AAAI-15 Senior Member Presentation Track

AAAI-15 Senior Member Presentation Track

Twenty-Ninth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence  January 25-30, 2015 Austin, Texas, USA
Call for Papers

Sponsored by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence and the Computing Community Consortium

Timetable for Presentations

• October 8, 2014: Electronic submissions of talks and papers due
• November 10, 2014: Notification of acceptance or rejection.
• November 20, 2014: Camera-ready versions at the AAAI office.

Innovations

• Subtracks ("summary talks" and "blue sky ideas talks")
• Talks come with a paper in the proceedings
• Three grants for the best three proposals in the "blue sky ideas" track, given by the Computing Community Consortium.

The Senior Member Presentation Track provides an opportunity for established researchers in the AI community to give a broad talk on a well-developed body of research, an important new research area, or a promising new topic. These presentations should provide a "big picture" view, in contrast to regular papers, which may focus on a specific contribution. Submissions include a proposal for a talk and a paper (in the AAAI format) covering the topic of the talk. Senior members of AI are researchers that are well established in their research area.

Eligibility

This track is open to researchers who are a significant number of years away from their Ph.D (exceptions will be considered on a per case basis), have acquired an international recognition, and have established a significant publication record of AI-related research in AI conferences and journals.

It is important to note that you do not have to be a AAAI Fellow nor hold the official status of "Senior-Member of AAAI" in order to submit to the Senior Member Presentation Track.

Subtracks

There are two subtracks for submissions of talk proposals for the Senior Member Presentation Track:

Summary talks: broad talks on a well-developed body of research or an important new research area. They generally will also include results obtained by researchers other than the speaker.

"Blue Sky Ideas" talks: These presentations aim at presenting ideas and visions that can stimulate the research community to pursue new directions, e.g., new problems, new application domains, or new methodologies that are likely to stimulate significant new research. The presenter should find the right arguments to convince the audience that the topic is promising, and should relate the talk as much as possible to the existing literature. The Blue Sky Ideas track will be sponsored by the Computing Community Consortium, which will give three awards ($1000, $750 and $500), for the three best submissions in this category, to be used as travel grants for the presenters. See The Computing Community Consortium for more on "blue sky ideas" talks.

Proposal / Paper Submission

A proposal for the SMT includes two parts.

Part 1: Talk outline and CV.
The first part of the proposal should include the title, an abstract and an outline of the suggested talk. All these in 1 page (in any reasonable format). In addition it should also include a short CV (up to 2 pages in any reasonable format) for a total of 3 pages for part 1. The CV should also include evidence that the proposer is qualified to talk about the topic, such as specific contributions of the proposer to the proposed topic (in the case of a summary talk) or contributions of the proposer in related topics (in the case of a blue sky idea talk). To show the broadness of the topic, proposals are required to cite at least 3 papers in the suggested topic which were published by different authors in the last 3 years in a highly competitive venue. (This applies to summary talks only.)

Part 2: Summary paper.
Researchers who submit talk proposals must also submit a paper. Accepted papers will be included in the proceedings. Papers should cover the same topic as the talk and are intended to give a personal synthetic view of the topic, together with appropriate references. The papers should be self-contained and are intended to be accessible for anyone including people that did not attend the talk. The papers should be formatted as PDF files using the AAAI style. Submissions are not anonymous. They should include the names and affiliations of the authors. The length of the papers depends on the track: between 2 and 6 pages for the "summary talks" track, and between 2 and 4 pages for the "blue sky ideas" track. An additional page for references is also allowed (that is, 6 + 1 and 4 + 1, for each of the tracks, respectively).

Submission Process

Easychair Senior Member Track Submission site

Please note that this is a special site for the Senior Member Track. Do not submit Senior Member Track papers to the main AAAI-15 submission site.

In the 'Category' button, please indicate whether your submission is a Summary Talk or a Blue Sky Idea. Please submit the main paper in the "Paper" tab and the Outline of talk and CV" in the "Attachment" tab. It is also OK to submit only one PDF file in the "Paper" tab. In this case include your talk outline and CV before or after the main paper but keep the constraints of the length. That is, no more than 3 pages for the Talk outline+CV and no more than 4 or 6 pages for the Blue Sky Idea or the Summary Talk papers, respectively.

Reviewing Process

All senior member talk proposals and the corresponding papers will be reviewed by qualified members of the AAAI program committee. The reviewers of the paper will follow the main regulations of regular AAAI submission and will check the quality and clarity of the paper.

Final decisions on acceptance will be made by the track cochairs.

Senior Member Track Cochairs

• Ariel Felner (felner@bgu.ac.il)
  Ben-Gurion University, Israel
• Jerome Lang (lang@lamsade.dauphine.fr)
  CNRS-Université Paris-Dauphine, France

Questions and Suggestions

Please contact the Senior Member Presentation Track cochairs for any questions or suggestions. Specific questions are answered below.

Q: How can I know whether I am considered 'senior' enough?

A: As a general rule this track is designed for researchers that are well established in their research area. They should be a significant number of years away from their Ph.D and have published a significant number of papers in the top AI conferences and journals. However, exceptions are possible and will be considered on a per case basis.

Q: Can submissions be coauthored?

A: Naturally, the talks include one presenter only. However, the papers submitted might include other authors but the first author must be the talk presenter.

Q: Does submitting a 6-page paper increase the chances of my talk being accepted when compared to a shorter paper?

A: Not at all. All submissions will be reviewed/considered along the same review criteria.

Q: Is there any relation between this track and the status of "Senior Member of AAAI".

A: Not at all. Anyone who meets the criteria above can submit. You do not have to hold the status of a Senior Member of AAAI nor be a AAAI Fellow.

Links