

For common questions about the SRC, designing a poster, and what you should expect, see our Frequently Asked Questions page at https://sigdoc.acm.org/awards/student-research-competition/src-faq/.

For other questions, you can contact the SRC Co-Chairs, Dr. Bradley Dilger (dilger@purdue.edu) and Dr. Allegra Smith (allegra@gatech.edu).