Coling 2008

Manchester, 18-22 August, 2008

The 22nd International Conference on Computational Linguistics

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System Demonstrations: Call for papers

The Coling 2008 Programme Committee invites proposals for demonstrations. This forum will allow developers of implemented software systems and libraries the opportunity to describe the design, development and functionality of their work in an interactive setting. It is also an opportunity to gain feedback from users and exchange ideas.

The committee encourages submission of early or experimental prototypes but will also consider mature systems, particularly those with novel or experimental features.

Areas of Interest

We encourage proposals for the interactive presentation of software systems and libraries related to any area of computational linguistics.
Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

pragmatics, semantics, syntax, grammars and the lexicon;
lexical semantics and ontologies;
word segmentation, tagging and chunking;
parsing, generation and summarization;
paraphrasing and textual entailment;
language models, spoken language recognition and understanding;
linguistic, psychological and mathematical models of language;
information retrieval, question answering, informatio extraction and text mining;
machine learning for natural language;
corpus-based modelling of language, discourse and dialogue;
multilingual processing, machine translation and translation aids;
multimodal and natural language interfaces and dialogue systems;
applications, tools and language resources;
system evaluation.

Demonstration sessions

Each demo will be allocated a session which will overlap a morning/afternoon tea or lunch break for maximum exposure. The interactive presentations will be set up in a room with a (220 volt UK) power supply and a computer screen or data projector for each presentation and a cluster of chairs.

This environment will allow for presenters to communicate with many people at once but still encourage interactive engagement in the presentation. Questions and comments should be strongly encouraged during the presentation.

Presenters will be expected to provide their own laptops and/or other hardware unless otherwise arranged with the demonstration chairs when it is absolutely necessary.

We cannot confirm internet access will be available at this point.

SUBMISSION DETAILS

Demonstration proposals must consist of a detailed 4-page description of the system or library being presented, and a (maximum) 2-page script of the demonstration itself.

System/Library description (4 pages)

The system or library description will be included in a companion volume to the Coling 2008 proceedings. It should be typeset using the standard Coling 2008 guidelines (see below).

The 4 pages should describe the purpose, functionality and applications of the system or library. They should also contain information about the design, implementation, testing and evaluation of system. The description should also compare the work to existing work and highlight the novel functionality/techniques of the system/library.

Demonstration script (2 pages)

The presentation script will not appear with the system description in the companion proceedings.

The presentation script should describe the aim of the presentation, a narrative or script of the presentation itself and a description of any other visual aids to be used during the presentation: live demos, websites, screenshots, diagrams etc. It should also describe how the audience will be able interact during the presentation.

The 2 pages should conclude with a description of any other hardware or software required for the presentation to be provided by the local
organiser. Please remember that we cannot guarantee any other equipment other than the power supply and computer screen.

Submissions will be evaluated on the basis of their relevance to computational linguistics, innovation, scientific contribution,
presentation, and user friendliness, as well as potential logistical constraints.

Submission Style Files

Submissions should follow a two-column format and should not exceed four (4) pages, including references. We strongly recommend the use of the Coling 2008 LaTeX style files or Microsoft Word Style files tailored for this year's conference - available here. A description of the format is also available, in case you are unable to use these style files directly. Papers must conform to the official Coling 2008 style guidelines, and we reserve the right to reject submissions that do not conform to these styles, including font size restrictions.

As reviewing will be blind, the paper should not include the authors' names and affiliations. Furthermore, self-citations and other references (e.g. to projects, corpora, or software) that could reveal the author's identity should be avoided. For example, instead of "We previously showed (Smith, 1991)...", write "Smith previously showed (Smith, 1991)...". Papers that do not conform to these requirements will be rejected without review.

Submission Procedure

The six pages (i.e. the system description and the demonstration script) should be submitted as a single PDF document with the system description coming first. The presentation script should follow and use the same font size and margins. Single column format may be used for the presentation script part if it is more convenient.

Proposals should be submitted by 5 May 2008, to the Coling 2008 Demonstration Chairs using the START Conference Management system. This is the main page for Coling 2008 submissions: there is a selector for "Submission Type:", where you should choose "demonstration".

Submission will be electronic. The only accepted format for submitted papers is Adobe PDF. Authors are responsible for ensuring their PDF documents print correctly, e.g. all of the necessary fonts are embedded in the PDF document.

The papers must be submitted no later than 5 May, 2008 23:59pm GMT. Papers submitted after that time will not be reviewed.

CALENDAR

Submission deadline	5 May
Notification of acceptance	9 June
Camera ready copy due	30 June
Conference dates	18-22 August

Demonstration Chairs

Allan Ramsay (University of Manchester)
Kalina Bontcheva (Sheffield University)