--------------------------------------- Report for COLING/ACL 2006 Student Research Workshop Chairs: Marine Carpuat, Kevin Duh Faculty Advisor: Rebecca Hwa 1. Program Committee The co-chairs of the COLING/ACL 2006 Student Research Workshop are Marine Carpuat (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology) and Kevin Duh (University of Washington). Rebecca Hwa is the Faculty Advisor. The program committee was formed by the co-chairs in consultation with the Faculty Advisor. The final program committee consists of 73 reviewers, of which 38 were students and 35 were senior reviewers. 2. Paper Submission and Acceptance We received 40 submissions from 20 regions (see Table 1). All papers were assigned 4 reviewers (2 senior and 2 student reviewers). We accepted fifteen papers, of which eight were regular (oral) presentations and seven were posters. Table 1: Submission and acceptance by regions -------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- ---- REGION || #Submissions || #Acceptances -------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- ---- Australia || 1 || 0 Brazil || 1 || 0 Canada || 3 || 2 China || 3 || 1 Czech Republic || 1 || 0 France || 3 || 2 Germany || 5 || 3 Hong Kong || 3 || 1 India || 4 || 1 Iran || 1 || 0 Japan || 1 || 0 Korea || 1 || 0 Netherlands || 1 || 1 Philippines || 1 || 0 Romania || 2 || 0 Spain || 1 || 0 South Africa || 1 || 0 Taiwan || 2 || 0 United Kingdom || 1 || 1 United States || 4 || 3 -------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- ---- TOTAL || 40 || 15 -------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- ---- 3. Presentation Format The Student Research Workshop posters are included together with the main conference poster session on Day 1 of COLING/ACL. The regular (oral) presentations are held as a parallel track on site on Day 3. Each oral presentation consists of 15 minutes of talk, and 10 minutes for general audience questions and panelist feedback. 4. Panelists The co-chairs asked 21 conference attendees to be on the panel for providing feedback to student authors. All papers receive one or two panelists. These panelists were selected for their knowledge in the area and availability during the Workshop. 5. Funding We submitted our request to the program director of Human Language and Communication (HLC) at NSF in December and received notice of the award in February. The grant totaled $22,500. We were able to provide funds to every SRW participant. Because the cost of traveling to Sydney varies depending on the student's location, the level of funding is determined based on an estimated 75% of the cost of travel. We awarded $900 in funds to students from Asia, and $1200 to students from Europe and North America. The remaining $900 was used to cover the registration of the student co-chairs and served as additional funds for SRW participants with special needs. The grant also contributes $3000 towards the administrative cost of the conference (such as facility rental, the production of CDs, etc.). 6. Organization and Planning The Workshop was publicized by sending CFPs to computational linguistics mailing lists and direct emails to professors at various departments. The availability of funding appears to be an important incentive for submissions, and we found it was important to include some funding information on the CFPs. The Workshop webpage was placed prominently on the main conference website. In addition, the COLING/ACL Newsletters helped disseminate information on the Student Research Workshop. We are grateful to the main conference organizers for the support. The entire submission and review process was managed by the START system. This system proved immensely helpful for managing the 40 submissions and 73 reviewers. 7. Suggestions and Considerations a) We believe that the success of the Student Research Workshop depends on the quality of the reviewer and panelist feedbacks to students. We were happy to find 73 reviewers and 21 panelists who are supportive of this educational goal. We recommend that future Workshop organizers continue the tradition of concentrating their efforts on assembling good reviewers and panelists. b) We considered having all presenters do both an oral and a poster presentation, which gives extended exposure for their work--however, this was not implemented due to space/time restrictions. This is a potential idea for future Workshops. c) For many Workshop presenters, this is their first major conference attendance. Therefore, we thought it would beneficial for students if we could arrange their poster/regular sessions early during the conference, such that they can begin networking and get the most out during the duration of the conference. We suggest that future Workshop planners communicate with the main conference organizers in the early stages of planning to ensure that the logistics for this situation works out. d) This year, the submission deadline for the SRW is set to be at the same time as that of the main conference. We received some papers with double-submissions to the main conference and needed to make some difficult case-by-case decisions. We suggest that future Workshops have a clear policy on double-submissions posted on the website from the very beginning. e) Some participants seemed confused about the different student activities and the proper contact person for each. For example, we have received inquiries regarding student volunteering, student travel grants, and the summer school. It would be nice to have a page on the main conference website that summarizes all student activities, with pointers to relevant webpages and contacts.