AAAI-12 Tutorial Forum

Call for Proposals

A printable PDF of this call is also available

Timetable for Proposals

December 2, 2011: Tutorial proposals due to tutorial chairs
January 13, 2012: Tutorial acceptances mailed
January 27, 2012 (11:59 PM PST): Tutorial descriptions, autobiographical statements, and speaker photos due
June 15, 2012 (11:59 PM PDT): Completed course materials must be posted on speaker’s website
July 22-23, 2012: AAAI-12 Tutorial Forum

The AAAI-12 Program Committee invites proposals for the Tutorial Forum of the Twenty-Sixth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-12). The Tutorial Forum will be held July 22–23, 2012 in Toronto, Canada. Anyone interested in presenting a tutorial at AAAI-12 should submit a proposal to the 2012 Tutorial Forum Cochairs via EasyChair

What Is the Tutorial Forum?

The Tutorial Forum provides an opportunity for junior and senior researchers to spend two days each year freely exploring exciting advances in disciplines outside their normal focus. We believe this type of forum is essential for the cross fertilization, cohesiveness, and vitality of the AI field. We all have a lot to learn from each other; the Tutorial Forum promotes the continuing education of each member of the AAAI. To encourage full participation by technical conference registrants, no separate fee will be charged for admittance to the Tutorial Forum in 2012.

Topics

AAAI is interested in proposals for advanced tutorials at the leading edge of AI. We are particularly interested in tutorials that offer two types of knowledge. The first type provides in-depth background tools to help educate researchers and students for the purpose of conducting AI research; examples of this type of tutorials from AAAI-11 include “Algorithms for Classical Planning,” “Discourse Structure: Theory and Practice,” and “Machine Learning in Time Series Databases.” A second type of tutorial provides a broad overview for an AI area that potentially crosses boundaries with an interesting application area; examples of this type of tutorial from AAAI-11 include “Discourse Models for Generating Optimized User Interfaces: Theory from AI and Application in HCI,” “Opinion Mining and Sentiment Analysis,” and “Event Processing - State of the Art and Research Challenges.”

Our goal is to present a diverse program that includes core areas of AI, new techniques from allied disciplines that can inform research within AI, and conversely emerging applications of AI techniques to new areas. Previous years’ tutorial programs provide an indication of the scope and variety of possible topics. The list is not exclusive; indeed, we are expressly interested in topics that we would not have imagined to mention. Finally, note that we very much welcome proposals for educational approaches that go beyond the traditional format of four-hour tutorials, exploiting the flexibility that the open format program offers. Although the majority of tutorials in the past have been four hours, we also encourage quarter-day or full-day formats as the topic dictates.

Submission Requirements

We need two kinds of information in the proposals: information that will be used for selecting proposals and information that will appear in the tutorial brochure description. The proposal should provide sufficient information to evaluate the quality of the technical content being taught, the quality of the educational material being used, and the speakers’ skill at presenting this material.

Each proposal should include at least the following:

Goal of the tutorial: Who is the target audience? What will the audience walk away with? What makes the topic innovative?

History: 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.

Content: Detailed outline and list of additional materials, augmented with samples, such as past tutorial slides and survey articles, whenever possible. Be as complete as possible.

Tutorial description: A short paragraph summarizing the tutorial outline, and the intended duration of the tutorial.

Prerequisite knowledge: What knowledge is assumed of the target audience.

Please also submit the following information about the team of presenters: name, mailing address, phone number, email address; background in the tutorial area, including a list of publications and/or presentations; any available examples of work in the area (ideally, a published tutorial-level article or presentation materials on the subject); evidence of teaching experience (courses taught or references); and evidence of scholarship in AI or computer science.

Submission Deadline

Proposals must be received by December 2, 2011. Decisions about the tutorial program will be made by January 13, 2012. Speakers should be prepared to submit their tutorial descriptions and bios by January 27, 2012, and to post completed course materials on their websites by June 15, 2012.

Submissions must be in pdf format and made via EasyChair