Tutorials & Workshops Proposals

NEW: The easychair site remains open for submissions until Wednesday, March 18, midnight (anywhere on earth). We hope that this small extension will be of some help for colleagues who prepare tutorial/workshop contributions amidst the coronavirus pandemic.

TUTORIAL PROPOSALS

The ECML PKDD 2020 Organizing Committee invites proposals for half-day tutorials to be held on the first and last days of the conference (September 14th and 18th, 2020), which will take place in Ghent, Belgium. Tutorials are intended to provide a comprehensive introduction to established or emerging research topics of interest to the machine learning and data mining community. These topics include related research fields or applications but also well-developed tools and suites that support ML/DM research. The ideal tutorial should attract a wide audience. It should be broad enough to provide a basic introduction to the chosen area, but it should also cover the most important topics in depth. Each tutorial should be well-focused so that its content can be covered in a half-day slot. For relatively novel but rapidly maturing topics, we encourage a format that combines a half day tutorial (4h incl. one 30 minute break) followed by a half day workshop (also 4h incl. one 30 minute break). Proposals that exclusively focus on the presenter’s own work or commercial demonstrations are strongly discouraged. We offer a waived registration fee for attendance of the main conference to one speaker for each accepted tutorial.

GUIDELINES FOR PROPOSALS

Tutorial proposals should contain at least the following:

  • A title and abstract of the tutorial.
  • A brief description of the tutorial content and its relevance to the ECML-PKDD community (no more than 2 pages).
  • A brief outline of the tutorial structure showing that the tutorial’s core content can be covered in a 4 hours slot (including a 30 minutes break).
  • The names and contact information of the tutorial instructors, including one-paragraph statements of their research interests and areas of expertise; it is required to indicate in the proposal who is planning to attend the conference and who will present which part.
  • A list of previous venues and approximate audience sizes, if the same or a similar tutorial has been given elsewhere; otherwise an estimate of the audience size.
  • A description of special requirements for technical equipment (e.g., audio equipment).
  • An indication on whether the tutorial is part of a combined tutorial+workshop proposal. In that case, we kindly ask you to write a single proposal for the tutorial and workshop, following the guidelines and attending to the requirements for tutorials and workshops. For workshop guidelines, please see the separate Call For Workshop Proposals.
  • Please provide a link to slides from earlier similar tutorials (if any).
  • For inquiries, please contact the workshop and tutorial chairs Myra Spiliopoulou and Willem Waegeman via wt_chairs@ecmlpkdd2020.net wt_chairs@ecmlpkdd2020.net.

EVALUATION OF TUTORIAL PROPOSALS

Tutorial proposals will be reviewed by the workshop and tutorial co-chairs, who may use the help of external reviewers and experts on the submission topics. Features that will be evaluated are:

  • The interestingness for the ECML PKDD areas, which should result in a large audience.
  • The clarity of the tutorial, which should emerge from its description.
  • Good organization as appearing from the outline.
  • The scientific renown and experience of the tutorialists in the topic area of the proposed tutorial
  • The ability to explain the topics to a large audience with heterogeneous background.

WORKSHOP PROPOSALS

The ECML PKDD 2020 Organizing Committee invites proposals for workshops to be held on the first and last days of the conference (September 14th and 18th, 2020), which will take place in Ghent, Belgium. We solicit proposals for both full- and half-day workshops in current and emerging topics in machine learning and data mining. Workshops provide an opportunity to discuss novel topics in a small and interactive atmosphere. They can concentrate in-depth on research topics, but can also be devoted to application domains or issues, or to questions concerning the economic and social aspects of machine learning and data mining. Multidisciplinary workshops that bring together researchers and practitioners from different communities are particularly welcome. We offer a waived registration fee for attendance of the main conference to one organizer or invited speaker for each accepted workshop.

DURATION & FORMAT

We welcome full- and half-day workshop proposals, as well as tutorial+workshop proposals. Full-day workshops have a program of typically 8 hours including two 30-minute coffee breaks plus a lunch break. Half-day workshops have a 4 hours program with a 30-minute coffee break. Combined tutorial+workshop events start with a half-day tutorial followed by a half-day workshop. We would like to encourage proposers to aim for a program that is both varied and interesting. Especially where the format of the workshop is concerned, we would like you to think about ways of going beyond the usual list of presentations of accepted papers. Keep in mind that the main conference is necessarily more time-constrained and workshops therefore allow for group explorations of interesting topics, for example by means of discussions, demo sessions, invited talks, and panels. Another way of extending the usual format is to include a specific challenge problem that can be addressed by the workshop participants, with a dedicated challenge session in the workshop program. Note, however, that the challenge should be only one of the components of the workshop, targeting a problem which is specific to the workshop topic(s).

GUIDELINES FOR PROPOSALS

Workshop proposals should contain the necessary information for the workshop chairs and reviewers to judge the importance, quality, and community interest in the proposed topic (a minimum of 15-20 expected participants is required). Each workshop should have one or more designated organisers and a program. When proposing a workshop, please provide (at least) the following information:

  • A brief description of the specific issues that the workshop will address, the reasons why the workshop is of interest, the main research areas involved, and what the workshop will add to the conference (e.g., do you expect papers of a theme that would not fit the main conference?).
  • Contact information of the workshop chairs, their competence in the proposed topic(s), and previous experience in chairing scientific events.
  • A tentative list of Program Committee members and potential invited speakers.
  • A draft of the Call for Papers, including information on accepted formats (e.g., regular papers, extended abstracts, oral-only presentations of relevant recently published or submitted contributions, etc.) and expected format of the workshop (e.g., invited talks, presentations, poster sessions, panel discussions, challenge sessions, or other ideas for ensuring an interactive atmosphere). In the case of a combined tutorial-workshop, please clearly indicate the format.
  • Any special requirements regarding logistics (e.g., poster stands, audio equipment), if applicable.
  • An estimate of the number of expected submissions, and an estimate of the number of expected workshop participants at the conference. Proof of interest from the community will be of added value to the proposal.
  • If you are making a proposal for a tutorial+workshop event, we kindly ask you to write a single proposal that covers both. In addition, the links should be clearly described and the proposal should be submitted to the workshop and tutorial chairs (select ‘Workshop and Tutorial’ as topic on easychair). For tutorial guidelines, please see the separate Call For Tutorial Proposals.

EVALUATION OF WORKSHOP PROPOSALS

Workshop proposals will be reviewed by the workshop and tutorial co-chairs, who may use the help of external reviewers and experts on the submission topics. Features that will be evaluated are:

  • The interestingness for the ECML PKDD areas, which should result in a large audience.
  • The maturity and popularity of the workshop subject; we expect that the workshop addresses a small and active community of researchers, who ideally submit to the workshop every year
  • Experience of the proposers in organizing such an event and contacts within the addressed community of researchers
  • Involvement of renown members of this community as anticipated authors or reviewers

SUBMISSION

Please submit your proposals through EasyChair. The submitted proposals will be reviewed in a close collaboration with the conference chairs and the program committee.

IMPORTANT DATES

TUTORIALS

The following deadlines are important for the tutorial organizers:

  • Tutorial proposal deadline: March 12, 2020 March 18, 2020
  • Tutorial acceptance notification: March 26, 2020
  • Tutorial final abstract submission: April 15, 2020
  • Tutorial course material (slides, bibliography) online: September 1, 2020

WORKSHOPS

The following deadlines are important for the workshop organizers:

  • Workshop proposal deadline: March 12, 2020 March 18, 2020
  • Workshop acceptance notification: March 26, 2020
  • Workshop websites and call for papers online: April 15, 2020
  • Workshop paper submission: June 9, 2020 (suggested)
  • Workshop program and proceedings online: September 1, 2020

CONTACT INFORMATION

In case you have further questions, please do not hesitate to contact the Workshop and Tutorial Chairs (Myra Spiliopoulou and Willem Waegeman) at wt_chairs[at]ecmlpkdd2020.net. We are looking forward to your proposals.