Policy for ACL conferences held jointly with local Chapters

Policy for ACL conferences held jointly with local Chapters

This document outlines the procedures and sets out the respective roles of the ACL and Chapter in the planning and organisation of ACL conferences that are joint with a local chapter.

• The name of the conference will be "The nn Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics".
• The standard form for the acronym of the conference will be ACL-year(e.g., ACL-02)
• The publicity of the conference (e.g., Call for Papers, Call for Participation, programme, web-site) will recognise the participation of both the ACL and the Chapter.
• The planning and organisation of the conference will be overseen by a special ad-hoc Coordination Group comprising:
  • President, Secretary, and Treasurer of the ACL, or their representatives. (Current ACL policy is for the President to be represented in this capacity by the past-President.)
  • Chair, Secretary, and Treasurer of the Chapter, or their representatives
  • business officer of the ACL
  • one additional member from each of the ACL executive committee and the Chapter board. The newest member of the ACL Executive Committee will be the additional representative from ACL.
• This group will be formed at least 24 months before the due date of the conference, but preferably before this.
• The group will be chaired by the ACL President (or representative).
• The first task of the group will normally be to send out the Call for Bids and to oversee the site-selection process. It is recognised that in some cases (e.g., in order to co-locate with other conferences or meetings) the Call for Bids may be broadcast prior to the formation of the group.
• Early tasks will also include securing a domain name for the conference (e.g., acl2002.org).
• The role of the ACL executive members on the group will be to ensure that ACL standards are maintained and to assist the Local Arrangements Chair in securing international sponsorship.
• The role of the Chapter board members will be to ensure that the conference has a local flavour and to assist the Local Arrangements Chair in securing local sponsorship. This also includes tasks like keeping an eye out for the geographical distribution of the conference committee members, proposing a local invited speaker etc.
• In coordinating the conference, this group is the liaison point between the General Chair of the conference, and the ACL exec and Chapter board.
• The ACL exec and Chapter board will be consulted on decisions pertaining to the selection of the conference site, the general chair, the other conference chairs (e.g., PC, Workshops, Tutorial).
• Publicly, this will be a shadow group --- i.e., it gets no billing on the Conference Committee.
• The financing for the conferences (i.e., all surpluses/losses from the conference) will be split evenly between the International ACL and the Chapter.
• When there are differences in policies or procedures between the local chapter and the parent organization, ACL policies and procedures take precedence.

Revised and approved by Executive Board, July 2001, modified July 2005

Basic Timetable

The generic timetable for organizing the conference, from which a specific one can be built.

1. Phase I : A Glint in the Eye

2. Phase II : Making it Known

3. Phase III : Building the Structure

4. Phase IV : Assembling the Details

5. Phase V : Getting Close

6. Phase VI : Conference!!

1. Phase I: A Glint in the Eye

T-20 months: Issue Call for Bids

ACL VP

liaise with ACL Exec for general parameters of time and place create call (see calls-for-conference-bids) contact likely candidates for local chair about responding to the bid T-17 months: Accept preliminary call and select main candidates ACL Exec

bids will identify many key positions (local chair, sponsorship chair, etc.) and make suggestions for general chair T-16 months: Accept bid ACL Exec and principal bidder

identify all key organizers General Chair (ACL Exec) (see criteria-for-general-chair) Program Chairs (ACL Exec) Local Arrangements Chair (bidder) Tutorial Chair (and) Workshop Chair (bidder) Exhibits Coordinator (bidder) Demo Chair (bidder) Sponsorship Chair (bidder) Publicity Chair, possibly (bidder) Student Workshop chair (ACL Exec) establish email aliases provide access to conference organizing website T-13 months: Finalize location and dates General and local chair (see local-arrangements-chair)

finalize exact dates (confirm with ACL Exec) sign contract(s) with venue (for meetings and accommodations) pay any deposits due (contact ACL Exec) T-13 months: Finalize Local Arrangements Committee Local chair (bidder)

assemble Local Arrangements Committee (see local arrangements chair): one or two people who would be able to take over in case something happens to the local chair one or two admin-level people someone dedicated to audiovisual (AV) and space management (possibly) webmaster (see webmaster) collect preliminary local info (describe meeting place and accommodations, travel info, visas, weather, etc.) T-13 months: Create Sponsorship Committee General and sponsorship chairs (see sponsorship-chair)

estimate budget needs (see budgets) assemble committee, mainly corporate insiders of likely sponsors approach corporations to get placed on budget for next year T-13 months: Create and issue initial conference announcement General, program, local, and publicity chairs

include theme, general outlines, location and dates, pointers to details, organizer contact info publicize widely (see publicity-chair) T-13 months: Establish website General and local chairs; webmaster (see webmaster)

include general conference announcement include preliminary local info include stubs for calls for papers, etc. 2. Phase II: Making it Known

T-12 months: Create and disseminate Call for Participation

General and local chairs; Priscilla

set approx. registration deadlines and costs design conference logo for program, posters, etc. create call for participation design posters and fliers with Call for Participation print and distribute them (web, email, hardcopy, posters, etc.) T-12 months: Create and disseminate Call for Papers General, program, local, and publicity chairs

create Call for Papers: determine general conference theme(s) if possible, identify some invited speakers set dates of submission, notification, and final copies (T-7 / T-5 / T-3) set format requirements for papers distribute Call for Papers (see publicity chair): on Web / newsgroups / mailing lists provide to ACL (Priscilla and Finite String), AAAI Magazine, IEEE, etc. provide to SIGs, SIGIR, Speech, NLGen, AMTA, and other related communities T-13 to T-4 months: Apply for funding Sponsorship committee

create and submit grant proposals to AAAI, NSF, etc. contact companies for donations to sponsor reception, banquet, etc. (Initial contact T-13, while budgets are still being set for the next year; maintain intermittent contact; then final requests at T-3) T-11 months: Assemble program committee Program chairs

determine program committee structure and review process establish major topic areas and likely submission distribution invite appropriate reviewers (confirm first with ACL Exec)?people from research, development, commerce, users, government-funders, etc. ensure proportional representation of gender, seniority, origin, etc. T-11 months: Solicit tutorials, workshops, and demos Tutorial, workshop, student, demo, and program chairs

create Calls for Bids and papers (see workshop-calls-for-bids) issue them (website, publications, email, etc.) T-9 months: Select tutorials and workshops Tutorial, workshop, program chairs

select tutorials, taking into account coverage and recent past tutorials (contact Exec) select workshops (contact Exec; see ACL-policy-worksp-support) liaise with local chair for space needs and scheduling issue instructions to tutorial teachers and workshop chairs about printed material, agenda/time management, payments, fees, etc. update webpages liaise with Priscilla for registration form T-9 months: Issue workshop calls for papers Workshop and student chairs

liaise with local chair for space needs and scheduling liaise with general chair about printed material, agenda/time management, payments, fees, etc. liaise with sponsorship chair for funding applications create and disseminate Call for Workshop Papers (see workshop-calls-for-papers and student-calls-for-papers) update webpages liaise with Priscilla for registration form T-9 months ongoing: Locate and sign up exhibitors Exhibits chair

approach CL corporation exhibitors approach book publisher exhibitors (unless this is done by Priscilla?) sign them up 3. Phase III: Building the Structure

T-8 months: Update financial picture

Program and sponsorship chair

update budget project financial needs and make plans to meet them T-7 months: Accept and distribute submitted papers Program chairs

create review form and reviewer instructions accept submitted papers assign to reviewers send out for review T-7 months: Finalize invited speakers, panelists, etc. Program, workshop, sponsorship chairs

create basic plan of speakers and panels invite speakers reissue Conference Announcement: Web, newsgroups, mailing lists, ACL (Priscilla and Finite String), AAAI Magazine, SIGIR, Speech, NLGen, AMTA, and other related communities update webpages T-7 months: Confirm venues Local chair

confirm arrangements with meeting venue: rooms, spaces, lunches, etc. confirm arrangements with accommodation venue: rooms T-7 to T-5 months: Apply for corporate funding Sponsorship committee

approach/confirm companies for grants and donations T-7 months: Arrange conference social program Local chair (see local-arrangements-chair)

confirm arrangements with banquet and other social event providers arrange reception arrange banquet: location, cost, transport, etc. plan outing, for open evening? plan anything special? Spouses’ events? Outings? update webpages liaise with Priscilla for registration form T-6 months: Process workshop submissions Workshop and student chairs

accept submissions review them send accept/reject letters T-6 months: Call for demos Demo chair

create and issue Call for Demos T-6 months: Find Proceedings printers Program chairs

specify proceedings format and ask for quotes select printer and binder plan to ensure timely delivery . If the proceedings are not printed in the host country, allow an extra 6—8 weeks for customs T-6 months: Update website General chair

contact all chairs to collect their info for the website liaise with Priscilla for registration form T-6 months: Create and issue registration form Priscilla, general, program, and local chairs

create form, with input from all relevant people send out by email and hardcopy post on web T-6 months: Plan registration process Local chair

report to ACL Exec: update on conference registration update on venue (meeting and accommodation)bookings plan on-site process, staff needs, etc. organize conference bag or other gimmicks; liaise with sponsorship chair for corporate logos T-5 months: Process reviewed papers and create program Program chairs

accept reviews decide on paper selection create program, more or less (remember time for ACL members’ meeting, banquet, reception, outings if any, etc.); liaise with Local chair send out accept and reject letters with reviews update conference announcement and redistribute update webpages T-4 months: Collect Proceedings descriptions General, program, workshop, tutorial, exhibits chairs

collect from tutorial teachers, workshop organizers, exhibitors, etc. short descriptions, for proceedings provide them to webmaster and general and program chairs T-4 months: Set up exhibit Exhibits chair

locate exhibit company for pipe-and-drape stands, signage, etc. buy insurance, if needed liaise with exhibitors, local committee, and venue about display needs work with program and sponsorship chairs on exhibitor fees T-4 months: Arrange demos Demo chair

select demos work with selected demo-ers for AV needs liaise with local chair for AV needs liaise with program chairs for scheduling and proceedings update webpages 4. Phase IV: Assembling the Details

T-3 months: Update financial picture

Program and sponsorship chairs

update budget project needs seriously go after corporate sponsors, now that logos are being put onto signs, publications, and toys T-3 months: Confirm local events Local chair

confirm meeting venue: rooms, spaces, lunches, etc. confirm accommodations confirm social events: banquet, reception, entertainment, outings, etc. T-3 months: Confirm invitees Program, tutorial, workshop, demo, student, exhibits chairs

confirm attendance of invited speakers and panelists confirm attendance of paper and demo presenters confirm tutorials and workshops confirm exhibitors T-3 months: Finalize exhibit spaces Exhibits chair

finalize payments of all exhibitors complete design of exhibition space(s) complete arrangements with pipe and drape rentals, etc. T-3 months: Set up demo AV equipment Local chair (see local-arrangements-chair)

determine AV requirements of demo and paper presenters and other speakers link up with venue T-3 months: Advertise conference Publicity chair and Priscilla

send out registration form again contact local authorities, as relevant T-3 months: Receive final papers and create Proceedings General, program, tutorial, workshop, demo, exhibit, sponsorship, student chairs

accept final camera-ready papers create Proceedings (main volume and any accompanying ones): front matter: title page, ToC, foreword(s), list of authors, etc. body (xerox page numbers onto submitted final papers) covers send to printers and binders update webpages as needed T-3 months: Create tutorial and workshop material Tutorial, workshop, and student chairs

arrange for printing of tutorial and workshop materials (see workshop proceedings format) collect material from presenters create books/proceedings T-2 month2: Assign session chairs Program chairs

send out instructions to session chairs and speakers about time and place, as well as time management for the talks T-2 months: Finalize on-site admin Local chair (see local arrangements chair)

assemble team of assistants for registration, gophering, etc. T-2 months: Create conference registration material General, program, tutorial, workshop, student, exhibit, local chairs

create program to be included in conference registration package gather all other material, incl. freebies T-2 months: Give registration update Priscilla, local, and sponsorship chairs

update ACL Exec on conference registration, venue and accommodation bookings, financial status update webpages, especially local and travel conditions (check the travel instructions, local weather, medical and political conditions, etc.) 5. Phase V: Getting Close

T-1 month: Perform local outreach

General and publicity chairs

start local advertising contact press, TV, etc. T-1 month: Finalize all Proceedings and tutorial material Program, tutorial, workshop, student, exhibit, demo chairs

collect and check proceedings (papers, students and other workshops, demos, etc.) collect and check final tutorial materials T-1 month: Finalize demo AV equipment Local chair

finalize AV requirements of demo-ers T-1 month: Give registration update Priscilla, local and sponsorship chairs

update ACL Exec on conference registration, hotel and dorm bookings, financial status T-1 month: Finalize registration package Local chair (see local-arrangements-chair)

assemble all materials into registration packets: local maps, local events, conference program, freebies, etc.

6. Phase VI: Conference!!

T: This is it. Enjoy it. There will always be last-minute problems.

Author: Eduard Hovy, 1998, from timetables of previous AMTA conferences Updates: Eduard Hovy, from AAAI conference schedule and notes by Marie Meteer.

Actions of the Exec

Certain matters require approval or other actions by the ACL Exec:

Review and issue Call for Bids for the conference (properly, this is performed by the Exec, who traditionally appoints the Vice President to do so). Review the conference bids and accept one of them. This necessarily includes selecting the Local Arrangements Chair, the location, and the date of the conference. See ACL policy on who can hold major programmatic positions at ACL conferences. Identify remaining key organizers, notably the General Chair and the Program Co-chairs (see criteria for selecting the General Chair and the PC Co-chairs). Sign a contract with venue(s) (hotel, conference center, etc.). Traditionally, this is done by the ACL Treasurer. Set approximate registration deadlines and costs. Review and approve the sub-chairs suggested by the conference General Chair, such as the tutorial chair, the workshop chair, the publications chair, the student research workshop chair, etc Review and approve the Area Chairs suggested by the Program Co-chairs. Review and accept the tutorials and workshops selected by the appropriate chairs. Request occasional updates on the conference budget and current state of affairs from the General Chair. Review the status of local organization and request updates from the Local Arrangements Chair.

Calls for Conference Bids

This page contains sample calls for bids to host the conference .

Procedure

The Exec's nominee (currently, the VP) makes a general call for bids to the international community. He or she collects the responses and presents them to the Exec. Final selection usually involves a site visit by members of the Exec to the location(s) of interest.

Call for Bids to Host ACL-05

The Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) hereby invites proposals to host the annual conference in North America in 2005. This conference will be the 43rd annual meeting of the ACL and will be hosted jointly by ACL's North American chapter (NAACL). At this time, we seek draft proposals from prospective bidders. Based on an evaluation of the draft proposals received, promising bidders will be asked to provide additional information as needed for the final selection.

A Conference Coordinating Committee will be appointed by the ACL and NAACL executive committees. The Coordinating Committee will select the General Chair, Program Committee Co-Chairs and all other Chairs for the conference (e.g., Tutorial Chair, Demo Chair, Publications Chair, Student Co-Chairs), except the Local Arrangements Chair.

Draft proposals should identify a Local Arrangements Chair, who will be responsible for activities such as arranging meeting rooms, equipment, refreshments, housing, on-site registration, participant e-mail access, security for equipment, the reception, the banquet, and working with the General Chair and the Conference Coordinating Committee to develop the budget and registration materials.

Draft proposals are due on September 15, 2003. They will be evaluated by the Coordinating Committee by October 31, 2003. Promising bidders will then be contacted and asked to provide further information due by December 1, 2003. The final bid will be chosen early in 2004.

The conference should take place during June or July 2005, avoiding national holidays of Canada and the USA.

Draft proposals should include information on:

Location (accessibility; conference venue, e.g., hotel or university; accommodations, e.g., hotels, motels, student dorms) Proposed dates Local Arrangements team (chair/co-chair, committee, volunteer labor, registration handling) Local Computational Linguistics community Meeting venues (space for plenary sessions, tutorials, workshops, posters, exhibits, demos and small meetings) A/V equipment Food/entertainment/banquet/receptions Sponsorships Budget estimates Opportunities for co-location with other meetings (in addition to NAACL). Proposals will be evaluated in relation to a number of site selection criteria (unordered): Experience of local arrangements team Local CL community support Local government and industry support Accessibility and attractiveness of proposed site Appropriateness 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 budget projections and expected surplus Geographical and national balance with regard to the previous conferences in Philadelphia (2002) and Maryland (1999) The ACL conference handbook and more about ACL policies may be found at: http://www.aclweb.org/archive. Successful sample bids for previous conferences may be found at: http://www.aclweb.org/archive/bids.html

Please send draft proposals electronically to the ACL Vice President:

Johanna D. Moore University of Edinburgh 2 Buccleuch Place Edinburgh EH8 9LW United Kingdom

tel: +44 131 651 1336 fax: +44 131 650 4587 email: J.Moore@ed.ac.uk

Important Dates:

September 15, 2003 Draft proposals due October 15, 2003 ACL Executive Board evaluates proposals December 1, 2003 Promising bidders provide any requested information January 15, 2004 Bid selected

Author: Johanna Moore, October 9, 2002

Call for Bids to Host ACL-02

The Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) hereby invites proposals to host the annual conference in North America. This conference, which marks the 40th anniversary of the ACL, will simultaneously be the 3rd annual conference of the ACL chapter for North America (NAACL).

Draft proposals are being sought from prospective bidders. Based on an evaluation of the draft proposals, promising bidders will be asked to provide additional information as needed for the final selection.

Bids for Local Arrangements Chair can include suggestions for General Chair, which must be someone other than the Local Arrangements Chair but could be at the same institution.

The General Chair will be responsible for overseeing operations of the conference, including working with the Executives of the ACL and the NAACL and liaising with the Local Arrangements Chair to develop the budget and registration materials; working with the Program and Local Arrangements Chairs to develop the schedule and program; working with the ACL Executive Board to appoint supporting chairs to obtain outside funding, publicize the conference, and organize workshops, tutorials, student events, and demonstrations (none of these supporting nominations need to be included in the proposal); and coordinating the activities of the various chairs and their committees.

The Local Arrangements Chair will be responsible for the activities such as arranging meeting rooms, equipment, refreshments, housing, on-site registration, participant e-mail access, security for equipment, the reception, the banquet, and working with the General Chair, the ACL, and the NAACL to develop the budget and registration materials.

The ACL Executive Board will select the Program Committee Chair, who will be responsible for the processes of soliciting, receiving, and reviewing submissions; selecting the papers to be presented at the conference; notifying authors of acceptance or rejection; and developing the conference program.

Draft proposals are due on September 15, 2000. They will be evaluated by the ACL Executive Board by October 31, 2000. Promising bidders will then be contacted and asked to provide further information due by December 1, 2000. The final bid will be chosen by the Executive Boards early in 2001.

The conference should take place during June or July 2002, avoiding the national days of Canada and the USA.

Given that this conference will mark the 40th anniversary of ACL, we welcome bids that include some special event or activity to honor this achievement.

Draft proposals should include information on:

Location (accessibility; conference venue, e.g., hotel or university; accommodations, e.g., hotels, motels, student dorms) Local CL community Proposed dates Meeting Space (space for plenary sessions, tutorials, workshops, posters, exhibits, demos and small meetings) A/V equipment Food/entertainment/banquet/receptions Local Arrangements team (chair/co-chair, committee, volunteer labor, registration handling) General Chair (optional) Sponsorships Budget estimates Opportunities for co-location with other meetings (if any) Proposals will be evaluated in relation to a number of site selection criteria (unordered): Experience of local arrangement team. Local CL community support. Any local government and industry support? Accessibility and attractiveness of proposed site. Appropriateness 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 budget projections and expected surplus. Geographical and national balance with regard to the previous conferences in Pittsburgh (2001) and Seattle (2000). Please send draft proposals electronically to the ACL Vice President: Eduard Hovy USC Information Sciences Institute 4676 Admiralty Way Marina del Rey, CA 90292-6695 tel: 310-448-8731 fax: 310-823-6714 email: hovy@isi.edu Important Dates: September 15, 2000 Draft proposals due October 15, 2000 ACL Executive Board evaluates proposals December 1, 2000 Promising bidders provide any requested information January 15, 2001 Bid selected

Author: Eduard Hovy, 2000

Call for Bids to Host ACL/EACL'01

The Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) hereby invites proposals to host the 39th Annual Meeting of the ACL (ACL'01) together with the 10th Conference of its European Chapter in Europe (including neighboring countries like Israel or Turkey). International ACL conferences are usually held at the end of July.

The proposal submission process is in two stages. First, draft proposals are sought from prospective proposers. Based on the evaluation of the draft proposals, selected proposers will be invited to submit full proposals. The intent of a request for draft proposals is to minimize the labor and costs associated with the production of full proposals.

Draft proposals are due on 15 June 1999. Draft proposals are evaluated competitively at the ACL Executive Meeting on 22 June 1999 after consultation with the EACL Board. Selected proposers will be informed electronically before 26 June 1999. Full proposals are due on 15 August 1999.

Draft proposals should include:

Location (accessibility, conference venue, hotels, student dorms) Local CL Community Proposed Date Meeting Space (space for plenary sessions, tutorials, workshops, posters, exhibits, demos and small meetings) A/V equipment Food/Entertainment/Banquet/Receptions Local Arrangements (chairs, committee, volunteer labor, registration handling) Sponsorships Budget estimates Proposals will be evaluated in relation to a number of site selection criteria (unordered): Experience of Local Arrangement team. Local CL community support. Local government and industry support. Accessibility and attractiveness of proposed site. Appropriateness 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 budget projections and expected surplus. Balance with regard to the geographical distribution of previous conferences.

Draft proposals should be sent electronically to the ACL Vice-President: Prof. Wolfgang Wahlster German Research Center for AI, DFKI GmbH Stuhlsatzenhausweg 3 D-66123 Saarbrücken Germany Fax: +49 681 302 5341 Email: wahlster@dfki.de

Submission Dates: Draft proposals are due on 15 June 1999; Full proposals are due on 15 August 1999.

Author: Wolfgang Wahlster, 2000

Speaker Reimbursement Policy

The ACL policy for reimbursements and honoraria for speakers is as follows.

The ACL provides the cost of an economy class airfare from your home institution to the conference, hotel accommodations during the conference, and free registration at the conference.

Author: K. Vijay-Shanker, from existing ACL policy, 2000.

Tutorial Teacher Payment Policy

The remuneration for tutorials will be computed as follows:

$750 for up to 20 people plus $35 per person for registrants 21 to 50 plus $25 per person for registrants greater than 50 The minimum remuneration will be $750 or the cost of one economy airline ticket to the conference, whichever is higher. As has been ACL policy, the remuneration is per tutorial, not per presenter; multiple presenters will split the proceeds, the default assumption being an even split. Revised policy: December, 2003

Criteria for selecting as a General Chair include: Having been PC chair for a conference in Computational Linguistics or related area Having been Local Arrangements Chair for a conference (not just a workshop); hence having dealt with hotels or conference sites Having management experience Being known for following through on commitments Being well-organized Having academic/research experience Being a good judge of character, in naming a team Being diplomatic and able to work well with others Being be a good spokesperson to the press and dignitaries, in case that’s necessary Criteria for selection as a Program Co-chair include: Having been an Area Chair for an ACL conference Being well-organized Being a respected researcher with good judgement Being diplomatic and able to work well with others

Author: Phil Cohen, 2000, amended 2005 Amended by: Eduard Hovy, 2000

Chairs and Sub-Chairs for Conferences If a person is on the ACL Executive Board, then that person may not serve in one of the program organizing positions for an ACL conference or an ACL chapter conference (namely, conference chair, program chair, Area Chair or Senior PC Member, workshop chair, or tutorial chair). However, a member of the ACL Executive Board may be a member of the program committee for ACL conferences or chapter conferences. If a person is on an ACL chapter board, then the same restrictions hold for that chapter's events. However, such a person may hold program organizing positions for the international ACL conference (unless it is held jointly with the person's chapter conference), and for conferences of other ACL chapters.

Approved by Executive Board, July 2001; Amended March 2002; Amended August 2003 ACL Exec

Exec Meeting

Usually, the ACL Exec holds an all-day meeting the day before the main conference.

For this it requires one room seating about 20 people boardroom-style. Projection equipment and internet access are desirable. Lunch is usually provided.

Exec Dinner

The Exec has a special dinner during the conference to acknowledge and thank all volunteers A9bout 50 people) for their services. This dinner usually lasts a long time. The Local Chair should arrange this dinner, in coordination with the ACL President and Secretary. Some AV equipment is usually needed.

Author: Eduard Hovy, 2000.

Sample Budgets

Here is a sample budget for help in setting conference fees. However, it does not capture the conference common costs that are spread into workshops on a per-person-per-day basis. These can be seen in the final financial statements for ACL-02 and ACL-03.

ACL Sample budget for setting fees

Here are the final financial statements that are currently available for recent conferences:

ACL-03 final financial statement

ACL-02 final financial statement

Demo Chair Overview The Demo Chair is responsible for assembling the system demos to be presented in the main conference program. This includes selecting the Demo Committee (if one is needed), requesting demos, selecting appropriate ones, creating descriptions for the conference program, making sure that demo display requirements are conveyed to the Local Arrangements Chair, etc.

Two kinds of demonstrations are possible:

resembling a conference paper: in a theater-style setting as part of the regular program, resembling a poster session: on tabletops in a separate room or in a hall, parallel to the exhibits but scheduled for a specific time slot. Typically, system demos are meant for non-commercial systems. The Demo Chair should work very closely with the Program Chairs, to coordinate the amount of time in the program available for demos, the meeting space, and the demo descriptions for the conference Proceedings.

Call for Demos

Some issues to bear in mind:

Balance of demos accepted­topic areas, underrepresented or neglected areas, etc. Sophistication and experience of demo-giver

Information to Request in Demo Calls

It is suggested that system demonstration proposals include the following information:

Demo Title: Author: System Description: System dictionaries and other resources: System software requirements: Demo Requirements: Hardware Requirements: Software Requirements: Internet Service Requirements: Systems Operations Specialist: (full contact information)

Sample Call-for-Demos

 NAACL 2001 Call-for-Demos
 ACL 2002 Call-for-Demos

Exhibits Chair Duties

The Exhibits Chair is responsible for assembling the exhibit that takes place in parallel to the main theoretical conference program. Typically, exhibits are presented by companies, since the exhibit setup costs money. The chair’s duties include approaching likely companies, coordinating their exhibits, locating and retaining a local pipe-and-drape setup company, dealing with insurance if such is required, assembling from exhibitors whatever descriptions are needed for the conference program, making sure that exhibitors’ display requirements are conveyed to the Local Arrangements Chair, etc.

In some conferences, the Exhibits Chair is a paid position; see financing the exhibits.

The Exhibits Chair should work very closely with the General, Local, and Program Chairs, to coordinate the time, exhibit space, and financial aspects.

Duties

The Exhibits Chair must perform the following duties.

1. Advertise the exhibit:

Develop list of potential exhibitors Draft a general letter for large mailing Draft and designing a brochure to include in large mailing Draft a specific invitation letter to key prospects (previous exhibitors, corporations, research labs, universities, Government labs, association members, etc.) Draft a legal contract to accompany the invitation letter 2. Bring in and work with exhibitors: Mail out the general notice and the specific invitations Call prospective exhibitors and get them to sign on Follow up on initial letters Maintain regular communication with each exhibitor and find solutions to their problems Assist with their hardware needs (rental computers, freight companies, etc.) Arrange with the hotel and the Local Chair for enough time before and after the exhibition for setup and teardown 3. Finance and bookkeeping Receive checks from exhibitors and pass them on to the General Chair and/or the Treasurer of the Association Maintain careful records of all financial transactions maintain a careful record of all correspondence with each exhibitor 4. Plan the exhibition infrastructure: Work with the Local Arrangements Chair to ensure appropriate space Arrange that the space contain: internet hookups telephone hookups furniture (tables, chairs, etc.) pipes and drapes (this requires dealing with an exhibitor contractor) signage (this requires dealing with a local artist and/or printer) Arrange security and maintenance ensure the room is lockable arrange with hotel for 24-hour security Arrange with hotel for daily cleaning of exhibit area 5. Plan the layout of the exhibition: Assign booth space based on conference priorities and exhibitor preferences Arrange for exhibit area registration for walk-ins, including assistance as needed Arrange for signage to direct traffic to exhibit area Coordinate the placement and maintenance of traffic-builders (coffee station, raffle) Line up decorator and decide on services to be used Once a contract has been signed with decorator, assume responsibility for all coordination 6. Create publications: Collect from each exhibitor a statement for inclusion in conference program Design layout of exhibit presentation in conference program Provide a list of exhibitors and/or description of the exhibition to the person in charge of publicity for the conference 7. Be present during the conference: Remain on-site, visible, and ready to deal with problems during set-up, exhibit hours, and teardown Check each exhibit personally during setup, during the conference, and after teardown Check periodically to make sure the coffee station and other attractions are properly functional Make sure the teardown is complete to the hotel’s satisfaction 8. Finalize everything after the conference Write a thank-you letter to each exhibitor Draft and circulate an evaluation form for exhibitors Prepare a concluding report if required by the General Chair Author: Eduard Hovy, 2000.

Financing Exhibits

In some conferences, the Exhibits Chair is a paid position. The following payment scheme was used by AMTA in 2000. ACL generally relies on volunteers exclusively.

The exhibitors are charged a flat fee for exhibiting and the conference. This fee covers hotel space rental (if such is needed), the cost for pipe-and-drape setup, rental, and teardown, insurance (if needed), and the fee paid the Exhibit Chair.

Exhibit Charge

Typically, this is about $1000 for four or five days. This fee covers:

hotel space rental the cost for pipe-and-drape setup, rental, and teardown signage insurance (if needed) internet access phone access (but not calls) Payment of Exhibits Chair

The Exhibits Chair receives:

$150 per exhibitor she brings in, with a minimum of 5 exhibitors $1000 flat fee $1500 for a site visit and attendance at the conference (this based on the fact that air travel from Tijuana to Cuernavaca costs under $400, and 1 night site visit and 3 nights conference cost another $400 tops, and food another $400 tops). The total cost to AMTA is $2500 + 5*$150 = $3250. To come out even, AMTA needs more than 3 exhibitors; as soon as the 4th exhibitor is brought in, the Exhibit provides a profit for the organization.

Author: Eduard Hovy, 2000 from AMTA conference series.

General Chair Duties

The General Chair is responsible for overseeing and coordinating the whole conference.

It is the General Chair's prerogative to appoint chairs, subject to confirmation by the ACL Executive Board, and assign tasks to them. (This does not include the Program Chairs or Local Arrangements Chair, who are appointed by the Executive Board.) The chairs that must be appointed include: Tutorial Chair, Workshops Chair, Student Workshop Chair, Demo Chair, Exhibits Chair, Publications Chair, Publicity Chair, and Sponsorship Chair.

The General Chair has the following responsibilities:

Identify conference tasks and people responsible for them. This includes helping to select the other chairs: publicity, sponsorship, demos, tutorials, workshops, etc. Candidates should be gathered in consultation with the ACL Exec before they are formally contacted. Build a specific timetable for each organizer, based on the timetable, for the dates of the current conference. Make a site visit to conference site to approve and finalize local arrangements. Work with Local Arrangements Chair to establish registration fees. Work with Program Chairs to create the conference structure (i.e., single track or parallel tracks, workshop and tutorial scheduling, etc.) Later, work with the Program Chairs to construct a conference program (balancing papers, invited talks, business meeting, etc.). Oversee the confernce budget; see budgets. This includes coordinating with the ACL Secretary, Treasurer, and Priscilla Rasmussen on financial and organizational issues. Coordinate and oversee the work of the Program Chairs, the Local Arrangements Chair, and the other chairs. Importantly, this means ensuring that deadlines established in the timetable are met. This also includes helping to select tutorials, accept workshop proposals, identify promising sponsors, seek publicity for the conference, etc. Coordinate all publicity (webpages, fliers, notices, announcements, posters, etc.) and make sure no discrepancies appear. Should there be any co-located meetings and/or conferences, the General Chair is responsible for ensuring coordination of events, programs, speakers, registration fees, etc. Co-location of meetings should be discussed with the ACL Exec in detail before being agreed to. It is the perogative of the General Conference Chair to have a conference newsletter. Although such newsletters have been very informative in the past, it is not required. Examples of past newsletters can be found at newsletters from previous conferences The conference is supposed to be self-financing (at least); it is one of the two major revenue sources for the ACL, and all profits belong to the ACL. Thus costs (to support invited speakers, conference giveaways freebies, proceedings printing, etc.) must be weighed carefully against potential income from grants and registrations. Certain steps require approvasl by the ACL Exec or its members; see the ACL policy on Exec involvement. The General Chair must work with the Exec to provide the required information in a timely manner.

Newsletters From Past Conferences

Newsletters from ACL-COLING 06

Newsletter-1 Newsletter-2 Newsletter-3 Newsletter-4 Newsletter-5 Newsletters from ACL-05

Newsletter-1 Newsletters from ACL-04: Newsletter-1 Newsletter-2 Newsletter-3 Newsletter-4 Newsletter-5 Newsletters from ACL-03 Newsletter-1 Newsletter-2 Newsletter-3 Newsletter-4 Newsletter-5 Newsletter-6 Newsletter-7

Local Arrangements Chair Overview The Local Arrangement Chair, responsible for overseeing and coordinating all the meeting, accommodation, entertainment, and eating arrangements, is a key person for the success of the conference. Much depends on his or her organizational talent and the quality of the Local Arrangements Committee (LAC) assembled to help. The Local Arrangements Chair can work with a local professional organizer, but the cost of this must be built into the conference budget.

The Local Chair (assisted by the Local Arrangements Committee) has the following responsibilities.

Choosing the conference venue and dates, to be included in the initial bid (see calls-for-conference-bids). Arranging the spaces for the conference meetings, including: auditorium and meeting halls system demonstration spaces breakout session rooms workshop rooms tutorial rooms exhibit space registration area email room (if needed) meeting room for ACL Exec Negotiating with provider(s) of accommodations: hotel and/or dormitory organizers. Centrally, this involves negotiating a contract for the services provided, with financial guarantees. The ACL Secretariat (Priscilla Rasmussen) has considerable experience in this area. Handling AV needs of presenters (conference, workshops, tutorials) as well as the needs of system demos. This includes projection equipment, microphones, blackboards, writing materials, internet access, etc. Selecting and organizing food (refreshments during the conference; meals for ACL Exec and other meetings, etc.) Organizing all additional activities, including: the banquet (location and food) the reception(s) entertainment at/after the banquet (and elsewhere) Arranging any local excursions, for example pre-conference tours or tours for spouses (if provided) Providing travel information (airport, weather, medical, visas) Arranging local transport, if needed Arranging local support, including: a support team, that helps both before the conference (to prepare registration materials) and during (with registration and attendee questions) and after (for teardown) a suitably secure registration area, with computer and printer and internet access signage to rooms, meetings, etc., as needed several notice boards: participant messages, job postings, official announcements, etc. Prepare brochure and other promotional materials for the conference Supervise the building of the local web site

Meeting Rooms

The following meeting rooms are needed for ACL meetings:

1 room seating at least 750 people for plenary sessions, for the conference days ACL has parallel sessions. Thus 2-3 additional rooms are needed for the main conference days, each seating approximately 250 people. 3—4 smaller rooms (between 15 and 40) for the day of the tutorials (usually prior to main conference)

approximately 10-12 smaller rooms for workshops, on the day before the tutorials and/or the day(s) after the conference.  Although most workshop rooms need only accommodate 40-60 people, a few will need to be much larger (approximately 100+ people).

1 or 2 smaller rooms (about 15 people, with a boardroom style table) for the ACL Exec and other (breakout) meetings, on the day before and during the conference registration space outside main conference rooms, with a phone line, a printer, and internet access if possible; locakable or close to a lockable space 1 large exhibit space with power, lockable, if possible with one or more internet lines Exact space requirements and uses should be discussed with the General and Program Chairs.

AV

Projection equipment should not distort display Screen should not be too narrow, too high, or too low Appropriate pointers (laser pointers for very big screens) are needed Backup equipment should be available Technicians knowledgeable about equipment should be available Microphones, for the speaker and for questioners, should be provided For computer projectors, some easy means of switching from one speaker to the next Time cards in each meeting room for session chairs; checked at the start of every day The person responsible for AV should confirm projection needs with each the General Chair, the Program Chair, the Tutorials Chair, the Student Chair, the Workshop Chair, and the systems demonstrators. Signage and Bulletin Boards

Signs direction attendees to all important locations (registration, email room, meeting rooms, exhibit halls, buses, dorms, etc.) should be posted as appropriate Signs should be made for each session of the main conference, and for each workshop and tutorial. These signs should be displayed prominently outside the appropriate rooms. Sets of time cards showing 10, 5, 2 and STOP in large letters should be made and placed at the front of each meeting room and each workshop room. The presence of these signs should be checked every morning before sessions start. If desired, one or more large banners naming the conference can be made and placed in prominent places in the main auditorium and near registration. These banners may contain also the logos of the principal funders. A bulletin board for attendee messages, with sufficient paper and writing and posting materials, must be provided near the registration area. A notice board for official announcements (workshops, birds of a feather meetings, etc.) must also be provided near registration. A board where job advertisements can be posted should also be provided. Exhibit Space

The exhibit space must be locakable. It should be close to the conference meeting rooms and refreshment area. The Exhibits Chair will work with the Local Arrangements Committee to coordinate the setup (with pipe and drape stands, etc.), the influx of exhibitors (with demo needs, internet and phone access, signage, etc., and the teardown. System Demo Space

If system demos are held, the Local Organizers should coordinate display needs with the demo-ers well in advance. Having two projectors per room would facilitate handover from one demo to the next.

Email Room

An email room should be provided, and it should be close to the main conference and be clearly signposted. Instructions for reaching a room monitor or someone in charge should be prominently displayed. It is important to make sure that the internet provider allows access to SSH, VPN, etc. in addition to HTTP.

Accommodations

ACL requires accommodation in both dormitories and hotels. The total number of beds, at the present time, should be between 400 and 600 on every conference night, peaking in the middle.

Accommodation should not exceed US $100/night per room, if possible.

If the conference is held in a hotel, the meeting rooms are often provided at a discounted (or free) rate if enough room-nights are filled. Specifying the details of this arrangement is tricky; hotels sometimes have unexpected ways of interpreting the contract. The ACL Secretariat (Priscilla Rasmussen) has considerable experience in this area.

Some things to beware of:

The cost of conference food, refreshments, etc. The cost of AV equipment, which usually has to be rented from the hotel The cost of additional services such as xeroxing, internet access, parking, etc. The cost of hotel rooms when not booked as part of the conference (room rates vary, and may drop below the conference ‘special’ rate, to the disgust of attendees). This requires an agreement in the contract that attendees will get the lowest room rate offered, or that if attendees do not book via the conference rate, but still stay in the hotel, their rooms are also counted toward the room-night total, etc. Such arrangements should be posted on the conference website. Do not sign a hotel contract with in which there is no cap on our liability. The cap should be what we would have paid if we just rented the space and nobody stayed at the hotel. Make sure that the Local Arrangements Chair and the ACL Secretary get a copy of the final hotel contract after it is signed. If the conference is held on campus, then care should be taken that both the dorms and the hotel(s) and close enough for walking (weather permitting), or else transport should be arranged.

Author: Eduard Hovy, 2000, from notes by Rick Wojcik and others.

Food and Social Events

Food

Refreshments at morning and afternoon breaks Possibly, lunch package (buffet or box lunches)­often reserved on the conference registration form Make sure there are good vegetarian dishes and snacks. Social events

Reception: in a nice area close to the main event, on the night before the main event. Include one or two drinks free. Banquet: traditionally, in an unusual or nice setting (museum, garden, etc.). The banquet should be self-financed (either by banquet tickets alone or by being supplemented by sponsorships). Tickets generally do not run over $45 per person (at the most!). The ACL Exec usually has a reserved table. Entertainment: traditionally, a band after the banquet, for dancing Excursion(s) (possibly): on the tutorial day and/or one day before/after conference, or during, for conference families ACL Exec Dinner: The Exec usually holds a dinner for about 50 people the night before the banquet, in a location possibly off-campus. This should be arranged with the ACL Secretary. Author: Eduard Hovy, 2000, from notes by Rick Wojcik and others.

Food and Social Events

Food

Refreshments at morning and afternoon breaks Possibly, lunch package (buffet or box lunches)­often reserved on the conference registration form Make sure there are good vegetarian dishes and snacks. Social events

Reception: in a nice area close to the main event, on the night before the main event. Include one or two drinks free. Banquet: traditionally, in an unusual or nice setting (museum, garden, etc.). The banquet should be self-financed (either by banquet tickets alone or by being supplemented by sponsorships). Tickets generally do not run over $45 per person (at the most!). The ACL Exec usually has a reserved table. Entertainment: traditionally, a band after the banquet, for dancing Excursion(s) (possibly): on the tutorial day and/or one day before/after conference, or during, for conference families ACL Exec Dinner: The Exec usually holds a dinner for about 50 people the night before the banquet, in a location possibly off-campus. This should be arranged with the ACL Secretary. Author: Eduard Hovy, 2000, from notes by Rick Wojcik and others.

Registration and Local Support

The Local Arrangements Committee should arrange a team to help the ACL Secretariat (Priscilla Rasmussen) set up and perform registration, contact the AV specialists, handle emergencies, sell t-shirts, etc. Contact Priscilla for details.

Often, this team consists of (around 30) students who volunteer to help in exchange for free conference registration. In the past, these students have been local to the conference site. Other times, student recipients of grants from the Walker Fund, or of other travel money, are volunteers.

Freebies and Sale Items such as T-Shirts

If you have items to be sold, such as t-shirts/polo shirts, etc., put them out for sale on the very first day of the conference. Have people walk around in these shirts early on, if you want others to buy them. People might buy such items on the last day, but they need some lead time to think about the purchase.

Freebies (conference tote bags, umbrellas, sunglasses, pens, etc.) are available from specialty houses. Generally, you cannot pay them less than a certain minimum amount, for which you can get many small things or a few big ones. There are specialty companies that offer catalogues full of gifts, upon which logos etc. can be imprinted.

Author: Eduard Hovy, 2000, from notes by Rick Wojcik and others.

ACL 2005 Online Conference Registration

Main Conference: June 25-30, 2005 Tutorials: June 25, 2005 Workshops: June 25, 29-30, 2005

Online registration is no longer available on or after June 19, 2005. Please consult the conference website for the location of the on-site registration. Early registration through May 31, 2005 (11:59pm EDT) Late registration through June 18, 2005 (11:59pm EDT)

NOTE: Javascript is required for form totals

PERSONAL INFORMATION (* = required field)

First Name:

Middle Name / Initial:

Last (Family) Name:

Affiliation (for badge):

E-Mail:

Mailing Address (line 1):

Mailing Address (line 2):

Mailing Address (line 3):

City:

State / Province / Area:

ZIP / Postal Code:

Country:

Telephone Number:

Fax Number:

 Check this box if your Mailing Address places the Postal Code before the City (e.g., 75008 Paris).

May we use the above information in the Conference Participants List?

 Yes   No 

MEMBERSHIP

Conference attendees must be ACL members. Membership in the ACL is for the 2005 calendar year regardless of when one joins.

Membership entitles you to the quarterly issues of the Computational Linguistics journal, discounts on other available publications of the ACL, discounts to some sponsored events, and announcements of upcoming related events of interest.

 Regular: $ 85.00
 Student: $ 55.00
 I am a current 2005 ACL member

Membership Total: $

MAIN CONFERENCE REGISTRATION

Full registration includes: Hard copy of the proceedings, CD-ROM version of the proceedings, admission to all technical/thematic sessions, demos, exhibits, coffee breaks and reception on Sunday night.

Regular (Early): $ 295.00 Regular (Late): $ 370.00 Regular (On-Site): $ 430.00 Student (Early): $ 150.00 Student (Late): $ 185.00 Student (On-Site): $ 215.00

Tutorials / Workshops Only Fees: Note that this fee is in addition to the individual tutorial / workshop registration fees.

Regular (Early): $ 195.00 Regular (Late): $ 225.00 Regular (On-Site): $ 260.00 Student (Early): $ 95.00 Student (Late): $ 110.00 Student (On-Site): $ 130.00

 I am a conference volunteer 
 I have previously registered for the main conference 

Main Conference Total: $

TUTORIAL REGISTRATION

Saturday, June 25, Morning tutorials 8:30am - 12:00pm

T1: Advances in Word Sense Disambiguation (Presenters: Rada Mihalcea & Ted Pedersen) T2: Arabic Natural Language Processing (Presenter: Nizar Habash) T3: Empirical Methods for Dialogue System Research (Presenter: Gregory Aist) Regular (Early): $ 120.00 Regular (Late): $ 135.00 Regular (On-Site): $ 135.00 Student (Early): $ 85.00 Student (Late): $ 100.00 Student (On-Site): $ 100.00

 tutorial(s) @ $   each

Saturday, June 25, Afternoon tutorials 2:00pm - 5:30pm

T4: Recent Developments in Computational Semantics (Presenters: Valia Kordoni & Markus Egg) T5: SVMs and Structured Max-Margin Methods (Presenters: Dan Klein & Ben Taskar) Regular (Early): $ 120.00 Regular (Late): $ 135.00 Regular (On-Site): $ 135.00 Student (Early): $ 85.00 Student (Late): $ 100.00 Student (On-Site): $ 100.00

 tutorial(s) @ $   each

Tutorials Total: $

WORKSHOP REGISTRATION

Saturday, June 25 (1 day)

	WS01:	Effective Tools and Methodologies for Teaching Natural Language Processing and Computational Linguistics

Regular (Early): $ 100.00 Regular (Late): $ 125.00 Regular (On-Site): $ 125.00 Student (Early): $ 75.00 Student (Late): $ 90.00 Student (On-Site): $ 90.00

 workshop(s) @ $   each

Wednesday, June 29 (1 day)

WS02: The Second Workshop on Building Educational Applications Using Natural Language Processing WS03: Frontiers in Corpus Annotation II: Pie in the Sky WS04: Feature Engineering for Machine Learning in Natural Language Processing WS07: Computational Approaches to Semitic Languages WS09: Intrinsic and Extrinsic Evaluation Measures for MT and/or Summarization Regular (Early): $ 100.00 Regular (Late): $ 125.00 Regular (On-Site): $ 125.00 Student (Early): $ 75.00 Student (Late): $ 90.00 Student (On-Site): $ 90.00

 workshop(s) @ $   each

Wednesday, June 29 and Thursday, June 30 (2 days)

WS05: Psychocomputational Models of Human Language Acquisition WS06: CoNLL-2005: Ninth Conference on Computational Natural Language Learning WS08: Building and Using Parallel Corpora: Data-driven Machine Translation and Beyond Regular (Early): $ 170.00 Regular (Late): $ 210.00 Regular (On-Site): $ 210.00 Student (Early): $ 125.00 Student (Late): $ 150.00 Student (On-Site): $ 150.00

 workshop(s) @ $   each

Thursday, June 30 (1 day)

WS10: Deep Lexical Acquisition (pre-endorsed by ACL/SIGLEX) WS11: Workshop on Software WS12: Empirical Modeling of Semantic Equivalence and Entailment Regular (Early): $ 100.00 Regular (Late): $ 125.00 Regular (On-Site): $ 125.00 Student (Early): $ 75.00 Student (Late): $ 90.00 Student (On-Site): $ 90.00

 workshop(s) @ $  each

Associated Conferences / Workshops Total: $

STUDENT LUNCH

Monday, June 27, 2005 Lunchtime All student attendees are invited to attend the ACL'05 Student Lunch.

 I will attend the Student Lunch 
 I will attend the Student Lunch (vegetarian meal requested) 
 No, I will not attend the Student Lunch 
I am not a student 

BANQUET TICKETS

Monday, June 27, 2005 7:30 pm (buses will leave at 6:30pm)

The banquet will take place at the historic Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI.

 Regular: $ 75.00
 Student: $ 55.00

 Vegetarian and   Non-Vegetarian tickets @ $   each

Banquet Tickets Total: $

EXTRA PROCEEDINGS

Number of extra copies of conference proceedings.: ($ 35.00 each)

Extra Proceedings Total: $

COMPLETION

Total amount due: $

Please direct technical questions about the web registration form to mccoy@cis.udel.edu

Please direct questions about registration, including alternate methods of payment, to acl@aclweb.org or contact Priscilla Rasmussen of the ACL at +1-570-476-8006 or via fax at +1-570-476-0860.

ACL 2005 Online Registration Form ©2005, Association for Computational Linguistics

Webmaster

The websites should be managed via an account that the local arrangements committee has direct access to. It should not be expensive for the ACL to set up an account through a national ISP for this purpose.

Criteria for selecting a webmaster

Need dedicated conference site accessible by the webmaster Need guaranteed quick updating time Need software for paper submission and camera-ready copy (ideally) Need software to help prepare Proceedings and other conference matter

Author: Eduard Hovy, 2000.

Program Co-Chair Duties

The Program Co-Chairs are responsible for assembling the main conference program. This includes selecting the Program Committee constructing and distributing the Call-for-Papers setting up the mentoring service for authors from countries where English is not the language of scientific exchange overseeing the reviewing process organizing the Program Committee Meeting overseeing the selection of accepted papers communicating the review results to authors overseeing the Best Paper Award selecting invited speakers creating the conference program constructing a program handout communicating with the General Chair and the Executive Committee providing updates to the Program Chair section of the Conference Handbook

Guidelines for ACL Program Committee Chairs

  The following are guidelines for the program committee; some of it is extracted from a document prepared by Johanna Moore in 1993 summarizing issues that arose in past program committee meetings and the views of the program committees as to how they should be addressed.   Other portions are the result of discussions following recent conferences.

Program Committee: ACL has a three-tiered program committee structure: the PC Co-chairs, the area chairs, and the regular members of the PC. ACL conferences work with a three-tiered program committee structure: PC Co-Chairs, Area Chairs or Senior PC Members, and regular members of the PC.

The Area Chairs or Senior PC members are selected by the PC Co-chairs, subject to the approval of the ACL Executive Committee. ACL policy prohibits members of the Executive Committee from serving as Area Chairs; for joint conferences with a local chapter, the same restriction applies to members of that chapter's Executive Board. Potential Area Chairs should not be contacted until their selection has been approved by the ACL Exec. In selecting Area Chairs, consideration should be given to prior experience as a regular PC member, having new people as Area Chairs, coverage of the areas of anticipated submissions, and geographical and gender distribution. Area Chairs should be informed of their responsibilites (including the selection of the recipient of the Best Paper Award) at the time they are invited to serve as Area Chairs. Area Chairs can cover more than one area and can overlap areas. In the Call for Papers, some past PC Co-Chairs have preferred not to list the specific areas of the Area Chairs in order to avoid biasing the submissions. The Area Chairs select the regular members of the PC, in consultation with the PC Co-chairs. Consideration should be given to having a balance of experienced and new members of the PC and geotraphical and gender distribution. The conference proceedings should list the PC Co-Chairs, the Area Chairs, or Senior PC Members, the Members of the Program Committee, and any additional reviewers who contributed to reviewing papers, using the headings "PC Co-Chairs", "Area Chairs" or "Senior PC Members", "Program Committee Members", and "Additional Reviewers". The names and affiliations for PC Chairs, Area Chairs or Senior PC members, and PC members should be given in the proceedings. For additional reviewers, only the name is given. All lists should be compiled in alphabetical order.

Each regular PC member is in charge of the review of 5-10 papers, whereas an additional reviewer reviews at most 2 papers. In the unlikely event that a reviewer is asked to review 5 or more papers he or she may, at the discretion of the Program Co-chairs, be upgraded to the status of a regular PC member. This upgrading process must be triggered by the PC member who allocated so many papers to a single reviewer, by a suitable suggestion to the Program Chair.

PC members may recruit additional reviewers, but the responsibility to get adequate reviews for the allocated papers remains with the PC members. The PC members report to the Area Chairs or Senior PC Members, and they in turn report to the PC Co-chairs. Additional reviewers report to the PC member who recruited them.

Only the PC Co-Chairs and Area Chairs or Senior PC Members can be reimbursed for attending the PC meeting. If individual PC members want to attend the PC meeting, they may do so, but on their own expense. Reviewers cannot attend the PC meeting.

Use of the START conference software: For the past several years, ACL has used the START conference software for paper submission, reviewing, and helping with the publication process. The PC Co-chairs should consult with the General Chair and the Executive Committee about whether a contract with START currently exists or whether a new contract should be negotiated. This needs to be settled very early, so that the conference software will be available for submissions. Relevance of papers to ACL: In recent years, a broader range of papers have been solicited for ACL conferences, including papers in information retrieval, spoken language recognition and understanding, tools and language resources, and applications. ACL wants to continue to encourage papers in all areas related to language processing. The authors have the burden of explaining a paper's relevance to the CL community. Mentoring service: ACL conferences provide a mentoring service to help authors, from countries where English is not the language of scientific exchange, produce a fluent paper. The PC Co-Chairs are responsible for setting up the mentoring service for the conference. The mentoring service typically is chaired by an individual who is not an Area Chair. The Chair of the mentoring service identifies a set of mentors. Papers are sent to the Chair of the mentoring service some weeks prior to the conference submission deadline, and the mentors work with the authors to improve the communication of their research.

The mentoring service should be announced in the Call for Papers and publicized on the conference web site --- see sample mentoring announcement

Paper submission deadline: Every year, the PC chair receives several papers that arrive after the deadline. Although there have been variations in how such papers are handled, the majority opinion is that the deadline should be strictly enforced in the interest of fairness to those authors who could have improved their papers if they had extra time. The policy on late submissions should be explicitly stated and well-publicized. It is important that the precise time zone for the deadline be clearly stated, such as 5pm Eastern Standard Time. With the electronic submission of papers, it is now easy to enforce deadlines by terminating the submission process. Double blind reviewing: ACL requires that papers be blind reviewed. Consequently, clear instructions must be provided about omitting references that will disclose the author's identify. The PC chairs must decide how to handle papers that violate author anonymity for blind reviewing. In recent years, such papers have been returned to the authors without review. Length restrictions on papers: Length restrictions: Length restrictions should be stated in terms of font size, margin size, page size, and number of pages. The provision of style files makes it easy for the authors to adhere to these guidelines. Sample style files from past conferences are accessible form the Program Chair section of the Conference Handbook. The PC chairs must decide how to handle papers that violate the length restrictions on submissions. It is generally felt that length restrictions must be adhered to, and that papers that violate these restrictions should not be reviewed; the basis for this view is that most authors would have liked extra pages to explain their work, but have worked hard to cut their papers down to the requisite length. Thus reviewing papers that violate the length restrictions gives an advantage to the authors of those papers. Double submission policy: Papers presented at an ACL conference must represent new work that has not been previously published. It is the responsiblity of the author to inform the program chair of any potential problem with respect to this requirement, as noted in the following guidelines. Papers that have appeared at a conference with published proceedings constitute previously published work. Papers that overlap other papers that have appeared at a conference with published proceedings must contain significant new results. Authors must include on the title page a list of any previous papers that the current paper overlaps or extends, and must identify the significant new results contained in the new submission. The program co-chairs have the final decision about what constitutes significant new results. Papers that have appeared at a workshop do not constitute previously published work, as long as the paper submitted to ACL is an extension of the workshop paper. Extensions might include new results, more in-depth analysis, evaluation that was not part of the workshop paper, or further experiments. Authors must include on the title page a list of any previous workshop papers that the current paper extends, and must identify how the current submission extends the previous workshop papers. The program co-chairs have the final decision about whether the ACL submission represents an extension of the workshop papers. Papers being submitted both to ACL and another conference or workshop must note this on the title page. (This includes submissions that are extensions of papers currently being submitted to a workshop.) A paper to be presented at ACL must be withdrawn from other conferences and workshops. Implementation of ACL double submission policy: Papers being submitted both to ACL and another conference or workshop must: Note on the title page the other conference or workshop to which they are being submitted. (This includes submissions that are extensions of papers currently being submitted to a workshop.) State on the title page that if the paper is accepted for ACL, then the paper will be withdrawn from other conferences and workshops. Enforcing the ACL double submission policy: Authors are expected to adhere to the ACL policy on double submission of papers. However, double submissions that do not following this policy have been problematic at recent conferences. For ACL-05, the program chairs consulted with the program chairs of other major conferences (such as IJCAI) to determine when authors had submitted to multiple conferences. The submissions were checked, and papers that were multiply submitted (ie., not substantially different) and accepted by more than one conference were rejected from one or both of the conferences. Paper reviewing and acceptance: ACL Policy on Conflicts of Interest: ACL has adopted a formal conflict-of-interest policy. It is essential that the PC co-chairs, area chairs, and reviewers be familiar with the policy. Submissions by the PC Co-chairs or their students pose special problems. Although there is not an ACL policy prohibiting the PC Co-chairs from submitting to the ACL conference for which they are serving as PC Co-chairs, PC Co-chairs and their students are encouraged to submit papers to a different conference to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest in the paper acceptance process. Review forms from recent conferences are available: review form from ACL-04 and review form from ACL-05. Although the content of the review form is at the discretion of the PC Co-Chairs, the Executive Committee suggests the following in order to provide a good evaluation of application and tools papers: "Does this paper provide data, software, or source code that will be useful to other researchers in this area?" "How useful to the community are any resources released along with the paper." The PC co-chairs and area chairs or senior PC members are responsible for ensuring a high quality technical program. Since the quality of submissions is not uniform from year to year, the acceptance rate for papers may vary from one ACL conference to another. As a guide, an acceptance rate below 20% would be unusually low and an acceptance rate of 30% would be unusually high; however, it is the perogative of the PC co-chairs to evaluate the quality of the submissions and, in consultation with the General Chair, to determine what is an appropriate acceptance rate for the particular conference. Best Paper Award: The PC Co-chars and Area Chairs are responsible for selecting the recipient of the ACL Best Paper Award (see ACL-05 best paper selection procedure) The Best Paper Award is presented to the recipient, along with a framed award award certificate, at the conference. Typically, this occurs at the end of the conference. Here is the ACL-05 award certificate and the ACL-04 award certificate. Visas: Although there has been concern about visa problems preventing researchers from attending conferences in the United States, it does not appear that there were more visa rejections for ACL-05 than there have been for ACL conferences in other countries. To address the visa problem, the PC Co-chairs should notify the authors of submitted papers that if a visa will be needed to attend the conference, authors should do the following: set up an appointment with the appropriate consulate for shortly after the acceptance notification date, and contact Priscilla Rasmussen for a letter of invitation when the paper is accepted.

Program Committee Schedule: ACL-05

Preliminary Call for papers: last week of August, 2004 Paper submission deadline: Jan 14, 2005 Paper assignments to area chairs: Jan 17, 2005 Paper assignments to reviewers: Jan 20, 2005 Review submissions due: Mar 11, 2005 Reviewer discussion complete: Mar 18, 2005 PC meeting: Mar 23-24, 2005 Notification of acceptance: Mar 31, 2005 Camera ready papers due: May 2, 2005

Sample Calls for Papers

The following are sample Calls for Papers from the last several conferences Call for Papers: ACL-05 Call for Papers: ACL-04 Call for Papers: ACL-03

LaTeX Style Sheets for Papers

The following contain the style files and sample tex, dvi, ps, dvi, dot, doc, and pdf files for formatting papers for the ACL-2005 conference: Latex Papers for references: acl2005.bst for the paper body: acl2005.sty source file for instructions in ACL paper format: acl2005.tex instructions in ACL paper format: acl2005.dvi , acl2005.ps , acl2005.pdf

Microsoft Word Papers Microsoft Word template DOT: acl2005.dot example document --- source file for instructions in ACL paper formal: acl2005.doc example document --- instructions in ACL paper format: acl2005-word.pdf

The following contain the style files and sample tex, ps , dot, doc, and pdf files for formatting papers for the EACL-2006 conference: Latex Papers for references: eacl2006.bst for the paper body: eacl2006.sty example document --- source file for instructions in ACL paper format: eacl2006.tex example document --- instructions in ACL paper format: eacl2006.ps , eacl2006.pdf

Microsoft Word Papers Microsoft Word template DOT: eacl2006.dot example document --- source file for instructions in ACL paper format: eacl2006.doc example document --- instructions in ACL paper format: eacl2006.pdf

Instructions for Authors for Camera-Ready Final Versions of Papers The following provide examples of the camera ready instructions for ACL-2004 and camera ready instructions for ACL-2005.

 Invited Speakers

ACL typically has three invited talks: two by invited speakers and one by the recipient of the ACL Lifetime Achievement Award. The invited speakers are selected by the program chairs, in consultation with the program committee and the Executive Board. It is suggested that the selection of invited speakers be done as soon as the program committee is formed. If the invited speakers are not selected until the program committee meeting, the desired individuals may not be available for the conference. In selecting invited speakers, it is desirable to select individuals who will expand the knowledge of ACL attendees or who can present a particularly timely lecture. Criteria for selecting an invited speaker should consist of excellent credentials in the area of expertise, good presentation ability, topical subject matter, and subject matter complementary to the topics of the other invited speakers. Invited speakers are provided with round-trip airfare (economy class) from home to the conference, lodging at a reasonable hotel for the duration of the conference, and a banquet ticket; registration fees for the main conference, tutorials, and workshops are waived. Invited speakers are responsible for making their own travel arrangements, keeping all receipts, and submitting originals of receipts to the ACL office for reimbursement. The PC Chairs are responsible for contacting the invited speakers (see sample invitation letter ), scheduling their talks, and discussing with them the above policy on reimbursement.

Publications Chair Duties

The Publications Chair is responsible for working with the Program, Workshop, Student, and Tutorial Chairs to prepare the proceedings and ensure their timely delivery and printing.

Proceedings are printed and distributed by the ACL. For formatting see proceedings-conference, proceedings-workshop, proceedings-student-worksp, tutorial-notes-format. Camera-ready paper instructions for accepted conference papers are in camera ready instructions. Authors of workshop papers and student research workshop papers should contact the workshop chair.

Author: Eduard Hovy, 2000.

Conference Proceedings

The conference Proceedings are the responsibility of the Publications Chair, assisted by the Program Chairs. The Student Workshop Proceedings are a companion to the main conference Proceedings, shrink-wrapped together and sold as one.

Contents

The proceedings generally contains:

Title page Program Committee (and Reviewers) (ACL employs a three-tiered program committee structure, consisting of the PC Co-chairs, Area Chairs, and Program Committee. The individuals serving in these capacities should be listed in the conference proceedings under the appropriate headings. If an individual is asked to review a paper for their special expertise in the area, then they should be listed under the heading of "Extra Reviewers".) Preface Program (optional) Tutorial descriptions (optional) Table of Contents Author Index Papers Format

Look at previous Proceedings for details.

The ACL style sheets tailored for the ACL-2005 conference are available from style files .

The cover page of the Proceedings should read:

ACL-20**

Proceedings of the **th Annual Meeting of the

Association for Computational Linguistics

The spine should read:

ACL PROCEEDINGS **th Annual Meeting **date** 20**

The back cover should contain, in the lower right corner, the ISBN Number bar code:

ISBN 1-55860-XXX-X

(bar code)

781558 60XXXXX

Printing

Morgan Kaufmann does the Proceedings for AAAI, and IJCAI conferences. Omnipress (800-745-7323) is a very responsive and dependable smaller printer. When shopping for printers, they need to know the approximate page count, the weight of the paper (140 m is fine), what kind of cover page you want (with artwork is more expensive, but a standard one-color job is easy), and what kind of lamination you want. Generally, turnaround time for camera-ready copy is about 2 weeks.

The AMTA-96 proceedings (250 books, 135 pages each, double-sided) cost $1200 to copy and $600 to bind in 1996. The ACL-2000 proceedings cost approximately $13,000 for the main proceedings and approximately $2,600 for the companion volume (assumes 114 pages and same number of copies as the main proceedings). Morgan Kaufmann also says that it will cost $0.30 per volume pair to shrink-wrap them for subsequent distribution.

ISBN numbers should be requested.

Author: David Yarowsky, with additions by Eduard Hovy, 2000. Modified, 2005

Student Workshop Proceedings

The Student Workshop Proceedings differs from that of other ACL workshops in that it is a companion to the main conference Proceedings, shrink-wrapped together and sold as one.

The cover page of the Proceedings should read

Proceedings of the **th Annual Meeting of the

Association for Computational Linguistics

Companion Volume

Proceedings of the Student Research Workshop

Tutorial Abstracts

Demonstration Descriptions

Printing should obviously be done by the company that prints the main conference proceedings. The Student Chair should liaise with the Program Chairs.

Author: David Yarowsky, adapted by Eduard Hovy, 2000.

Tutorial Notes Format

The tutorial Notes covers are fairly standard and should match past ACL tutorial Notes and also the ACL conference proceedings. The Notes covers should be text only, in the color scheme of the main proceedings.

FRONT COVER

Tutorial of the

2000 Conference

of the Association of Computational Linguistics

Stochastic Modeling

of

Melody, Harmony, and Rhythm

John Lennon

and

Paul McCartney

6 October 2000

Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Hong Kong

SPINE COPY

ACL Tutorial on Stochastic Modeling of Melody, Harmony, and Rhythm

6 October 2000

In 15—18 point type, this fits fine on 1 line. But when the Notes are smaller, there may not be room for any text on the spine, or no date.

BACK COVER

Blank

Author: Eduard Hovy, 2000, from notes by David Yarowsky.

Preparation of Proceedings for Publication

The Publications Chair is responsible for working with the Program, Workshop, Student, and Tutorial Chairs to prepare the proceedings and ensure their timely delivery and printing. Jason Eisner and Philipp Koehn have constructed a repository for software for compiling the various conference publications. The publications chair is responsible for revising/updating this software as appropriate and providing updated documentation that will enable subsequent publications chairs to easily use the repository.

The respository contains scripts and style files, along with associated documentation. The repository also contains instructions for (1) book chairs, and (2) authors. At the current time, information needed by the publication chairs is contained in the instructions for book chairs. Eventually, a separate set of instructions for publications chairs will be compiled. Further information about the organization of the repository can be found in overview of repository organization The concept behind the repository is that it provides an easy mechanism for the publications chairs to access and revise the necessary software; keeping the documentation and instructions in the repository makes it easy to maintain consistency. Instructions on how to access the repository provides information about getting a username and password for entering the repository.

Publicity Chair

The publicity chair has two major roles:

International: Disseminating information about the conference (calls for papers, etc.) to the largest possible appropriate technical audience Local: Accessing and bringing in the press at the time of the conference It is important that both these roles be fulfilled, but not that they be fulfilled by the same person. Quite commonly, local publicity is handled by someone in the Local Arrangements Committee. General technical publicity can be handled by the General Chair or a designee.

International Dissemination: Technical Community

1. Publications

ACL Finite String and Computational Linguistics AAAI Magazine Machine Translation journal IEEE Computer Communications of the ACM 2. bboards and technical associations ACL bboard SIGIR bboard ACL SIG bboards AMTA bboard HCI bboards Speech processing bboards

Local Dissemination: Press

PR for press and TV may use sponsorship to motivate a press breakfast Author: Eduard Hovy, 2000, from notes by Rick Wojcik and Gary Coen

Proposal for a Three-member Publicity Committee

I. Membership

one person from the Local Arrangements Committee (with easy access to all practical info, the conference website, local publicity channels, including whom to invite from press and media, etc) If the conference website is maintained by the local organizer, this member of the Publicity Committee should be the one to liaise with those responsible for the website in order to ensure some sort of conformity, both in content and in presentation. one person from the Program Committee (with easy access to all content related info) one person appointed specifically to the committee who would focus on mailings and mailing lists: preparing a list of all groups that conference announcements should go to (or updating the one from the previous year!); possibly preparing targeted versions of announcements for industry, neighboring fields (e.g., AI, CogSci IR, HCI, etc.) and outlying regions (e.g., Eastern Europe, Middle East, Latin America, etc.), based on information about the Program, the Workshops, the Tutorials, and the Scientific Demos.

In addition, Priscilla should be involved, as she is already taking care of many of the publicity activities anyway.

II. Publicity Scenario

A. Pre-conference publicity The main activity appears to be relaying electronic announcements sent out by Priscilla to various other mailing lists, and asking editors of newsletters and websites to include an explicit pointer to the conference. If there are related conferences/workshops shortly prior to the ACL conference, the Committee could develop flyers to be distributed there. What the flyers could contain depends on what is known about the conference and related activities (workshops, tutorials, etc.) at the time of the related conference/workshop. This has a cost, but it was for other reasons that flyers were not prepared for distribution at COLING'2000. For ACL'2001, the Committee could consider distributing flyers at NAACL'2001, once the cost issue is resolved. (See III.)

B. At-conference publicity The Local Arrangements chair organised a press conference during the conference, with (paid) assistance of a professional agency. The Publicity Committee prepared background information. This would be one of the responsibilities of the member of the committee from the Local Arrangements group, as they are most likely to have easy access to such information as the history of the organising university, its track record in international activities and in NLP, names of local VIPs that ought to be included, participation statistics, etc). Background information is also needed about the program: why were specific formats and themes chosen, some statistics about submission and rejection, choice and background of invited speakers, etc. So this should involve the member of the Publicity Committee from the Program Committee. Besides the Press Conference, the Publicity Committee might consider other forms of publicity to the local community (city, state, county, etc.) both right before and during the Conference.

III. Remaining Questions

Should the Publicity Committee consider types of publicity for which funds are required, and if so, who pays--ACL or the conference? For example, posters. Steven Krauwer (Publicity Co-Chair, ACL 2000) said they decided against posters because they tend to be very expensive, and he has never seen any evidence that they are effective.

Author: Bonnie Webber, in discussion with Stephen Krauwer, 2000.

Sponsorship Chair Duties

The Sponsorship Chair is responsible for collecting funding from two kinds of sources: granting institutions and corporations.

Granting institution sponsorship

The lead time is approx. 1 year. A formal proposal is usually required. Many funding institutions are unwilling to fund a conference more than once.

Examples:

National Science Foundation Sloan Foundation Corporate sponsorship Corporations must be approached several times:

the first time more than a year in advance, to ensure that the sponsorship is included on the budget for the next year; six or so months before the conference, to re-awaken interest and stress the advertising potential three months in advance, to extract the funds Corporate sponsors have very tight restrictions on the use of their logos. Last-minute sponsors may not be able to get all the advertising promised. It is possible to create several tiers of sponsorship. The meaning of these tiers should be made very clear to the public.

Advertising that corporations may be offered:

logos on Proceedings and fliers, etc. logos on banners and signs at conference and social events logos on freebies and t-shirts (possibly) short statement at banquet or reception Authors: Eduard Hovy, 2000, from notes by Rick Wojcik and Gary Coen.

Student Chair Duties

The Student Chairs are responsible for assembling the Student Paper Committee, requesting student papers, selecting appropriate ones, arranging for their presentation (including the format, such as workshop or posters, and if appropriate refreshments, presentation and computer requirements, and all other special needs. In addition, the student workshop chairs are responsible for proposing travel grant recipients --- see policy on general student travel funding

If the student papers are presented in a workshop, then the same general instructions apply as hold for Workshop Chairs (see workshop-chair). Most details are described in the ACL Policy on Workshops (ftp://ftp.cs.columbia.edu/acl-l/Information/workshop-policy.gz), also reproduced here as ACL-policy-worksp-support.

The workshops must be self-financing (at least); profits belong to ACL, but may (with agreement by the Exec) be used to support invited speakers and students.

Student Program Committee

The Student Chair, in collaboration with the faculty advisor(s) appointed by the ACL Exec, must assemble and submit a list of reviewers to the ACL Exec. After this list has been approved, the Student Chair can invite the reviewers to serve on the Student Program Committee.

Call for Papers

Sample calls for student papers appear in Student Session Call-for-Papers .

Proceedings

Proceedings are printed and distributed by the ACL. For formatting (title page, etc.) see student-workshop-proceedings.

Faculty Advisor Duties

The Student Research Workshop is organized by the student chairs, with guidance from the faculty advisor appointed by the ACL conference General Chair.  The faculty advisor is responsible for:

overseeing the organization of the student research workshop and providing suggestions to the student research chairs ensuring that ACL student session policies are adhered to seeking funding for students to attend the ACL conference and in particular the ACL Student Research Workshop overseeing the selection of students to receive travel funding (see ACL policy on general student travel funding ) The faculty advisor is responsible for submitting proposals for funding to external funding agencies. ACL-05 proposal to NSF provides a sample proposal from a recent conference. However, efforts should be extended to funding agencies in Europe and Asia, since NSF restrictions can limit the travel funds that can be provided to students from outside the United States. The faculty advisor should begin seeking funding immediately upon appointment to the position.

Student Sessions at ACL Conferences

The Student Session is an established feature of ACL conferences. However, there is no accepted format for this part of the conference. This report outlines a new policy for the operation of the student sessions, the aim being to:

set out a common standard, thereby ensuring that the status of the Student Session is kept consistently high provide guidelines for future organisers of the student session.

Goal of the Student Sessions The Student Session provides a valuable opportunity for the next generation of computational linguists to enter the CL community. It allows the best students in the field to take their first important step towards becoming professional computational linguists by:

receiving critical feedback on their work from experts outside their advisory team; making contact with other students and key researchers in their field; presenting their work formally in a professional setting; reviewing the work of others and assisting in the organisation of the session. For the ACL Student Sessions to achieve this goal consistently, we need to ensure that we attract papers from the best students internationally, provide professional reviews that (a) help the students to develop their work and (b) assist the programme committee in selecting the best papers. We also need to provide a suitable venue for their presentation. Finally, we need to ensure that the student session is very well attended by the participants of the main conference. Over the years the student session has taken a variety of forms: as sessions like any other within the main conference, as special lunchtime sessions, as poster sessions during breaks, and as a 1-day pre-conference workshop. They have not been equally sucessful. The chosen format has, to a large extent, been guided by the number of submissions to the Student Session, but also by the number of paper accepted in the main conference and thus the number of session slots available for student presentations. Funding considerations also have a role to play; for example, at ANLP/NAACL'2000 a substantial amount of funding came from the NSF, but this brought with it the condition that the student session be run as a Workshop separate from the main conference. The following table shows the available statistics from 1991:

Year Submitted Accepted Format 1991 unknown 14 4 sessions, 2 at a time, 20 mins per student 1992 48 20 6 sessions, 2 at a time, 20 mins per student 1993 30 11 1 session, 18 minutes per student 1994 41 10 2 sessions in parallel, 20 minutes per student 1995 48 19 poster session, 2 hours and 30 minutes \ 1996 32 14 poster session, 1 hour and 45 minutes 1997 42 10 2 sessions, 20 minutes per student \ 1998 46 12 4 lunch-time sessions, 20 minutes per student \ 1999 30 10 4 sessions, 2 at a time, 25 minutes per student \ 2000(ANLP/NAACL) 18 8 pre-conference workshop, 25 min presentation, 15 min discussion led by 2 senior researchers 2000 36 10 4 sessions, 2 at a time, 18 min presentation, 12 min discussion led by 2 senior researchers While recognising the need to build some flexibility into the process, the picture above makes it difficult for outsiders to judge the status of a paper in an ACL student session. In general, papers presented in sessions that are interleaved with the main conference sessions, or in a dedicated pre-conference Workshop, are viewed more favourably than poster presentations. A related problem arises with the form of the publication. Student papers and posters generally appear within the main conference proceedings. These are often indistinguishable from papers in the main sessions, and even in cases where they are not (e.g., identified by a different page numbering system), there is a general tendency for authors and others to cite them as though they were regular ACL papers (The same is true of the extended abstracts for the Demo Session). This practice has the potential to lower the perceived quality of ACL papers. The attendance at the student session tends to be unaffected by the format of the presentations. However, the quality of the feedback to the students tends to be much lower for poster sessions.

ACL Policy for Student Sessions Format The organising committee will be co-chaired by two doctoral students in Computational Linguistics, and will be coordinated by a Faculty Advisor. The members of the organising committee will be appointed by the General Chair, who will consult the co-chairs of the most recent Student Workshop for recommendations on the new student co-chairs.

The process of reviewing and selecting papers will conform to the standard ACL policy on programme committees, with the exception that each paper should be reviewed by a combination of students and established figures in the field.

In order to maintain a consistent status, the student session, will be run as either a workshop alongside the other workshops of the conference, or as a special session interleaved within the main conference. The final choice of format from among these for any given meeting will be determined by the programme chair of the main conference in consultation with the co-chairs of the student session, based on the number of available slots in the main conference, the number of accepted papers for the student session, and any other constraining considerations (e.g., the requirements of external funders).

The recent innovation of appointing panelists for each paper is a good idea. At the very least, it guarantees a good discussion on each paper. We recommend that this be continued, although the amount of time allocated to each panelist will obviously be much more limited when the session is interleaved with the main conference.

Scheduling If the session is run with the conference workshops, the length of slots for each presenter can be anywhere from 25 -- 45 minutes, depending on the preferred format of the organisers. However, if it is interleaved with the main sessions of the conference, then the length of presentations slots will be no longer than those of the main conference.

Title The title of the session will be Student Research Workshop. As an indicator of a separate existence, but closely linked to the main conference, this title clearly distinguishes between papers accepted for the main conference and the student session, and provides more opportunities for external funding (e.g., from NSF and the European Commission).

Publication At the meeting of the ACL executive committe in May, 2000 in Seattle, it was decided that future proceedings will be composed of two parts:

main proceedings: containing only those papers accepted to the main session companion volume: containing the papers from the student session, together with the tutorial abstracts and descriptions of presentations at the demo session. This could also include the panel descriptions and any other additional information (e.g., exhibitor pages). These two parts will be distributed as an integral set of volumes, both at the conference itself and for any post-conference sales. This policy has already been put into effect for the ACL'2000 meeting. The title of the companion volume will replace ``Proceedings of the Conference with:

Companion Volume to the Proceedings of the Conference including the Proceedings of the Student Research Workshop Tutorial Abstracts and Demonstration Notes Qualifications The student session will be dedicated to the presentation of graduate work in progress or significant undergraduate research. It will therefore normally be open only to 1) graduate students who have settled on their thesis direction but who still have significant research left to do, and 2) undergraduate students who have pursued an undergraduate research project. Those graduate students in the final stages of their thesis should be submitting instead to the main conference. To enforce this, submissions must be accompanied by a curriculum vitae and/or a letter from the thesis advisor confirming the current state of the thesis and giving an estimated date of submission.

A student who has already presented at an ACL/EACL/NAACL student session will not be allowed to present again at the student session of any of these conferences, but encouraged to submit instead to the main conference.

Roles and Responsibilites of the Organising Committee What follows is a non-exhaustive list outlining the main responsibilites of the organising committee.

The Faculty Advisor:

advise the student co-chairs on all aspects of the running of the student session; ensure that the above policy is adhered to; ensure that the organisational schedule for the student session is adhered to; apply for external funding to support the student session, liasing where necessary with the conference committee; assist the co-chairs in procuring reviewers for the submitted papers and panelists for the accepted papers; attend the student session and oversee its smooth running.

The co-chairs:

in consultation with the Faculty Advisor, and the PC chair of the main conference, compose a schedule for the organisation of the student workshop; compose the Call for Papers and make it available for distribution; in consultation with the Faculty Advisor, select reviewers; receive the submissions, distribute them to reviewers, collect the reviews and collate the results; \item in consultation with the Faculty Advisor, select the papers for presentation; in consultation with the Programme Chair for the main conference, decide on the format of the session; collect and assemble the camera-ready hard copies (adding the preface, TOC, etc.) and forward them to the Publication Chair; make recommendations to the ACL Treasurer on the distribution of any available funding; prepare for the ACL executive a written report on the student session, and present it at the Executive Dinner and the Business Meeting; attend and chair the sessions, making sure that the time limits are strictly adhered to; in consultation with the local organiser, arrange the Student Lunch; \item hand over to the ACL secretary copies of the main records of the student session, including spreadsheets on the submissions, acceptances and recommendations for funding. after the conference, forward recommendations to the General Chair of the upcoming meeting for the next set of student co-chairs. Approved by ACL Exec: October 2000 Letter to Student Research Workshop Panelists

Since one of the main purposes of the student research workshop is to nurture young researchers, the letter to the workshop panelists should emphasize this aspect and provide useful instructions to the panelists. The following sample letter accomplishes this objective. Dear ____________,

The program for the student research workshop is now set and you should have received a separate email from Peter with instructions on how to download your assigned paper(s). If you haven't already, please take a quick look at the program located at (give URL) and let us know immediately if you have a conflict with the time-slot for a paper you are slated to support. The motivation for changing the format for student presentations is to increase both the quantity and the quality of feedback provided to student presenters. In a large conference setting, audience members often want to avoid being very critical of the students who are presenting, possibly for the first time at a large event. Therefore, the audience comments usually focus on polite suggestions for improvement or simple clarifications of the student's results. Also, the amount of time available for questions after each presentation is often inadequate to cover issues in any depth or for the presenter's responses to go into much detail. We hope this new workshop format will remedy that situation by allowing more time for questions/feedback, by allowing you to read the paper beforehand and have plenty of time to think about the research and prepare comments, and by moving to a smaller location where discussion of problems or possible improvements in the student's research is facilitated. As a panelist, we ask that you assume the role of "advisor-for-a-day" for the student presenting, and that you carefully read your assigned paper(s) before the workshop and prepare comments and questions that focus on (but are not limited to) the following points:

What suggestions do you have for improvements of the methods used How could the exposition of the results or approach be improved What potential trouble spots do you see or particularly questionable elements of the future work What related material has the student missed The schedule of the workshop allows each student 25 minutes to present, followed by 15 minutes for questions. Panelists will be asked to sit down front with the session chair. In the question period, we will first take questions and comments from the panelists, then open the floor for questions and comments from the audience. Panelists will not make formal presentations, but otherwise just about anything goes: you can stand up to deliver your comments or you can remain seated, you can ask the author to expand on a particular point or work through an example, you can even hop up on stage if you need to explain your point on the board (or on a blank transparency). Use the time as you would working with an advisee. We want the interaction to stay friendly and collaborative and supportive of the student's endeavors, but don't be afraid to point out problems that you see with the research, or trouble lurking ahead that will impact the student's completion of the work. The student may also have prepared questions for you, which we will cover if time allows. Students at previous similar events were required to be past the proposal phase, but we did not impose that requirement in our review procedures for this workshop. The work being presented is not necessarily the student's thesis work. You are welcome to make written comments on your hard-copy of the paper or on a separate sheet to give to the author either before or during the workshop. You should also let the student know if you are interested in continuing to work with him/her via email after the workshop. A future working relationship with the student is not expected of you, so it's your option to initiate such a relationship if you wish. We realize that many of you are attending other workshops and will come and go from the student workshop throughout the day. You are not expected to attend student presentations other than the ones you are assigned as a panelist, but of course we would appreciate your presence for as much of the day as your schedule allows.

Thanks again for your participation in this first student workshop at an ACL event. With such high caliber scientists serving as panelists and the high quality of student research being presented, we are confident that the day will prove very worthwhile. We hope you enjoy this unique opportunity to have a positive impact on the career of a future NLP researcher. If you have any questions about the workshop, feel free to contact either of us.

Best Regards, Donna Byron and Peter Vanderheyden Student Research Workshop Co-Chairs Sample Calls for Student Workshop Papers

The Student Chair sends the call to the ACL office manager for distribution and/or elsewhere.

The following are sample Call-for-Papers from past student sessions.

CFP for student session at ACL-05

CFP for student session at ACL-04

CFP for student session at ACL-03

Student Workshop Proceedings

The Student Workshop Proceedings differs from that of other ACL workshops in that it is a companion to the main conference Proceedings, shrink-wrapped together and sold as one.

The cover page of the Proceedings should read

Proceedings of the **th Annual Meeting of the

Association for Computational Linguistics

Companion Volume

Proceedings of the Student Research Workshop

Tutorial Abstracts

Demonstration Descriptions

Printing should obviously be done by the company that prints the main conference proceedings. The Student Chair should liaise with the Program Chairs.

Author: David Yarowsky, adapted by Eduard Hovy, 2000.

Policy on General Student Travel Funding for Conferences The following comprise a set of guidelines for awarding travel grants from funds designated for general student travel. It does not pertain to funds that are specifically earmarked for a particular purpose, such as an NSF grant awarded to the student research workshop.

The student workshop chairs make recommendations to the treasurer and the general conference chair about who should receive travel grants and the amount of each grant. The final decisions are made by the treasurer and the general conference chair. Students receiving travel grants are expected to serve as student volunteers so that their registration fee is waived.

The student workshop chairs are responsible for doing the following:

Check with the ACL treasurer to determine the amount of funding that is available. This is generally obtained from external grants as well as a small amount available from the Walker fund. Publicize the existance of student funding and collect requests for funding. The request form should collect the following information: Is the student presenting a paper? If so, 1) where is the paper being presented: main conference session, student research workshop, other workshop (which one?), and 2) are you the sole author on the paper and, if not, what is the order in which the authors are listed on the paper? If the student is not presenting a paper, is he or she a co-author on a paper being presented by someone else? If so, who are the other authors and what is the order in which the authors are listed on the paper? What are the student's estimated travel costs, itemized by categories such as airfare, registration, lodging, meals? What funds does the student expect to obtain from other sources? A statement from the student's advisor about the importance of the student attending the conference and the need for a travel award. In proposing travel grant recipients, student applications should be ranked according to the priorities listed below. However, these priorities are guidelines, and other factors such as extreme demonstrated need and geographic balance should also be taken into account. It is recommended that students in the same priority category be given the same proportion of their requested funds, assuming that their estimated travel expenses are as economical as is reasonable. In addition, if funding is limited, it is recommended that partial awards be given to several students as opposed to covering the full travel costs for only 1-2 students. Guideline Priorities: A. Students presenting in the main session or the student research workshop. B. Students who are non-presenting co-authors of a paper in the main session or the student research workshop. C. Students presenting in a conference workshop. D. Students who are non-presenting co-authors of a paper in a conference workshop. E. Students who submitted a paper to the main session or the student research workshop. F. Students who submitted a paper to a conference workshop. G. Other students.

The recommendations regarding travel grant recipients and the justification for each should be submitted to the treasurer and the general conference chair who make the final decision. The student research workshop chairs should coordinate with the office manager, Priscilla Rasmussen, regarding the budget and the billing procedure. She can help with processing students receipts, significantly simplifying the reimbursement process. Students will be reimbursed by the office manager, Priscilla Rasmussen, after the conference and upon providing original receipts and an accounting of the requested funding (that is, a business expense report). In cases of urgent need, funds may be provided in advance with proof of purchase of airline tickets; in such situations, original receipts must be provided after completion of the conference travel. Here are the instructions for submitting expenses for reimbursement that were used for the ACL-05 student research workshop. The following document was compiled by Donna Byron and copied from her student session archive . It provides a very useful set of suggestions for organizing student research workshops. Checklist for Planning and Running a student Session

The outline below contains a checklist for activities occuring in each phase. You should probably check with your Exec and find out which items they want to have final approval over (it may be different than what is listed here). In general, you can do things as far ahead as you want, unless the chart indicates that you have to wait for something. Issues and decision points relating to some phases are on their own webpages (links are in the chart).

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Getting Started:Things to do as soon as you're selected Writing and Distributing the Call For Papers Receiving and Reviewing papers Accepting Papers Miscellaneous stuff to work on after the accepted papers are chosen Recruiting/Assigning Panelists (if you use that format) Printing and binding final papers Pre-conference preparation Running the session Post-conference Fallout: Do ASAP after the event Getting Started:Things to do as soon as you're selected Start a list (and keep it uptodate) of things you did and when, as well as any comments you might have about how they could be done differently / better -- this will come in very handy when you're writing things up later! Set up a web site (Start by copying a previous year's site) Make sure the main conference web site has a link to your web site and prominently advertises the student session Make sure the ACL web site links to your web site Decide on the format to be used (posters/presentations/both), the timeline and reviewing procedures. Click here for a discussion of formats. Deadlines should line up with the main conference to the extent possible and should not fall on religious holidays. Start thinking about sources of student funding. This is an ongoing process from now until the conference happens. Student funding comes from many sources and you need to be knowledgeable about it even if you're not managing it because students/potential authors will ask you questions. Work with the Exec and PC to decide whether there will be volunteer opportunities for students at the conference. Volunteers typically receive technical session registration fee waivers and 1-yr membership to ACL. They don't receive complimentary registration to tutorials and workshops; however, an attempt is made to assign volunteers who indicate interest in particular tutorials or workshops to those sessions as "monitors". Work with the Exec/Treasurer to see if travel grants will be available from the organization (like Walker grants at ACL events). There should be a person on the main conference planning committee responsible for soliciting corporate sponsors for the conference. Make sure funding student events and/or underwriting student travel are included in the categories of funding he/she is suggesting to people. Work with your faculty advisor (who will be the PI) to write and submit a grant proposal for government funding if desired (eg. NSF or European Commission). Set up an opt-in email list for students to get news and communicate with each other about the session. NAACL/ANLP 2000 used egroups.com Put a link on your site so people can enroll. Make sure you are aware of any official policies of the organization regarding planning the student session. For example, the ACL Exec has adopted a policy that student papers should not be bound with the main conference papers. Writing and Distributing the Call For Papers

The CFP should include information you've pinned down as definite, and should be vague on other things that are not yet determined. As a minimum, it should have an overview of the intent of the session, the intended topic areas, and submission instructions and deadlines. It should be created as a stand-alone document with all contact information fully specified (i.e. don't just point people to the web page for details). If a joint conference, decide if there is separate review/submission Decide a policy on joint submission to other conferences. Joint submission to student and main session should be prohibited based on the different intent of the sessions Decide what restrictions you will place on student authors: i.e. all authors must be

(a) fulltime or not (b) PhD only, Master's and PhD, all university students, any student (c) pre-proposal, post-proposal Decide whether you will ask for proof of student status with the submission Determine which co-chair (or both) will receive submissions Set up a mailid to receive communication if you don't want to use your own id Double-check all templates: create .bst, .sty, and Word templates and sample papers. Test them and load them to web site. Make sure they keep author information hidden and use a double-spaced format for reviewers. Decide whether to have a separate 'intent to submit' process. This helps you plan how many reviewers you need, and from which areas. A downside is that people who otherwise might submit a paper may not do it if they miss the deadline for submitting an intent, and if people submit an intent and not a paper it wastes your time. The CFP must usually be vague about grant support for students, since you probably won't know about that yet when the CFP needs to go out. Ask for files to be sent in postscript + fonts or Word. You don't want latex source. Write the CFP, post to your web site in HTML and ascii format (an 'easy-print' version) The CFP must be approved by the Conference program chair Wait for Main conference CFP to be finished before finalizing yours. You can get topic areas and general information from it Develop a list of categories or keywords for papers (the conference topic areas may suffice; and include an "other" category); ask authors to give one or more categories for their paper; the same list will be used when asking potential reviewers for their areas of interest The ACL Business Manager (currently Priscilla Rasmussen) will send out the CFP and post it to the ACL website, sigs, and bboards. You should post to additional lists that you may know of (like Linguist). After the call goes out, touch base with the person assigned to solicit corporate funding for the conference to make sure 'funding student events' is one of the categories of funding being suggested to potential sponsors. Receiving and Reviewing papers Start working on recruiting reviewers immediately after sending out CFP The review committee as a whole needs to be somewhat balance industry/academia, geographic (i.e. by continent), areas of interest, student/non-student,gender,etc. When asking reviewers for their interests, use the same list of categories/keywords that you asked authors to use for their papers; this will make grouping reviewers with papers much easier! You have to make a guess at how many papers you'll get and make sure you have enough reviewers. The review committee (especially non-student members) must be approved by the Exec. How to get names of people to ask? People who did it for previous conferences, people who volunteered at the previous event, maybe it's possible to get a membership list from your organization, personal contacts. Be prepared to handle alot of email traffic the week that paper submissions are due (not only submissions but you get alot of questions/requests for information). Submitted papers come in Make sure papers can be printed/viewed. In some cases one cochair can print a paper that the other can't. Assign paper id numbers (if you didn't have a pre-submission process) and respond to authors to confirm that their paper was received and prints ok. Assign reviewers to papers. Allow yourself 1-2 weeks for this, it's pretty tricky to get all the papers to a reviewer that works in the correct area. You can't depend on the keywords provided by the authors, you usually have to read the papers and assign your own keywords to them. How many papers can each reviewer handle? Probably not more than 4-5 per reviewer. Must assign student and non-student reviewers to each paper. Send papers to reviewers Sanitize papers first if reviewing is blind. The easiest way to distribute papers is to load them to a web site. Send a note to the reviewers to make sure they were able to print/view their papers about 1 week after sending them the papers. Send reminder notice to reviewers 1 week before reviews are due. Receive and collate reviews. A spreadsheet is typically helpful. Accepting Papers Before deciding how many papers to accept, negotiate the page count allowed by the PC for student papers in the proceedings, since there will be a tradeoff -- the more papers accepted, the shorter the papers in the proceedings. 3 pages is the absolute minimum, try very hard to get more. Decide whether to accept an alternate paper, in case the author of an accepted paper is unable to attend at the last minute. Decide how to weigh the various reviewing categories, whether non-student reviews carry more weight, etc. Making acceptance decisions takes about 2 weeks. Typically there are about 1/3 clear rejects and 1/3 clear accepts just from the numerical parts of the reviews. For the remainder, you have to read the reviews carefully, take the written comments into consideration, and read the papers if necessary. One thing you may want to take into account is if the student is working at an institution where it may be difficult for him/her to get good feedback, i.e. because they don't have a strong CL program or the school has no money for students to travel to conferences. Send acceptance/rejection notification to the designated contact authors Sanitize reviews and email to authors (remove reviewer identifying information and any comments that were specifically addressed to the cochairs) Decide which co-chair (or both) will receive final papers. Update templates and model paper with the final format. Test templates to make sure Word and Latex styles come out the same. Format should probably be consistent with main conference format. Post author instructions for final papers and copyright form Miscellaneous stuff to work on after the accepted papers are chosen Finalize the program and post on web site. Try to keep breaks lined up with other events. This needs to be done immediately when accepted papers are selected so that the registration brochure can go out. Write the Call for Participation. The ACL business manager will send it out in electronic form and also in the hard-copy registration brochure. You may need to prepare it in slightly different formats for the two mailings. Find out how much money is available for travel grants (corporate gifts or Walker fund), Decide on the criteria for awarding grants, exactly what categories of expenses the grant will cover, will registration fees be waived, etc. (Registration fees have generally been waived in the past for volunteers, and refunded as part of the grant for travel grant recipients.) Announce availability of travel grants and post applications on the web site Make sure international authors start working immediately on getting visitor visas to the country hosting the conference, and produce any supporting documents they need. If you're running it as a separate 'workshop' event, make sure there will not be a charge. Make sure all versions of the registration brochure specify that the workshop is included when you pay for the main conference. Recruiting/Assigning Panelists (if you use that format) Contact people in same areas as papers. It's nice to get a mix of industry and academic people. You can do some preliminary work to get a list of potential panelists together, but don't contact people to ask them to be a panelist until the list of accepted papers is finalized and the final program is posted (because potential panelists need to know whether they have a conflict with the time). How to get suggestions of people to ask? Look over the main conference program to find established researchers who are planning to attend the conference. Ask the NAACL officers and conference program committee. Ask your faculty advisor and thesis advisor for suggestions. Assign panelists to papers. Two panelists per paper is sufficient, with approximately 1-2 papers per panelist. . Decide whether to allow authors to submit additional information "for panelists' eyes only" (e.g., extended papers, links to websites, etc.) -- especially if proceeding versions of papers are short (e.g., 3 pages); decide on format for submission of this information, let authors and panelists know about it Printing and binding final papers Final versions of papers come in. Make sure the copy is legible and there's no formatting problems with the papers and they adhere to your formatting guidelines. Make sure you get the signed copyright release form for all papers, send the copyright forms to the ACL office (ACL, 75 Paterson Street, Suite 9 New Brunswick, NJ 08901). It's ok for only the first author to sign, but preferable if all authors sign (according to Priscilla). Make a table of contents and whatever indexes you want (index by author last name, for example) to send to the printer (they don't make them for you). Leave page numbers off. Make sure at least one author of each paper has registered for the conference before sending the papers to the printer. Write the preface to the student session to be included in the proceedings. This should thank everyone who contributed (faculty advisor, reviewers, panelists, etc.) and describe the reviewing process and the number of submitted and accepted papers. Get the address of the company handling printing of the proceedings from PC Resolve binding issue: will the student papers be bound with main conference papers? In a separate workshop proceedings? Some other way? The current ACL policy (as of 10/2000) is to bind them separately. Send final versions of papers to printer. The printer can fix things like ink that is a little too light or papers printed on A4-size paper. Send papers to the panelists (if you're using panelists), or make them available on a web site Pre-conference preparation Write a summary to present at the business meeting, find out what meetings you need to attend at the conference Set up the social program, find out if you have money for the social program, try to get money contributed/allocated for social program Send instructions to authors on preparing their presentations or posters Send instructions to panelists (i.e. what is their committment, what do you want them to do) Assign session chairs to introduce and time paper presentations. Make yourself some 'you have 5 minutes', etc. signs. It's important to show a sign at the half-way point. Double-check with the local arrangements people that your room is reserved Organize volunteers or recruit someone else to manage that (typically volunteers get registration waived) Make feedback forms to take to the session Decide how you will recruit reviewers for the next year, either by posting a signup sheet, circulating signup sheets at the sessions, etc. Running the session Plan a way to publicize the event during the conference. We put flyers on the registration table. Post a sheet on the notice board for people to sign up to be reviewers for the next year. Distribute/collect feedback forms Take a headcount or make a list of audience members that attend the event. This is necessary for future planning, to determine whether the format was a success, and to include in post-mortem reports. Make sure you have a pointer, blank slides, markers, and water for the speakers.Also, make sure you have an extra bulb for the overhead projector (it may be inside the projector). Make sure you know who to contact for support if you have technical difficulties. Plan social activities, find a place to publicize social events Also, plan a way for students to contact each other for informal social activities. Maybe put a sign-up sheet on the notice board. Make time for the students to have practice talks? The 1999 ACL student cochairs did this. Present summary at the general business meeting. Hold a student business meeting. Probably hold it on the next-to-last day so people have a chance to find out about it. Use it to discuss student involvement in ACL in general, and issues relating to student research at the conference, how they liked this year's format, etc. Recruit new cochairs. Talk to people during breaks and at the student meeting, take down names to give to the NAACL exec. Post-conference Fallout: Do ASAP after the event Help students if they need help submitting expenses and getting reimbursements (if you had a grant) Make a summary to send to granting agency. Wait until all reimbursements have been sent out. Write up your lessons learned and summarize your feedback from the session. Do this immediately after the conference before you forget! Propose cochairs for next year to Exec. They should be from different geographic areas if possible and different areas of CL. Hand over documents relating to the session and spreadsheets on the submissions, acceptances and recommendations for funding to the ACL secretary. Last modified August 9, 2000 by Donna Byron Tutorial Chair Duties

The Tutorial Chair is responsible for requesting tutorial bids, selecting appropriate ones, arranging for their dates, locations, refreshments, presentation and computer requirements, and all other special needs.

Samples calls for bids appear in calls for tutorial proposals. Tutorials should be selected with attention to tutorials presented in recent ACL and other conferences, the teaching ability of the bidder, and topics of current interest. The set of tutorials should cover a wide range of topics and levels of technical sophistication.

Instructions to tutorial teachers are in tutorial-teacher-instrs.

The policy regarding reimbursement of tutorial teachers is in tutorial-payment-policy.

Tutorial notes are printed and distributed by the ACL. For formatting (title page, etc.) see tutorial-notes-format.

Author: Eduard Hovy, 2000

Sample Calls for Tutorial Proposals

The Tutorial Chair is responsible for soliciting tutorial proposals and selecting the tutorials to be given at the conference.

The following is a sample Call-for-Tutorial-Proposals.

ACL-05 Call for Tutorial Proposals

Tutorial Teacher Payment Policy

The remuneration for tutorials will be computed as follows:

$750 for up to 20 people plus $35 per person for registrants 21 to 50 plus $25 per person for registrants greater than 50 The minimum remuneration will be $750 or the cost of one economy airline ticket to the conference, whichever is higher. As has been ACL policy, the remuneration is per tutorial, not per presenter; multiple presenters will split the proceeds, the default assumption being an even split. Revised policy: December, 2003

Instructions for Tutorial Teachers

Thank you for your proposal to present a tutorial in conjunction with COLING/ACL '98. We would like you to proceed with the tutorial.

I assume that your workshop will be of 3 hours duration and you will be available to present it on either the morning or the afternoon of Sunday 9th August. Please let me know if that is not the case.

As tutorial teacher you will be responsible for:

Providing a short summary of the workshop topic to be included in the advertising material for COLING/ACL '98 by April 1st. This summary should contain a clear statement of the level of expertise expected of tutorial participants. Production of camera-ready copy for the Tutorial Notes by July 1st 1998 at the latest. The COLING/ACL '98 Organizing Committee will be responsible for the following: Advertising the tutorial as part of the conference (you are of course free to distribute any additional advertising you wish) Setting the registration fee and dealing with registration of participants. Providing the venue for the tutorial and any associated organization. Production of Tutorial Notes from camera-ready copy and their distribution to participants. The Organizing Committee reserves the right to cancel any tutorial if deadlines are missed, or if the number of registered attendees is too low to support the costs related to organizing and running the tutorial. You are encouraged to send a preliminary overview of the tutorial material, or a URL, to Pierre Isabelle <isabelle@IRO.UMontreal.CA> for posting on our web site.

Please contact me if you have any questions or require any other assistance.

Author: Pierre Isabelle, 1998.

Tutorial Notes Format

The tutorial Notes covers are fairly standard and should match past ACL tutorial Notes and also the ACL conference proceedings. The Notes covers should be text only, in the color scheme of the main proceedings.

FRONT COVER

Tutorial of the

2000 Conference

of the Association of Computational Linguistics

Stochastic Modeling

of

Melody, Harmony, and Rhythm

John Lennon

and

Paul McCartney

6 October 2000

Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Hong Kong

SPINE COPY

ACL Tutorial on Stochastic Modeling of Melody, Harmony, and Rhythm

6 October 2000

In 15—18 point type, this fits fine on 1 line. But when the Notes are smaller, there may not be room for any text on the spine, or no date.

BACK COVER

Blank

Author: Eduard Hovy, 2000, from notes by David Yarowsky.

Types of ACL Workshops There are several categories of ACL workshops:

      1.  Workshops associated with conferences and formally sponsored by an ACL SIG. 
      2.  Workshops associated with conferences but not formally sponsored by an ACL SIG. 
      3.  Workshops formally sponsored by an ACL SIG but not associated with an ACL conference. 
      4.  Workshops that are neither formally sponsored by a SIG nor associated with an ACL conference. 

The ACL General Policies on Workshops provides a set of policies that apply in general to all workshops. The ACL Policies on Conference Workshops provides additional policies that govern workshops held in conjunction with ACL conferences. The ACL Policies on SIG Workshops provides additional policies that govern workshops formally sponsored by ACL SIGs, whether or not they are held in conjunction with an ACL conference.

Workshop Chair

The Workshop Chair is responsible for requesting workshop bids, selecting appropriate ones, arranging for their dates, locations, refreshments, presentation and computer requirements, and all other special needs. It is essential that the workshop chair recognize the different kinds of workshops and understand the policies regarding each --- information regarding this can be found in Workshop overview and policies .

The call for workshop proposals should request that workshop chairs ask potential members of their proposed program committees before submitting a workshop proposal. The call for proposals used at recent ACL conferences can be found at recent ACL calls for workshop proposals Before accepting a workshop proposal, the conference workshop chair should check with individual workshop chairs to make sure that the proposed members of the program committee have agreed to serve.

The workshops must be self-financing (at least); profits belong to ACL (an exception is for SIG workshops --- see ACL-policy-on-Sig-workshops).

Sample Calls for Papers for recent ACL workshops from can be found in sample workshop calls for papers.

Proceedings are printed and distributed by the ACL. For formatting (title page, etc.) see workshop-proceedings.