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The HCI-RG welcomes students worldwide joining our staff. If you are interested in the development of your research degree in Human-Computer Interaction with us, please fill the form bellow. We will get in contact with you as soon as possible.

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Terms and Conditions

Next are included the terms and conditions that regulate the duties and rights for all the members of the Human Communication and Interaction Research Group (HCI-RG). Before joining our crew, you should read this document carefully.

This document is divided into the following sections.

European Ph. D. Thesis

[Next section: Final Degree Projects]

Doctoral thesis in our group is the result of successful scientific work performed in any of our research programs. Those thesis are developed under the Spanish regulation for European Ph. D. (Royal Decree 778/1998, April 30, published in BOE May 1, 1998). This means that:

  1. Ph. D. students must participate in at least one research exchange with any other European (non Spanish) research group or institution. The HCI-RG will help our students to arrange such kind of exchange with any of our European partners. However, we do not provide economic funds for such exchanges.
  2. Authorization for the final dissertation must be supported by at least two positive reports by researchers from two different European countries.
  3. The documentation of the thesis must include an abstract written in English and part of the final dissertation must also be done in this language.

Our Ph. D. students also must:

  1. Develop and original research work under the guidance of a Ph. D. member of the HCI-RG and under the approval of the Head of the Group.
  2. The research work must be completed in no more than 3 years including Ph. D. courses, or 2 years for students who have already completed their Ph. D. courses.
  3. The research work must be totally or partially published in at least one journal included in the Science Citation Index before the conclusion of the Thesis.
  4. Prior to the Thesis Dissertation, a full working version of the research work must be presented in at least one our local events (conferences on Human-Computer Interaction or our Usability Cafe meetings).

Final Degree Projects

[Next section: What is expected from a member of the HCI-RG?]

Final Degree Projects implement prototypes of systems that are part of our research programs. The development of such projects plays a crucial role in the initiation to resesearch for our undergraduate students, who are recruited among the best students of the EUITIO of the University of Oviedo.

Prior to admission, the students must have approved the subjects taught in these institutions by the profesors and lecturers members of this group.

Our research students must:

  1. Develop their Final Degree Project in no more than 2 years.
  2. A full working version of the project must be presented in at least two of our local events (conferences on Human-Computer Interaction or our Usability Cafe meetings).
  3. At least five usability tests of the project must be performed in our Usability Cafe meetings.

What is it expected from a member of the HCI-RG?

[Next section: Obligatory Technologies]

All members of the HCI-RG must:

  1. Work exclusively right for the group.
  2. Present and discuss their latest research work in each edition of our local conferences on Human-Computer Interaction, as well as in our Usability Cafe meetings.
  3. Learn and apply our basic technologies in the development of their projects and prototypes. Document them using our documentation norms.
  4. Complete the assigned research work in the time scheduled. Deadlines depend on the kind of duty to be developed (see European Ph. D. Thesis and Final Degree Projects).
  5. Keep the research secret on every technology, document and any other kind of private data developed by the group. Research secrets are protected by the Section 3A, Chapter XI of the Spanish Penal Code.

Members of the HCI-RG should:

  1. Participate in the activities organized by the group along the year.
  2. Share their knowledge with all members of the group, helping other members whenever it is possible or required.

Basic Technologies

[Next section: Documentation Norms]

Products developed by our group are based on open source tools and free knowledge methods and techniques. This approach allows an easy distribution of our final products. Unless otherwise specified, our technologies should make use of:

Documentation Norms

[Next section: Joining us]

Thesis and Final Degree Project documentation must be edited using Latex. This editing tool highly reduces the amount of work to be done when compared with other editing packages such as Microsoft's Word. The program code must be documented using Javadoc tags.

Unless otherwise specified, names of classes, methods, database components, code comments and any other kind of programming objects must be specified in English. However, the documentation of the project may be written either in Spanish (final degree projects, thesis and papers) or in English (thesis and papers), with the sole exception of the user manual, which must be written in English Language .

Final degree projects of students of the EUITIO must be documented using the Normas de Documentación de PFC del HCI-RG en la EUITIO available in our FTP server (for members only).

Joining us

Coordination of the research work performed by the HCI-RG is carried out through our private yahoogroups community. This community is for members only.

If you have received and invitation from the HCI-RG research staff to join us, use the following instructions to subscribe to our community. Once subscribed, you will receive further instructions to complete your registration process to our research group.

  1. Create an account in yahoogroups. Include your real personal data (including first and last name) and make your profile public available . This process will display your name in the automatic authorization request sent by yahoo to the community's manager. If your name is not displayed in the authorization request, the administrator will reject your petition.
  2. Go to our private yahoogroups community, login in and follow the instructions provided by yahoogroups.

Please remember: if you have not received an invitation from us, your attempt of subscription will be cancelled.