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Technical Papers

Formatting: Technical papers should be prepared according to the formatting instructions available here. The templates for technical papers can be downloaded in Word or Latex format. Documents should be formatted in US Letter size.

  • Note: Authors are asked to ensure they are using the IEEEtran template with the “conference” option enabled. The links above inadvertently pointed to journal templates and were corrected on January 16, 2023.

Length: The maximum length of the abstract is 200 words. New this year, the main content of the paper should not exceed six pages in length, and authors can use up to two more pages for references. Thus, a submitted technical paper can have up to eight total pages; references are the only type of content that can appear on the seventh and eighth pages. 

Double-blind review: New this year, WHC’23 is using a double-blind review process, which means reviewers will not know any information about the people who wrote the technical papers they are reviewing. The Conference Editorial Board chose this reviewing model based on best practices advised by the available literature, which indicates that double-blind review may help reduce reviewer biases and increase the perception of fairness. Therefore, authors must not include their names, affiliations, or other identifying information anywhere in the version of the paper that they submit for review. 

Detailed anonymization suggestions: To ensure the paper length is adhered to, authors should use dummy text for the list of authors and affiliations. Particular care should be taken when describing prior papers published by the authors; write about your own prior work in the third person (e.g., using “Lastname et al.”), as you do with papers by other authors, and include the full citation. Avoid using the first person (e.g., “we”, “I”, “our”) when talking about your prior work, and avoid disclosing your institution or country in the paper text. Images and videos should also be anonymized, for example, removing or blurring recognizable faces, institution logos, and any other identifiable information for the initial submission. Funding information and other acknowledgments should be anonymized for the initial submission and deanonymized for the final version (after acceptance). Lastly, identifiable metadata should be removed from the submitted PDF using Adobe Acrobat or other PDF editing tools.

Submitted papers will be checked for compliance with this double-blind policy, and authors may be asked to make corrections before their submission can be sent out for review. Authors and reviewers will be surveyed about their perceptions of the reviewing process after all technical paper decisions have been made. Questions and comments about this double-blind review process should be addressed to editorial@worldhaptics.org 

Supplementary video figure (optional): Authors may choose to submit a video figure, e.g., to highlight aspects of the contribution which are hard to fully understand from static figures. Reviewers should be able to assess the contribution of the paper solely based on the PDF, i.e., the paper submission must stand on its own without the supplementary video. As detailed above, videos must be anonymized for double-blind review and can be deanonymized for the final version (after acceptance). 

Video figures should be no more than five minutes long, with a file size less than 200 MB. We recommend a resolution of 1080p (1920 x 1080) or 4k (3840 x 2160), encoded as an MP4 using the H.264 codec.

Inclusion: We encourage authors to review the guidelines for an inclusive submission.

Subcommittees: All submitted technical papers that comply with these anonymization requirements will be peer-reviewed. To ensure a good match between the papers and the reviewers, each submission will be considered by one of three subcommittees: 

  • Understanding Touch: uncovering new scientific understanding of the sense of touch and related capabilities of humans and other organisms
  • Technology and Systems: developing and characterizing new technologies and systems for delivering haptic feedback or facilitating haptic interaction 
  • Applications and Interaction: designing and understanding the role of haptics in particular applications or types of interactions  

Authors will be asked to indicate their preferred subcommittee on the paper submission website.

Best Student Paper Award: Papers that meet the following criteria can be considered for the WHC Best Student Paper award if the authors indicate paper eligibility with the initial submission:

  1. The paper must be written primarily by the student, and its content should be drawn from research this author conducted as a student.
  2. The student’s advisor and others can be co-authors, but only one student per paper can be considered for the award, and that student must be the first author. 
  3. The paper must be submitted by a student who is currently enrolled as an undergraduate or graduate student (master’s or PhD candidate), or within one year following the student’s graduation.
  4. The student will present the paper at WHC2023.

Submission: The WHC’23 technical paper submission portal can be accessed at the following link: https://new.precisionconference.com/whc

Final Submission: Camera-ready submission of accepted technical papers is managed by Conference Publishing Consulting. All contact authors will receive the updated instructions by email. Please contact the Publication Chairs at publication@worldhaptics.org if you have any issues or questions.

Important dates

  • February 3, 2023 February 8, 2023 (extended) Technical Paper Submission (until 11:59 pm PST)
  • April 10, 2023 Paper Acceptance Notification
  • May 12, 2023 May 22, 2023 (extended) Camera-Ready Paper Submission
  • July 10-13, 2023 Conference