history

The events below represent a very edited CHISIG history. Members are invited to submit queries and suggestions.

1984	CHISIG is established after the then ESA president, Dr Michael Patkin participated in the second CHI conference in the U.S.
1985	CHISIG holds regular public evening seminars with a wide variety of speakers and in a range of venues, combining these with site visits
1987	First All day seminar/workshop is staged at Monash University in Melbourne, with invited speakers in the morning and workshop on ’Screen design’ in the afternoon. Some 50 people attend, including a bus load of academics from the Department of Computer Science, Bendigo CAE, a Victorian country campus.
1988	Seminar invitation list grows to over 100, and the CHISIG newsletter is born to limit the number of mail-outs to quarterly listings of forthcoming seminars. People from other States attend the ’seminar/workshop’ in late November.
1989	One-day seminar/workshop becomes a two-day conference, calling for papers rather than inviting speakers. The CHISIG Executive is born comprising a Chairperson, Secretary, Treasurer, and a Newsletter editor. Local CHISIG groups spring up in New South Wales, ACT and Queensland. Regular seminars are organised.
1990	Tom Landauer and Brian Shackel (conference keynote speakers) are invited to submit their keynote addresses on videotape. An audio teleconference is established, allowing the audience to ask questions of the keynote speakers in the UK and US respectively. The conference duration extends to three days and the first 'official' conference dinner is held.
1991	Conference moves out of Melbourne for the first time. In Sydney, it adopts the name ’OZCHI’ and now goes over three days with full-day tutorials held on the day preceding the conference. The newsletter is prospering, and membership grows to 250 including a handful of international members. Swinburne University of Technology offers the first course in HCI in Australia. The library scheme is born with Swinburne as the first recipient. It aims eventually to support University libraries around Australia, and also to allow CHISIG members who do not have ready access to HCI resources to become members of the Swinburne library HCI collection.
1992	OZCHI goes to Brisbane. The first international keynote speaker attends and gives a tutorial prior to the conference. Several other tutorials are staged.
1996	OZCHI has been in Canberra, Wollongong, and back in Melbourne. International paper submissions and participation have grown to 40%. In Melbourne, nine tutorials are held. OZCHI goes off-shore to New Zealand.
1997	OZCHI is integrated into INTERACT’97 in Darling Harbour, Sydney. A record of 14 tutorials and several workshops are held. The first two-day OZStudentCHI is held at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne. Graduate HCI students meet, share experiences, present their work over two days.
1999	CHISIG develops and implements a comprehensive marketing plan. A unified ’look and feel’ is developed for all materials. The website is launched. Industry breakfasts are held.