2014Q3 Reports: ACL 2017

ACL 2017 - report by Pushpak Bhattacharyya.

In 2017 there will be a joint ACL and NAACL conference in the Americas. Initial steps towards the organization of the conference have begun. The overseeing committee is:

ACL reps:

Dragomir R. Radev, University of Michigan, USA: radev@umich.edu

Graeme Hirst, Computer Science University of Toronto, Canada: gh@cs.toronto.edu

Pushpak Bhattacharyya, IIT Bombay, India: pushpakbh@gmail.com

Jian Su, Institute for Infocomm Research, Singapore: sujian@i2r.a-star.edu.sg

Priscilla Rasmussen, Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL): acl@aclweb.org

NAACL reps:

Emily M. Bender, University of Washington, USA: ebender@uw.edu

Hal Daumé III, University of Maryland, USA: me@hal3.name

Michael White, Ohio State University, USA: mwhite@brutus.ling.ohio-state.edu

Joel Tetreault, Nuance Communications, USA: tetreaul@gmail.com

The committee will have an email list address: acl17cc@aclweb.org .

There is a call for bids, and an updated local expenses template, which is ready for distribution (as below). We will start to make initial contact with potential bidders at ACL 2014.

For the next steps of the process, we will follow the guidelines http://aclweb.org/adminwiki/index.php?title=Conference_planning_schedule. For the next half year or so, it is most important to contact potential organisers, to ensure that we will have a number of promising bids to choose from.

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Call for Bids

ACL 2017

55th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics

The Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) invites proposals to host the 55th Annual Meeting of the ACL, to be held in the Americas in June, July, or August 2017.

At this time, we seek preliminary draft proposals from prospective bidders in the Americas. Promising bidders will be asked to provide additional information for the final selection.

The ACL 2017 Coordinating Committee, made up of members of the Executive Committee of the ACL and NAACL, will select the General Chair and the Program Committee Co-Chairs for the conference. Draft proposals should identify a Local Arrangements Chair, who will work with the General Chair and the Coordinating Committee to develop a detailed plan and budget.

To facilitate conference organization, bidders may delegate many tasks of their choice to a Professional Conference Organizer and/or to the ACL Office (Priscilla Rasmussen). Handy bid guidelines, including expense and task list templates and additional useful links are provided at: http://aclweb.org/adminwiki/index.php?title=Bid_Guidelines . The template for local expenses is available here: http://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/gh/ACL-conference-bid-template-Rev-2013-07-17.xls

Bid Highlights: Draft proposals should include information on the following:

Location (accessibility; conference venue, e.g., hotel or university; accommodation; dining options)

Proposed dates. Religious and local national holidays should be avoided, as much as possible.

Local arrangements team (chair/co-chair, committee, volunteer labor, registration handling; describing any experience the team has had in organizing previous conferences and the number of participants at those conferences)

Local Computational Linguistics community

Meeting venues (space for sessions, tutorials, workshops, posters, exhibits, demos, small meetings and registration)

High-speed, all-ports-open, easy-to-use internet access

Audiovisual equipment

Catering, including breaks, receptions, banquet and entertainment (traditionally, dancing for participants at the banquet)

Local sponsorships

Local expenses estimates spreadsheet (using the template provided, link above)

Evaluation: Proposals will be evaluated according to the following criteria (unordered):

Experience of local arrangements team

Local CL community support

Local government and industry support

Accessibility and attractiveness of proposed site

Suitability of proposed dates

Adequacy of conference and exhibit facilities for the anticipated number of registrants

Adequacy of residence accommodations and food services in a range of price categories and close to the conference facilities

Adequacy of expense projections

Geographical balance with regard to ACL meetings in the Americas in the decade prior to 2017 (ACL 2008 Columbus, Ohio; ACL 2011 Portland, Oregon; ACL 2014 Baltimore, Maryland)

Important Dates:

November 1, 2014 - Final Call for Bids

January 15, 2015 - Notify intention to submit proposal

March 1, 2015 - Draft proposals due Through March, 2015 - Feedback to bidders

Apr 15, 2015 - Final bids due

May 15, 2015 - Bid selected

The selected location for ACL 2017 will be announced at the ACL 2015 conference (Beijing, China on August 15-20, 2015).

For any queries please contact Pushpak Bhattacharyya, the Coordinating Committee chair. Please send notifications and draft proposals to: Pushpak Bhattacharyya <pb@cse.iitb.ac.in>

Pushpak Bhattacharyya Dept of Computer Science and Engg, IIT Bombay, Powai, Mumbai 400 076, India.