Connectionists: Call for Papers, Senior Member Presentation Track, Thirtieth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence

[Jeffrey Mark Siskind]

Call for Papers
Senior Member Presentation Track
Thirtieth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence
February 12 - 17, 2016
Phoenix, Arizona, USA

Sponsored by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial 
Intelligence and the Computing Community Consortium 
http://www.cra.org/ccc/visioning/blue-sky

Important Dates
September 15, 2015: Electronic submissions of talks and papers due
October 20, 2015 Notification of acceptance or rejection.
December 1, 2015: Camera-ready versions at the AAAI office.

Description

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.

The track will be run in the same fashion as in AAAI 2015. In 
particular, the following features will be continued:
- 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.

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 SMPT:

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 http://www.cra.org/ccc/visioning/blue-sky for more on 
"blue sky ideas" talks.

Proposal / Paper Submission

A proposal for the SMPT 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 (link)

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

Sarit Kraus, Bar Ilan University, Israel (sarit at cs.biu.ac.il)
Jeffrey Mark Siskind, Purdue University, USA (qobi at purdue.edu)

Questions and Suggestions

Please contact the SMPT co-chairs 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.