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.
Ask three questions of the project's core claim:
| 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).
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:
Run this before committing to the venue:
[Claim owner] Complete: "This paper shows that <group/community/org> ___"
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.
[CSCW fit] Strong / Conditional / Weak — one sentence on the unit of analysis
[Cooperative practice at stake] <named practice>
[Contribution kind] organizational analysis / concept / theory-for-design /
community study / trace analysis / system
[Re-route candidate] <venue + the reviewer-culture reason>
[Framing repair] <the single change that would most improve CSCW fit>
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.