Call for Workshop proposals

We solicit workshops related to all areas of visualization including visual analytics, information visualization, and scientific visualization. The workshops venue at IEEE VIS provides an informal setting for participants to discuss advanced topics in visualization, involve experts in the field, disseminate work in progress, and promote new ideas. Workshops at IEEE VIS are open to all registered attendees and “invitation only” workshops will not be approved.

Workshops should:

• emphasize emerging ideas, concepts, or technologies that are currently too nascent or too interdisciplinary for a full symposium; or

• bring together experts on a subject to create a report, white-paper, or proposal requiring interactive work sessions that is of potential interest to a substantial segment of the visualization community.

A distinction that separates workshops from tutorials and symposia is that the information flow for a workshop should not be directed solely from the presenters to the audience. Rather, workshops should engage the participation of all attendees. We especially encourage non-standard workshop formats, such as collective discussions of emerging or persisting problems and development of research agendas, networking for finding common interests and possibilities for cooperation, interaction with domain experts involving analysis of their domain problems and discussion of possible visualization-based approaches, contests on solving specific visualization problems, and various other.

In choosing workshop topics, please note that the following workshops are pre-approved, to avoid large overlaps:

• BELIV: Evaluation and Beyond - Methodological Approaches for Visualization
• BioVis Challenges
• VAST Challenge

Submission requirements

Workshop proposals should include:

• a title,
• the contact details of the organizers,
• a brief description of the organizers’ background, related publications, and research,
• the goals, the technical scope, the mission, and the proposed focus,
• the planned activities, including the schedule during the session,
• a statement of the organization and the development of the list of participants (intended size, detailed selection procedures and timeline for finalizing workshop presenters),
• the intended result and impact of the workshop,
• the plan for publication (see the classes listed below),
• the number of poster slots requested, if the workshop intends to feature posters,
• the proposed dates for the call for participation, author notification, and camera-ready deadlines (author notification must be prior to the early registration deadline of September 7, 2018; for inclusion of materials on the USB stick the camera-ready deadline must be prior to August 25, 2018).

Because the number of workshop time slots is limited, half-day workshop proposals are strongly encouraged. However, well-justified full-day proposals will also be considered. Full-day proposals may optionally state what changes would be implemented to allow the workshop schedule to fit within a half day.

If the proposed workshop is a follow-up of a previous workshop, please include a discussion of the results and the impact of any previous workshops.

The proposal should not exceed four pages. Please visit http://junctionpublishing.org/vgtc/Tasks/camera.html for details and submit via PCS.

Publication strategy

Workshop organizers should make a decision concerning the publication of papers or position statements, if these are foreseen according to the planned workshop format. The proposal should state explicitly whether and how the papers will be published. The following are examples of common publication strategies:

• Regular publication (similar to small conferences):
  • papers are available online at a central digital library (with DOI) or proceedings published in a different way
  • papers are on the conference USB stick
  • papers are considered archival

  Re-use of the content in a follow-up publication is only allowed in a proper journal (no conference special issue) as an extended version provided that the original paper is extended by at least 30% (of course, subject to the rules of the given journal as well). Example: BELIV workshop series.

• Short position statements / work in progress notes (similar to posters):
  • papers may or may not be available at a central digital library (with DOI); proceedings could also be published in a different way
  • papers may be available on the workshop’s webpage
  • papers may or may not be on the conference USB stick
  • papers are not considered archival but could be cited

  Re-use of the content in a follow-up publication is fully allowed, also in form of conference papers. Example: Death of the Desktop workshop 2014.

• Semi-public notes:
  • papers are not available at a central digital library
  • papers may be available on the workshop’s webpage
  • papers may or may not be on the conference USB stick
  • papers are not considered archival but could be cited

  Re-use of the content in a follow-up publication is fully allowed, also in form of conference papers.

• Notes only for use at the workshop:
  • papers are not available online at a central location
  • papers are not on the conference USB stick
  • papers are not considered archival and should not be cited

  Re-use of the content in a follow-up publication is fully allowed, also in form of conference papers.

Evaluation criteria

The aim of workshops is to include a variety of topics and a healthy mix of new and recurring events. Repeat submissions will be judged in part by the success of the previous workshop. Workshop success will be judged subjectively, but popularity, research impact, visibility, and attendee feedback will all be taken into account. Specifically, the workshop proposals will be evaluated according to the following criteria:

• the potential for inspiring people, being influential, and opening new lines of research,
• the ability to attract people and make them excited about the workshop,
• the appropriateness with respect to IEEE VIS topics,
• the coherence of the proposed topic,
• if this workshop is a repeat submission, its previous success,
• if this workshop has special needs, the feasibility of the proposed plan including financial, logistics, scheduling, and coordination impact.

In addition, the workshop chairs will try to balance the proposed topics in order to support the diversity of topics within the IEEE VIS venue and complement the main program of the conference. Organizers should consider what steps they will take to encourage a diversity of participants in their workshop (e.g. a balance of experience, background, gender, etc.) with the aim of making participation as inclusive as possible.

Accepted workshops are required to prepare a short summary (~50 words) for the printed program; a longer summary of ~90 words may be submitted for the web program, or the short one will be reused.

Workshop Support

The workshop organizers will receive the following support from the VIS conference:

• one complimentary 1-day registration for an invited speaker,
• room and AV support suitable for up to 100 attendees,
• food and beverages for attendees: coffee breaks throughout the day, Sunday evening opening reception, space in the poster display area, if requested (from limited pool set aside for standard workshops; available space depends on the specifics of the venue; early requests given priority over late requests),
• PCS (Precision Conference Solutions) support for managing submissions and the review process,
• inclusion of the workshop materials or proceedings on the USB stick for dissemination to attendees of the conference, if requested (materials must be provided by August 25, 2018)
• IEEE Xplore Digital Library publication of the workshop proceedings, if requested.

If the requirements of the workshop exceed this default support, the workshop organizers are expected to coordinate with the workshop chairs and possibly raise funds to support the workshop activities. Fundraising plans must be discussed with the workshop and supporters chairs prior to contacting any potential funder. For more information, see the guidelines for Financial and Coordination Policies for IEEE VIS.

IMPORTANT DATES

All deadlines are at 5:00pm Pacific Time (PDT).

Workshop Chairs

• Natalia Andrienko, Fraunhofer Institute IAIS and City, University of London (VAST)
• Jo Wood, City, University of London (InfoVis)
• Peter Lindstrom, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (SciVis)