Graduate Student Symposium
May 5th, 2014
Montréal, Québec, Canada
https://sites.google.com/site/caigradstudsymposium/ [10]
Call for Papers
AI 2014, the twenty-seventh Canadian Conference on Artificial Intelligence, invites PhD students to submit single-authored extended abstracts of their thesis for possible inclusion in the AI 2014 Graduate Student Symposium and the AI 2014 proceedings published by Springer. The Symposium provides an opportunity for PhD students to discuss and explore their research interests and career objectives with their peers and with a panel of established researchers in Artificial Intelligence, helping to develop a supportive community of scholars and a spirit of collaborative research.
The symposium will be a one-day pre-conference event, where students of accepted abstracts will be invited to give a presentation on their thesis work before a group of peers as well as a small team of expert AI researchers who would offer a critique of each presentation and provide support, advice, and mentoring. Each student may also be invited to participate in the poster session during the AI 2014 main conference. In addition, a small selection of the best student submissions may be invited to give a short talk during the main conference.
PhD students are invited to submit a 6-page summary of their thesis work from all areas of Artificial Intelligence. It is not expected that submissions will consist of polished work with complete results; moreover, summaries of completed projects will not be accepted. Instead, the weight will be placed on the significance of the work, the proposed ideas or solutions, and the overall presentation. The abstract should clearly state the problem being addressed, the proposed plan of research and the description of the progress to date. To benefit the most from the event, applicants should be in their 2nd or 3rd year of studies and nearly completing their thesis proposal. This year, we encourage students to submit works that are single-authored this to better underline the single-student's work.
All submissions must be written in English. Abstracts may be up to 6 pages in length and must be formatted according to Springer's LNCS style. Please follow the instructions for authors at Springer's website (http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-6-793341-0 [11]). The use of the LaTeX2e style file available at Springer's website is strongly encouraged.
The abstract submission should be accompanied with the following materials:
1. A cover letter stating the student's name, institution, supervisor’s name and email address, program start date, expected graduation date, and 2-5 keywords describing the student's work. It should also include a list of the student's refereed and non-refereed publications and presentations at national and international forums.
2. A letter from the thesis advisor that includes an assessment of the current status of the thesis research, and an expected date for thesis submission. In addition, the advisor should indicate what he or she hopes the student would gain from participation in the symposium.
3. A short (one page or less) statement of what the student expects to gain from presenting and participating in the symposium, as well as what he/she thinks can be his/her contribution to the symposium. For best consideration, this statement must address both of these expectations.
Please combine all materials into one PDF document. For the submission, please go to AI 2014 - Graduate Student Symposium Submission Server at EasyChair and follow the instructions: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=caigss2014 [12].
Each abstract will be reviewed by a mixed team of both student applicants and program committee members. Each student submitting a paper to the Symposium is expected to participate in the reviewing process. Presenting students will be selected based on clarity of the submission, stage of research, and evidence of promise such as published papers or technical reports. Partial financial assistance for travel and accommodations may be available to a limited number of students presenting at the Symposium.
All students are encouraged to attend and participate in the Symposium, whether or not they apply to present their work. All the selected student presenters are expected to actively participate in the full Symposium, as we envision participants gaining as much by interacting with their peers as by having their presentations critiqued by the faculty panel. The symposium will also include an invited talk from a senior faculty member as well as a career panel where AI researchers from both industry and academia will discuss possible career paths for graduating students.
Important Dates
Full paper submission due: January 9 February 3, 2014
Notification of acceptance: February 13th, 2014
Final paper due: February 22nd, 2014
Graduate Student Symposium: May 6th, 2014
