COVID-19 impact on IEEE Vis 2020

Update 20 October 2020

Our virtual conference website is live! Join us at https://virtual.ieeevis.org.

You can obtain authentication credentials automatically by registering for the conference.

Update 19 June 2020

Following discussions with IEEE, VEC and the VAST, InfoVIS and SciVIS Steering Committees, we the General Chairs have decided not to host the physical meeting in Salt Lake City this year. Instead the conference will be held in a virtual forum using a video conferencing platform, the details of which are currently being worked out. It is our intention to retain as much of the original conference program as is practical, including paper presentations, keynotes, and poster sessions.

Further details will be provided as soon as possible as we work out how to address each type of session. We look forward to your participation in this exciting new environment and are committed to maintaining the academic value and integrity of the conference. While our publication policy remains unchanged, we view this as an opportunity to expand our horizons!

Update 2 June 2020

Currently, the plan for VIS 2020 is to move forward as scheduled, with the addition of a remote participation component for attendees. The proceedings will be released as usual on IEEE Xplore. The committee will continue monitoring conditions and will provide updates if plans change. Please continue to check our website regularly for further updates. In the meantime, we advise not to book any travel arrangements yet.

Update 19 March 2020

IEEE VIS 2020 is still scheduled to be held as planned in the Fall of 2020. However, we acknowledge that the situation is very dynamic, and we will continue to monitor events and update things accordingly. In particular, we have spent substantial time in the last few days to strike a reasonable balance between providing some immediate relief in terms of time and flexibility for the people already affected by the pandemic and the disruption that will inevitably happen in the following months. This message summarizes the final revision of the papers submission timeline that we have developed in response to the current situation.

For Authors: Although the main conference activities are some time away, we appreciate that some of our community are impacted as they attempt to prepare their paper submissions. We have deliberated on the various issues. In our attempt to balance authors’ considerations with reviewer challenges, review time-table, or challenges in the review process, we have decided to extend the abstract submission deadline to 20 April 2020, and to extend the paper submission deadline to 30 April 2020.

We are aware that these are uncertain times; however, this new deadline is definitive. An extension to 30 April 2020 is the latest we can possibly accommodate without impacting the quality of the review process and respecting the scientific standards of our field: those that are authors on one side of the deadline are more than often reviewers on the other side of the deadline.

The InfoVis, SciVis and VAST Paper Chairs have put together a letter to authors.

For Reviewers, Committee Members, and Volunteers, etc.: We acknowledge that we are living in unprecedented times. Most countries have instituted social distancing policies, and this has, in turn, caused a re-evaluation of people’s commitments and priorities. In the best case, we have volunteers who are healthy but who need to adjust to accommodate new schedules. In other cases, we have to plan for community members dealing with the health impacts of COVID-19. In light of this, we are asking all volunteers to mindfully consider their ability to continue to participate in IEEE VIS 2020. In the past, social pressure was used to persuade us to keep our commitments. However, it is important for us as a community to be mindful and respectful of all who, for various reasons, need to inevitably prioritize other things over their IEEE VIS 2020 commitments. There should be no stigma associated with having to reduce or eliminate your involvement in IEEE VIS during these challenging times. But equally, we see the importance of hope, and so we need to support efforts to continue with the conference and enable the community to participate in and publish research where we can. We will correspondingly work with the various volunteer groups to try to engage more members of the community. If any of us is no longer able to participate, please let the General Chairs (GCs) know. To keep communication channels fast and efficient, the GCs will remain the primary channel for updated information.

The safety and well-being of all conference participants is our main priority. We will continue to monitor official travel advisories related to the COVID-19 and update the event website to keep you informed. We encourage you to check back with us concerning specific travel recommendations as the conference approaches.

This is a great community, and if you need to drop out for a while to prioritize other things, then you should do so with our sincerest best wishes. At the same time, we appreciate the strong response across our community to see IEEE VIS through these challenging times by working together.

If you have any questions or need additional information, please email us for further details: info(at)ieeevis.org