Connectionists: CALL FOR SYSTEM DEMONSTRATIONS - EMNLP 2020

[Anna Rogers]

(Apologies for cross-posting)

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EMNLP 2020 Call For System Demonstrations
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The EMNLP 2020 System Demonstration Program Committee invites proposals 
for the Demonstrations Program. Demonstrations may range from early 
research prototypes to mature production-ready systems. Of particular 
interest are publicly available open-source or open-access systems. We 
additionally strongly encourage demonstrations of industrial systems 
that are technologically innovative given the current state of the art 
of theory and applied research in computational linguistics. Each 
submitted demonstration must be accompanied by a submitted paper 
describing the system (see below).

Areas of interest include all topics related to theoretical and applied 
computational linguistics, such as (but not limited to) the topics 
listed on the main conference website. Submitted systems may be of the 
following types:

* Natural Language Processing systems or system components
* Application systems using language technology components
* Software tools for computational linguistics research
* Software for demonstration or evaluation
* Software supporting learning or education
* Tools for data visualization and annotation
* Development tools

Papers describing accepted demonstrations will be published in a 
companion volume of the EMNLP 2020 conference proceedings.

Please note: Commercial sales and marketing activities are not 
appropriate in the Demonstrations Program and should be arranged as part 
of the Exhibit Program.

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Best Demo Award
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As in previous years, EMNLP 2020’s demo track will feature a Best Demo 
Award. We hope to encourage researchers to make their code publicly 
available and in the form of an easy-to-use, runnable system.

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Important Dates
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Paper submission deadline: Monday July 13, 2020
Notification of acceptance: Monday September 14, 2020
Camera-ready submission: Monday, October 5, 2020

All deadlines are 11.59 pm UTC -12h ("anywhere on Earth").

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Submission of papers describing demonstrations
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A paper submitted to accompany a demonstration should outline the design 
of the system and provide sufficient details to allow the evaluation of 
its validity, quality, and relevance to computational linguistics. A 
paper can do this by addressing the following questions:

* What problem does the proposed system address?
* Why is the system important and what is its impact?
* What is the novel in the approach/technology on which this system is 
based?
* Who is the target audience?
* How does the system work?
* How does it compare with existing systems?
* How is the system licensed?

Paper submission is electronic, using the Softconf START conference 
management system at https://www.softconf.com/emnlp2020/demos.

Style files should meet the requirements of the EMNLP main conference. 
Submissions may consist of up to 6 pages, plus unlimited references. 
Submissions must conform to the EMNLP 2020 official style guidelines 
(https://2020.emnlp.org/call-for-papers) and they must be in PDF format. 
The submissions have to be original work (unpublished), as the 
publication in EMNLP will be archival.

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Reviewing Policy
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Reviewing will be single-blind, so authors do not need to conceal their 
identity. The paper should include the authors’ names and affiliations. 
Self-references are also allowed.

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Demo Details
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As the conference will go purely virtual, all the demos will have to be 
presented online. All demos should be presented via a video conference 
tool in the allocated time slots during the demo session.  In addition, 
we strongly recommend all demos are provided via one of the following 
formats:  (1) A live demo website; or (2) A website with a downloadable 
installation package of the demo; unless this is impossible because some 
special hardware is required or access is otherwise limited.  The exact 
details of the demo session are still to be worked out and will be 
announced in due time.

  You are encouraged to submit a short (~2 minute) screencast video 
demonstrating the system together with your paper submission. This 
screencast will be used to evaluate the paper, but won’t be published 
unless requested. We encourage the authors to include visual aids (e.g., 
screenshots, snapshots, or diagrams) in the paper. Authors will also be 
able to upload and submit additional material, if needed. If you choose 
to submit a screencast, please upload the video to some hosting site 
(YouTube, Vimeo, etc.) and include the link in your paper submission. To 
ensure accessibility for deaf or hard-of-hearing viewers, we encourage 
authors to caption videos prior to submission.

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Demo co-chairs:
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* Qun Liu (Huawei Noah's Ark Lab, Hong Kong)
* David Schlangen (University of Potsdam, Germany)