[dcchairs2016] UbiComp/ISWC 2016 Doctoral School notification - #122

[dcchairs2016 at ubicomp.org]

Dear Anja Bachmann,

Please find enclosed the reviews for your submission for the Ubicomp/ISWC 2016 Doctoral School.

122: "Using Context Recognition to Support User Monitoring and Awareness for Interruptibility on Smartphones"

Despite not being able to accept your submission at this year's Ubicomp/ISWC Doctoral School, committee members provided guidance and feedback on your submitted paper. We highly encourage you to follow the valuable advices that the committee member entered in their reviews towards improving on your doctoral work.

Thank you for submitting to the UbiComp 2014 Doctoral School.


Max Mühlhäuser
Nadir Weibel
Rene Mayrhofer

UbiComp 2016 Doctoral School Chairs


------------------------ Submission 122, Review 1 ------------------------

Title: Using Context Recognition to Support User Monitoring and Awareness for Interruptibility on Smartphones


Confidence

   3  (Very confident - I am knowledgeable in the area)

Contribution to UbiComp

   The paper is on using context recognition for managing notifications on
   Smartphones. Ctx. recognition gives decent UbiComp relation, the core of
   the paper (notifications) is more of a non-UbiComp theme, relation to
   UbiComp issues of Ctx is not very strong.

Overall Rating

   3  (Maybe reject: I would agree with rejecting this paper.)

The Review

   The author describes a manifold system for detecting context and for
   using it for controlling notifications on Smartphones. The core
   ideas/hypotheses concern event-based triggers (considered superior than
   time-based triggers) of notifications and
   “interruptability-awareness” (complemented by user preferences). 
   The author establishes trust that an elaborate piece of research work has
   been developed and is reaching completion. This summary reveals to
   problems w.r.t. the doctoral school:
   -	The paper is pretty much an assembly of high-level descriptions  of the
   many contributions which the author has already published; hardly at any
   point can the reader “reach down” to the “meat” of scientific
   content developed
   -	The advancement of the thesis (completed except for some “analysis of
   results” and some “use-case related evaluations” according to the
   authors) does not permit much input from the DC panel.
   Given that the work is hard to judge (without reading the publications of
   the author as cited) and that there is not much left for the DC panel to
   contribute, I suggest to prefer other papers of authors that still have
   “a number of miles to go”.


------------------------ Submission 122, Review 2 ------------------------

Title: Using Context Recognition to Support User Monitoring and Awareness for Interruptibility on Smartphones


Confidence

   3  (Very confident - I am knowledgeable in the area)

Contribution to UbiComp

   This work investigates how context recognition can better help in the
   selection of the right moment to interrupt users for a variety of
   notifications. The contribution is more on the theoretical side than on
   the system side.

Overall Rating

   3  (Maybe reject: I would agree with rejecting this paper.)

The Review

   This research is well grounded on a lot of research about
   interruptibility and the impact of interruptions on knowledge workers.

   The paper is in the wring format, but conveys pretty well the motivations
   and the goal of the research. While obviously the gathering of the
   context is deeply involved with sensors and sensing, and therefore with
   Ubicomp, this is not the main topi of the thesis which is more on a
   theoretical analysis of what are the right moments and the right means to
   actually interrupt someone.

   The research seems to be well advanced with several papers accepted and
   presented and others under review. It seems therefore that this doctoral
   student is in his/her final phase, so it is not clear what would a DC
   participation bring. 

   In summary, the limited contribution to core Ubicomp and the advanced
   status of this student's research make him/her less suitable to gather
   actionable feedback from the DC panel.