IEEE World Haptics Conference 2025
Inclusion
IEEE World Haptics Conference 2025
Inclusion
Inclusion
Inclusion
The WHC is committed to creating an inclusive environment for all of its participants as well as increasing the participation of groups traditionally underrepresented in robotics and haptics research (including but not limited to women, LGBTQ+, underrepresented minorities, and people with disabilities). Part of this commitment includes striving to provide a safe, respectful,and harassment-free conference environment for everyone involved. We do not tolerate harassment of conference participants.Harassment includes, but is not limited to, overt and/or covert acts of:
- Verbal accusations or bullying
- Deliberate intimidation, stalking, or following both in person and online
- Harassing photography or recording
- Sustained disruption of talks or other events
- Interference with a person’s participation or opportunity for participation
- Inappropriate physical contact
- Unwelcome sexual attention
- Advocating for, or encouraging, any of the above behavior
We expect all interactions between attendees to be respectful and constructive, including interactions during the review process, at the conference itself, and on social media. Conference participants violating these rules may be sanctioned or expelled from the conference (without a refund) at the discretion of the conference organizers.
Input from you – the community!
Part of this commitment is to better understand the needs of our participants. To this end, Inclusion@WHC will be working to collect data that will inform programs to increase and sustain broader participation in the haptics research community. To better understand the needs of our community, we ask participants to please fill out the form linked at the end of this paragraph (preferably before February to make sure we have time to implement recommendations). Your participation will ensure that your voice is heard when thinking about ways to create a more inclusive World Haptics Conference. We cannot guarantee that we will implement every idea at this WHC, however, we will strive to do so. If you would like to participate, please fill out this form.
The second part of this commitment is to better understand, now that you have attended the conference, whether there were any barriers that we were not able to dismantle and what we should improve on.
Guidelines for an Inclusive Submission
The language that we use has a major effect on people’s ability to feel part of a safe, inclusive community. We have some guidelines to help your paper submission.
For telerobotics, use alternative terminology to “Master/Slave”.
The WHC acknowledges the importance of not promoting terms based on appalling inhumane practices. We ask authors to not use the Master/Slave terminology. Some alternatives recommended by the ACM and the TC on Telerobotics are:
“Main/Secondary”, “Haptic Device/Remote Robot”, “Leader/Follower”, “Driver/Driven”, and “Teleoperating/Teleoperated”.
Please use accessible language when talking about disability.
We encourage authors working in accessibility to review and follow the SIGACCESS recommendations for writing terminology:
http://www.sigaccess.org/welcome-to-sigaccess/resources/accessible-writing-guide/
Please use gender-inclusive language.
Our understanding of gender and how to discuss and study gender in a research context is changing. We encourage authors to review and follow the HCI Guidelines for Gender Equity and Inclusivity:
https://www.morgan-klaus.com/gender-guidelines.html
Other resources on inclusive language: https://www.acm.org/diversity-inclusion/words-matter
Please check all materials for accessibility during submission.
Having accessible materials, including features like alt text for figures and choosing colors to be distinguishable when viewed in black and white or with a form of color-blindness, will help ensure that more people are able to review your submissions and read any published work.
We encourage authors to review and follow the comprehensive instructions described by the ACM CHI community:
https://chi2021.acm.org/for-authors/presenting/papers/guide-to-an-accessible-submission
Additional resources for accessible PDFs:
- SIGACCESS guidance on describing figures
- SIGACCESS guidelines on making an accessible ACM conference paper
- SIGACCESS guidelines on creating accessible PDFs in Microsoft Word
- WebAIM guidelines on PDF accessibility
- WebAim guidelines on creating accessible Word documents
- PDF techniques for WCAG 2.1
- Adobe’s resource center for PDF accessibility
When creating videos, please include both captions and voice overs.
Providing alternative means of accessing information is not only valuable for people with sensory impairments but lets people engage with research materials in a variety of contexts (e.g., if the video is muted). We strongly encourage people to both have voice and text to explain the video.
If you have questions or need assistance with any of these activities, please reach out to the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion chairs at inclusion@worldhaptics.org.
Acknowledgements
Inclusion@WHC was inspired by the amazing work being done at Inclusion@RSS, Diversity, and Inclusion at UIST, and Diversity & Inclusion at CHI. We would like to thank these previous trailblazers for all their mentorship, and support, and for allowing us to base our work on theirs.
