Call for Workshop Proposals

The annual SIGIR-AP (Asia/Pacific) conference is a new regional IR conference whose scope is fundamentally the same as that of SIGIR. SIGIR-AP 2023 workshops will provide a platform for presenting novel ideas and emerging areas in IR, in a less formal and more focused way than the conference itself. Researchers and practitioners from all areas of IR are invited to submit workshop proposals for review.

Important dates

Time zone: Anywhere On Earth (AOE)
Proposal submission: June 6, 2023
Proposal acceptance notification: July 11, 2023
Tentative workshop paper submission: September 12, 2023
Tentative workshop paper acceptance notification: October 10, 2023
Workshop day: November 29, 2023

TOPICS OF INTEREST

Workshop topics typically match those identified in the SIGIR-AP 2023 call for full papers, but proposals concerned with other areas of IR are welcome as well. We encourage prospective workshop organizers to submit proposals for highly interactive workshops (either full-day or half-day) focusing on either in-depth analysis or broad-ranging approaches to information retrieval. The format of each workshop is to be determined by the organizers. We expect workshops to contain ample time for discussion and engagement of all participants – not just those presenting papers. Workshops that foster collaboration, discussion, group problem-solving and community building initiatives are particularly encouraged. Workshops that only revolve around the presentation of papers in a “mini conference” format are discouraged.
The organizers of approved workshops will be expected to define the workshop’s focus, gather and review submissions, and decide upon the final program content. Organizers (including co-organizers) are encouraged to write an article for the ACM SIGIR Forum summarizing the event. At least two organizers are expected to attend the entire workshop. In addition, at least one of the workshop organizers must attend the conference in-person, to serve as host and coordinator for the activities that will take place at the conference venue.

Submission Guidelines

Workshop proposals, in no more than 4 pages, should include the following information:

• Title
• Workshop format: either in-person only or hybrid (both in-person and remote participation are allowed)
• Motivation for the workshop, its appropriateness for SIGIR, its complementarity to the main SIGIR-AP 2023 conference topics, and why it would be of interest to the IR community
• Theme and purpose of the workshop
• Format (half/full-day) and planned activities and a tentative schedule of events, including potential keynote or other speakers. If the workshop format is hybrid, clarify whether each activity will be available for online registrants or not
• For each organizer, how likely they think it is that they can attend the conference in-person
• Special requirements and how critical they are to the success of the workshop. Outline a contingency plan in case these requirements can not be met, such as potential last-minute organizers to ensure the workshop runs in-person
• List of organizers with a short biographical sketch of each organizer, describing relevant qualifications and experience
• Names of potential program committee (PC) members – if the workshop requires a PC (any workshop involving written papers should have a PC)
• Selection process for participants and/or presenters
• Details of the expected target audience and how the workshop will be advertised to reach them
• Related workshops (if applicable): if the workshop has been held previously at SIGIR or another conference, the organizers should indicate this and describe briefly past attendance and outcomes, and why another workshop is needed
• Ethical considerations: what kind of ethical problems can be caused by the workshop and what actions will the workshop organizers take to counteract them? For further details, please refer to ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct (https://www.acm.org/code-of-ethics )

Workshop proposals should be prepared in the current ACM two-column conference format. Suitable LaTeX, Word, and Overleaf templates are available from the ACM Website (use the“sigconf”proceedings template).
Workshop proposals will be reviewed based on the quality of the proposal, their complementarity to the main SIGIR-AP 2023 conference topics, and the likelihood of attracting enough participants, as well as the hosting capacity of the venue. The submissions will be reviewed by a program committee selected for this purpose. Proposals should be submitted in PDF through the EasyChair system.
The organizers of accepted workshops will be invited to submit a camera-ready summary of the workshop, to be included in the SIGIR-AP 2023 conference proceedings.

Workshop Chairs

• Xiangnan He, University of Science and Technology of China
• Makoto P. Kato, University of Tsukuba

Contact

For further information, please contact the SIGIR-AP 2023 Workshop Co-chairs by email: sigirap2023workshops@easychair.org