All submissions for all tracks should use the following templates:
The AfriCHI 2025 conference would use a template that has only one column. This differs from previous editions, which used a two-column template for submissions. However, should your submission be accepted and published in the proceedings, the final PDF generated by the ACM will have two columns again. This is a consequence of a new publication process established by ACM over the last several years, where what you see as a paper format when submitted is different from the produced PDF on the ACM Digital Library.
These changes to the submission template and publication process mean submitted papers will be a different page length to eventual publications. As a result, AfriCHI 2025 is moving away from strict page lengths for submissions, to instead ask authors to submit their work adhering to a word count. These word counts are as follows (not including references):
Please check the individual calls for participation for each submission track for more information on what each track is looking for in submissions (links in the above list).
Submissions made to Full Papers and Notes should be anonymized. This means:
The AfriCHI 2025 authors are recommended to submit a positionality statement elaborating on their relationship to the research, their location, and how their identity influences the design, conduct, process, and analysis of their study. Positionality statements help clarify how researchers' backgrounds and perspectives impact their approach, particularly when working within African contexts. Authors should address how their positionality interacts with African scholarship, local communities, or African values, and the implications of these dynamics for the research outcomes.
ACM authorship policies promote transparency and fairness in crediting all contributors to research. When conducting research in African contexts, meaningful collaboration with local researchers is strongly encouraged. It is not only ethical to involve local researchers but also ensures that the research benefits from on-the-ground insights, which enhances the contextual relevance and depth of the work. Proper credit must be given to these collaborators, reflecting their essential role in the research process.
Text generated by large-scale language models (LLMs), like ChatGPT, must be clearly disclosed when used beyond simple editing. Please review the April 2023 ACM Policy on Authorship before using these tools. The SIGCHI blog guides proper acknowledgment. Note that the LaTeX template hides the Acknowledgements section in review mode—ensure any LLM disclosure is visible in your submission. While we don't plan widespread LLM detection, we will investigate and may reject submissions if LLM use is not properly disclosed.
Citational justice is the practice of deliberately ensuring that a wide and diverse range of voices, perspectives, and contributions are recognized and cited in academic work. It emphasizes the importance of including scholars from marginalized or underrepresented groups in citation practices to address historical inequities in who gets acknowledged and credited for intellectual contributions. To this end, Authors are strongly encouraged to consider this, to avoid persisting inequities and promote the great efforts of local researchers and stakeholder groups
At AfriCHI we are committed to fostering an inclusive and accessible scholarly environment. Accessibility is key for ensuring everyone, regardless of abilities or backgrounds, can engage with the work. Authors should adhere to accessibility standards in both their submissions and presentations. This includes accommodating diverse user groups throughout the research, including those with disabilities. Also, the outputs are accessible through inclusive design principles. Authors are also encouraged to provide content in accessible formats such as plain text, videos with captions, or alternative formats suitable for various audiences.
Yes, as long as you follow ACM instructions and templates. For specific technical inquiries and support on the Latex template, we suggest to read https://authors.acm.org/proceedings/production-information/preparing-your-article-with-latex and write to acmtexsupport@aptaracorp.com.
AFRICHI abstracts should be 250 words max.
Full papers should be about 8500 words (5-10 pages max) with 2-3 images excluding references and abstract.
If you want to have more images you might need to reduce the word count. Notes (Short Papers) should be about 4,000 words (4 pages max) 2-3 images excluding references and abstract. If you want to have more images you might need to reduce the word count
Yes, but keep this to a maximum of one page. Reviewers have limited time to spend on each paper and have many papers to get through, so it’s unlikely they will read extra information during the reviewing stage. You should include everything important for your argument in the paper.
Images should be as high resolution as possible and saved as JPEG or TIFF files. If images include vector graphics and text, then save them as PNG files to retain line quality. Do check images for legibility and ensure they are anonymized where appropriate. This is especially important for images taken from whiteboard visualizations (e.g. Miro / Mural) which can produce low-quality attributed content.
Yes, but please be aware that reviewers will not necessarily look at these as they have a lot of other papers to review. Also, ensure any URL is anonymized where appropriate. If you think it is important reviewers understand something of the content of a specific URL, or video link, think carefully about using images and descriptions from the URL in the paper as best you can to explain the relevance of the content to your argument.
Please check referencing formats at ACM for information on how to cite different formats. https://www.acm.org/publications/authors/reference-formatting All citations should be alphabetically ordered and numbered in your references.
As noted above, do not write the name and institutional affiliation of the authors anywhere in the paper file. Remove the paper meta-data from the submission file: check the properties of the Word file or submitted PDF, to do that. Leave citations to your previous work un-anonymized, if they are important to ensure reviewers understand that all previous research has been taken into account. However, refer to them in the third person. Further suppression of identity in the body of the paper (references to specific projects, regions, names) is left to the authors’ discretion. If your question is not listed here, please check you have first read the submission guidelines to see if your question can be answered here https://www.acm.org/publications/authors/submissions
