2017Q3 Reports: Student Research Workshop Chairs

Student Research Workshop, ACL 2017

Allyson Ettinger on behalf of the SRW organizers :
Spandana Gella, University of Edinburgh
Allyson Ettinger, University of Maryland, College Park
Matthieu Labeau, Laboratoire d’Informatique pour la Mécanique et les Sciences de l’Ingénieur (LIMSI)
and faculty advisors:
Cecilia Ovesdotter Alm, Rochester Institute of Technology
Mark Dredze, Johns Hopkins University
Marine Carpuat, University of Maryland, College Park

Information about the Student Research Workshop (SRW) for ACL 2017 has been posted at the following URL: https://sites.google.com/site/aclsrw2017 . The deadlines were the following:

Pre-submission mentoring deadline: February 15th, 2017 Pre-submission mentoring feedback: March 7th, 2017 Paper submission deadline: April 24th 2017 (shifted back from April 21st) Acceptance notification: May 18th, 2017 (shifted back from May 12th) Camera-ready deadline: May 26th, 2017 (shifted back from May 24th) Travel grant application deadline: June 20th, 2017 Travel grant notification: June 23rd, 2017

The SRW CfP was distributed to the following lists: ACL member portal, LINGUIST List, MT-list, Ln, comp.ai.nat-lang, Corpora, SigIR, FIRE-List.

We recruited 66 program committee members, from whom we recruited 22 pre-submission mentors, who provided feedback to student authors prior to submission. We received in total 59 submissions; after withdrawals, the program committee reviewed 15 thesis proposals and 41 research papers. We accepted 23 papers (7 thesis proposals and 16 research papers), for an overall acceptance rate of 39%.

Accepted papers were each assigned one post-acceptance mentor, recruited first from the program committee, and then from the broader ACL community (post-acceptance mentors need to be in attendance at the workshop). We are finalizing that assignment process now.

The SRW was awarded a grant of $15,000 by the National Science Foundation (NSF Award Number 1714855: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1714855&HistoricalAwards=false ) and $10,000 from the Don and Betty Walker International Student Fund.

We received a large number of submissions for travel grants: 21 from the Student Research Workshop authors, and 154 from additional students seeking to attend the main conference and affiliated workshops. Of those, we considered those made by first authors presenting their work at the SRW or main conference, of which there were 19 and 57 respectively. To select awardees among SRW applicants, we focused on partial funding for students who needed only a small additional amount to complete their funding, and diversity in geographical background and representation of different educational levels. For main conference applicants, we first chose among authors of outstanding papers, and tried to prioritize students from smaller institutions. It was also necessary to allocate funds such that NSF funds were awarded only to students based at US institutions. For each awardee, we recommended enough to afford (or complete other funding on) registration, accommodation and at least 75% of airfare. Among the awardees we recommended, 12 are participating in the SRW and 5 in the main conference. Funds were also awarded to 2 co-chairs, on the recommendation of the co-advisors. Eight of the SRW awardees will receive funds from the US National Science Foundation, while the others will receive their funding from the Don and Betty Walker Scholarship.

Two students from India have reported that they are unable to attend the conference because of inability to obtain a visa, and at least two other students, also from India, have expressed concerns that they may not successfully obtain a visa to attend. We have given such students the option of sending their printed posters to the conference venue for us to hang at the session on their behalf, and we are encouraging their mentors to provide feedback remotely. We are telling these students that their submissions can still be included in the proceedings as long as at least one author is registered for the conference (at the recommendation of the ACL General Chair).

The SRW will be integrated into the main ACL conference during an evening poster session on Monday, July 31st.

Below we provide links to forms that we used for funding applications and mentor recruitment.

SRW travel funding application https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1BqwwDxSo2CMs_wo4u3L2KUw35djCJaA7el_TRQen8zM/edit General funding application https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1y4EYbqxYU3t7wN4vSUwTbrKK7fdoo1pM1RUxuFfL4Fc/edit Initial mentorship form https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1G7ZMvrTI-AQnO7qiDNKffDnoFbIoUdy09l43sZHA2Y0/edit Post-acceptance mentorship form https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1EnQhcTc0sXQcQe1xfy6wPNxJDY2l_PCuqcboJQd37u4/edit