IDEATExR

Eighth Workshop on Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, Transparency and Ethics in XR (IDEATExR)To be held in conjunction with the 2027 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (IEEE VR)
February 27-March 3, 2027 | Melbourne, AustraliaIDEATExR brings together researchers and practitioners to advance inclusion, diversity, equity, accessibility, transparency, and ethics in extended reality (XR). The 2027 workshop features a special focus on AI-enabled XR, access, agency, and accountability.HYBRIDIMPORTANT DATES:
Paper Submission Deadline: Monday, December 14th, 2026. 23:59 AOE
Acceptance Notification: Monday, December 28th, 2026
Camera-Ready Submission Deadline: Monday, January 4th, 2027WORKSHOP DATE: TBD

Call for Participation

Due to the important, evolving, and shifting nature of inclusion, diversity, equity, accessibility, transparency, and ethics in
XR, this workshop has six main goals:

  • To provide a vehicle through which to better understand the pulse of the community surrounding issues of inclusion, diversity, equity, accessibility, transparency, and ethics in XR,

  • To shine a spotlight on these issues for community members who perhaps haven’t seen or given them much consideration,

  • To celebrate those who are engaging in research either true to the spirit of inclusion, diversity, equity, accessibility, transparency, and ethics in XR, or those engaging in research about these topics specifically,

  • To help researchers better understand how to ensure their works are more inclusive, diverse, equitable, accessible, transparent, and ethical, particularly in their software and study design,

  • To spotlight how people are represented in XR technologies (or not) as researchers, designers, participants, and users, and

  • To bring together disparate perspectives and research foci under a shared goal to be inclusive, diverse, equitable, accessible, transparent, and ethical in XR. This goal can be shared by software, hardware, artificial intelligence (AI), and human-focused researchers.

SPECIAL THEME 2027: AI-ENABLED XR — ACCESS, AGENCY, AND ACCOUNTABILITY
This year, IDEATExR will feature a special focus on the intersection of artificial intelligence and extended reality. We particularly encourage submissions examining privacy, consent, bias, transparency, accessibility, user agency, and equitable access in AI-enabled XR systems, including smart glasses and intelligent wearable devices.Submissions addressing any aspect of inclusion, diversity, equity, accessibility, transparency, and ethics in XR remain welcome, regardless of whether they focus on AI.

The potential benefits of XR should be accessible to everyone, regardless of cultural background, gender identity, race, neurodiversity, ethnicity, economic status, or age. However, XR research still faces significant challenges in inclusion, diversity, equity, accessibility, transparency, and ethics. Research often relies on M-WEIRD (Male, White, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) populations, limiting the generalizability of findings and diversity of perspectives [1].IDEATExR aims to bring the XR community together to discuss these challenges, share experiences and best practices, and help shape a more inclusive, equitable, accessible, transparent, and ethical future for XR research and technology. We invite researchers and practitioners from all areas of XR to contribute their perspectives, including those working on technical systems without human participants.Participants in this workshop will have the opportunity to provide their insights on what is working for our community, as well as what isn’t – effectively helping to shape the future of IEEEVR and ISMAR.

Logistics

TOPICS OF INTEREST
This workshop has six facets: inclusion, diversity, equity, accessibility, transparency, and ethics. We expect researchers to submit early work that has already shown a commitment to one or more of these aforementioned facets. These could include work with diverse participants, work examining skin-tone rendering in AR, computer vision algorithms for differently-abled hands, testing of accessibility and usability of a VR app for those with different sensory abilities, etc. Further, while we anticipate this next type of paper to be rarer, we anticipate papers that feature research explicitly regarding the realm of diversity in XR. Finally, position papers informed by either survey of the literature or profound experience in the facets of this workshop are also well within our scope.In connection with our 2027 special theme, we particularly welcome work on privacy, consent, and bystander awareness in AI-enabled XR; always-on sensing and data governance; bias and representation in multimodal AI; accessibility, personalization, and user agency; AI-generated avatars and virtual environments; and the safety, social, and ethical implications of intelligent wearable devices. These topics are illustrative rather than exhaustive, and submissions outside the special theme are equally welcome.IMPORTANT DATES

  • Paper Submission Deadline: Monday, December 14th, 2026. 23:59 AOE

  • Acceptance Notification: Monday, December 28th, 2026

  • Camera-Ready Submission Deadline: Monday, January 4th, 2027

SUBMISSION
We welcome paper submissions from 2-5 pages, excluding references. Authors should also provide a brief explanation (at least one paragraph, but no more than one page attached in supplementary materials) of how their paper fits the workshop or addresses its facets.Paper will be assessed based on their scientific merit, contribution per page, and relevance to inclusion, diversity, equity, accessibility, transparency, and ethics in XR.

  • Submissions must be written in English and follow the IEEE Computer Society VGTC formatting guidelines: https://tc.computer.org/vgtc/publications/conference/

  • Submissions should be anonymized.

  • Submissions utilizing Generative AI should include a disclosure in the acknowledgments describing how these tools were used.

  • Each submission will be reviewed by at least two program committee members following a single-blind review process.

Submissions will be reviewed by at least two program committee members following a single-blind review process. Accepted authors will receive instructions for preparing their final manuscripts with the notification of acceptance.Submissions can be submitted on Google Forms linked below:

ORGANIZERS

G. Nikki Alabanza, Virginia Tech
Zubin Datta Choudhary, University of Central Florida
Arthur Audrain, Inria
Jonathan Tschanter, University of Würzburg
Brendan David-John, PhD, Virginia TechPlease direct any questions to G. Nikki Alabanza at [email protected] or Zubin Datta Choudhary at [email protected].

CITATIONS

[1] T. C. Peck, K. A. McMullen, J. Quarles, K. Johnsen, C. Sandor, and M. Billinghurst, “DiVRsify: Break the Cycle and Develop VR for Everyone,” IEEE Comput. Graph. Appl., vol. 41, no. 6, pp. 133–142, 2021, doi: 10.1109/MCG.2021.3113455.