--- name: cscw-topic-selection description: Use when deciding whether a project belongs at CSCW — is the group, community, or organization the real unit of analysis? — and running the routing decision against CHI, ICWSM, DIS, GROUP, TOCHI, and social-science journals before any drafting or platform account setup begins. --- # CSCW Topic Selection CSCW publishes human-centered research on technology that supports or reshapes social, cooperative, and collaborative practice. The venue test is not "does this involve people and computers" — nearly everything does — but **whether the paper's explanatory action happens at the level of a group, community, organization, or network**. Run this decision before writing, because the framing it produces changes the introduction, the methods, and even which platform you submit through. ## The unit-of-analysis test Ask three questions of the project's core claim: 1. **Who is the protagonist?** If the sentence "we show that ___" is completed by a team, a community, a moderation crew, a platform's user population, or an organization, CSCW is plausible. If it is completed by "users" as interchangeable individuals, you are probably describing a different venue's paper. 2. **What does the technology mediate?** CSCW cares about coordination, division of labor, governance, trust, awareness, and collective sense-making. A faster or prettier interaction with no social consequence is not the venue's question. 3. **Would the finding survive a platform swap?** Strong CSCW work says something about cooperative practice that outlives the specific system studied. If your contribution evaporates when the platform changes its UI, sharpen the social claim first. ## The routing decision | Signal in your project | Better home | Why | | --- | --- | --- | | The novelty is an interaction technique, input method, or interface design | CHI (or UIST for technique depth) | CSCW reviewers will ask "where is the group?" and find no answer | | Large-scale social-media measurement with no design or cooperative-work stake | ICWSM | Measurement-first culture; CSCW wants the collaboration consequence drawn out | | A designed artifact where the argument is the design process itself | DIS | Design-research epistemology has its own reviewing home | | Smaller-scope group-work study wanting a community conversation | GROUP | Same intellectual family, different scale and pacing | | A mature line needing unlimited space and no conference tie | TOCHI or a social-science journal | CSCW already runs journal review, but PACMHCI CSCW papers carry a conference presentation expectation | | Governance/harms analysis where accountability frameworks are the core | FAccT | Policy-normative reviewing culture fits better | The **CHI/CSCW boundary** is the one most authors get wrong, in both directions. Both venues accept qualitative and quantitative work about people and technology. The working separation: CHI's center of gravity is the *human-computer interaction* — capability, interface, individual experience; CSCW's is the *human-human arrangement that computing mediates*. A study of how a screen-reader user navigates a document is CHI-shaped; a study of how blind and sighted colleagues co-edit that document is CSCW-shaped. When a project genuinely supports both framings, choose by which literature you need reviewers to know deeply — and note that as of 2026 the two venues differ structurally: CHI runs an annual deadline, while CSCW has moved to rolling journal-style submission (see `cscw-workflow`). ## Contribution kinds CSCW's own canon rewards The venue's Lasting Impact lineage (see `resources/exemplars/library.md`) spans organizational analysis, concept development, theory for design, sensitive-community fieldwork, and large-scale trace analysis. All five registers are first-class. What they share is not a method but a shape: **an empirical or analytic account of cooperative practice that other researchers can build with**. Weak-fit signals, regardless of topic: - The word "collaborative" appears only in the motivation section. - Participants were recruited as isolated individuals for a lab task, and the "group" exists only as an aggregate statistic. - The design implications could have been written before the study. - The paper studies a community's data without any account of the community's own practices, norms, or stakes — extraction without engagement. ## Decision procedure Run this before committing to the venue: ```text [Claim owner] Complete: "This paper shows that ___" If no collective completes it honestly → re-route or re-frame. [Mediation] Name the cooperative practice the technology touches (coordination / governance / awareness / trust / labor). [Survival test] State the finding with the platform name deleted. Still interesting? → CSCW-shaped. [Nearest neighbor] Name the ONE venue you'd choose if CSCW rejected the framing, and why its reviewers differ. [Regime check] Confirm the current submission pathway (rolling via Manuscript Central as of 2026-07-08) before planning dates. ``` ## Fit verdict format ```text [CSCW fit] Strong / Conditional / Weak — one sentence on the unit of analysis [Cooperative practice at stake] [Contribution kind] organizational analysis / concept / theory-for-design / community study / trace analysis / system [Re-route candidate] [Framing repair] ``` Facts here reflect cscw.acm.org and the rolling CFP as checked on 2026-07-08; the venue is mid-transition, so re-verify submission mechanics whenever routing advice turns into a plan.