ACL 08: HLT

The 46th Annual meeting of the Association for

Computational Linguistics: Human Language Technologies

June 15-20, 2008, Columbus Ohio

Call for Papers

Deadline for full paper submission - Thursday January 10, 2008
Deadline for short paper submission - Friday March 14, 2008


ACL 08: HLT combines the Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) with the Human Language Technology Conference (HLT) of the North American Chapter of the ACL. The conference covers a broad spectrum of disciplines working towards enabling intelligent systems to interact with humans using natural language, and towards enhancing human-human communication through services such as speech recognition, automatic translation, information retrieval, text summarization, and information extraction. ACL 08: HLT will feature full papers, short papers, posters, demonstrations, and a doctoral consortium, as well as pre- and post-conference tutorials and workshops. The conference is organized by the Association for Computational Linguistics, in cooperation with The North American Chapter of the ACL.

The conference invites the submission of papers on substantial, original, and unpublished research in disciplines that could impact human language processing systems.

Important Dates:

Jan 10, 2008    Full paper submissions due
Feb 28, 2008    Full paper notification of acceptance
Mar 14, 2008    Short paper submissions due
Apr 14, 2008    Short Paper notification of acceptance
Apr 21, 2008    Camera-ready full/short papers due
Jun 15-20, 2008 ACL 08: HLT Conference

Topics of Interest:

Topics include, but are not limited to:

   * Intelligent systems for natural language interaction, including
     o Dialogue systems for collaboration, tutoring and behavioral intervention
     o Embodied conversational agents, virtual humans and human-robot conversation
     o Language-enhanced platforms for interactive narrative and digital entertainment

   * Information retrieval
     o Speech/MT-oriented information retrieval
     o NLP-oriented information retrieval
     o General information retrieval

   * Information retrieval/NLP applications
     o Text Data Mining, Information Extraction, Filtering, Recommendation
     o Question Answering
     o Topic/text classification and clustering
     o Sentiment/attribution/genre analysis

   * Language Generation

   * Summarization

   * Machine Translation and Multilingual processing, including
     o Cross-language information retrieval
     o Machine translation of speech and text
     o Multi-lingual speech recognition and language identification

   * Multimodal representations and processing, including speech and gesture

   * Speech processing
     o Speech recognition
     o Speech generation and synthesis
     o Rich transcription (automatic annotation of information structure and sources in speech)

   * Phonology/Morphology, POS tagging, word segmentation

   * Syntax and Parsing
     o Grammar induction/development
     o Corpus-based parsers and evaluation
     o Mathematical Linguistics, Formal Grammar, and algorithms

   * Semantics
     o lexical semantics
     o formal semantics & logic
     o textual entailment & paraphrasing
     o word sense disambiguation

   * Discourse and Pragmatics

   * Statistical and machine learning techniques for language processing, including
     o Corpus-based language modeling
     o Lexical and knowledge acquisition
     o Formalisms and Metrics

   * Development of language resources, including
     o Lexicons and ontologies
     o Treebanks, proposition banks, and frame banks

   * Evaluation
     o Glass-box evaluation of systems and system components
     o Black-box evaluation of systems in application settings
     o User studies

Submission information:

Full papers: Submissions must describe original, completed, unpublished work. Each submission will be judged chiefly on the strength of the argument it provides in support of its contribution, through e.g., experimental evaluation, theoretical analysis, or critical engagement with HLT. Each submission will be reviewed by at least three program committee members.

Accepted full papers will be given eight pages in the proceedings, and may be presented either as a poster or an oral presentation.  Some research is best suited to a traditional oral presentation, whereas other research would benefit from the more interactive presentation a poster allows.  As an experiment this year, long paper presenters can express a preference to deliver their paper as a poster or an oral presentation. The program and area chairs will attempt to fulfill as many of these preferences as possible, organizational factors permitting. ACL 08: HLT will additionally aim to give poster presentations higher status than usual (by scheduling, physical arrangement, combination with refreshments). The proceedings will not distinguish long papers by presentation format.

The deadline for full papers is January 10, 2008.  Submission will be electronic using the paper submission software available at https://www.softconf.com/acl08/papers.

Short papers: In keeping with the HLT tradition, ACL 08: HLT solicits short papers as well as long papers. The short paper deadline is just three months before the conference to allow authors to bring fresh research and new ideas to the conference. Papers qualifying as short papers can be of one of three types:

  - late-breaking results,
  - smaller-scale work than a long paper, e.g., a new idea or
    a system without a full evaluation,
  - opinion or position papers.

Short papers will be presented in one or more poster sessions, and will be given four pages in the proceedings.  Short papers will be distinguished from full papers in the proceedings.  Each short paper submission will be reviewed by at least two program committee members. The deadline for short papers is March 14, 2008.  Submission will be electronic using the paper submission software available at https://www.softconf.com/acl08/papers.

Format:

Full paper submissions should follow the two-column format of ACL 08: HLT proceedings without exceeding eight (8) pages, including references.  Short paper submissions should follow the two-column format of ACL proceedings, and should not exceed four (4) pages, including references.  As reviewing will be blind, the paper should not include the authors' names and affiliations. Furthermore, self-references that reveal the author's identity, e.g., "We previously showed (Smith, 1991) ...", should be avoided. Instead, use citations such as "Smith previously showed (Smith, 1991) ...". Papers that do not conform to these requirements will be rejected without review.  All submissions must be electronic in PDF.  Please see the conference website for detailed typesetting specifications. Authors are strongly encouraged to use the LaTeX or Microsoft Word style files available on the conference website.

Demonstration, doctoral consortium, student sessions, tutorial, and workshop proposals:

Multiple-submission policy: Papers that have been or will be submitted to other meetings or publications must provide this information at submission time. If ACL08: HLT accepts a paper, authors must notify the program chairs by March 7, 2008 (full papers) or April 21, 2008 (short papers), indicating which meeting they choose for presentation of their work.  ACL08: HLT cannot accept for publication or presentation work that will be (or has been) published elsewhere.  For the short paper submissions to ACL08: HLT, a paper will be considered identical to a long paper (for example, an eight-page paper submitted to ACL) if it does not differ in at least two content pages from the long paper.

General Conference Chair: Kathleen McKeown (Columbia University) acl08chair@ling.osu.edu

Program Co-Chairs:
Johanna D. Moore (University of Edinburgh) J.Moore@ed.ac.uk
Simone Teufel (Cambridge University) sht25@cl.cam.ac.uk
James Allan (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) allan@cs.umass.edu
Sadaoki Furui (Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan) furui@cs.titech.ac.jp

Workshop: Ming Zhou (Microsoft Research China) mingzhou@microsoft.com

Tutorials: Ani Nenkova (Univ of Pennsylvania) nenkova@seas.upenn.edu

Demos: Jimmy Lin (Univ of Maryland) jimmylin@umd.edu

Student Co-Chairs:
Faculty rep: Jan Weibe (Univ of Pittsburgh) weibe@cs.pitt.edu
Student NL: Wolfgang Maier (Univ of Tubingen, Germany) wo.maier@uni-tuebingen.de
Student Speech: Ebru Arisoy arisoye@bme.ogi.edu

Area Chairs:
Jason Baldridge (University of Texas at Austin)
Regina Barzilay (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)
Pushpak Bhattacharayya (Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay)
David Carmel (IBM Research, Israel)
David Chiang (USC/Information Sciences Institute, USA)
Steve Clark (Oxford University, UK)
Hal Daume (University of Utah, USA)
Dina Demner-Fushman  (National Library of Medicine, USA)
Li Deng (Microsoft Research, USA)
Mark Dras (McQuarie University, Australia)
Pascale Fung (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong)
Daniel Gildea (University of Rochester, USA)
John Hansen (University of Texas at Dallas)
Daniel Hardt  (University of Copenhagen, Denmark)
Masato Ishizaki (University of Tokyo, Japan)
Michael Johnston (AT&T Labs Reserach, USA)
Min-Yen Kan (National University of Singapore,Singapore)
Noriko Kando (National Institute of Informatics, Japan)
Emiel Krahmer (Tilburg University, Netherlands)
Elizabeth Liddy (Syracuse University, USA)
Chin-Yew Lin (Microsoft Research Asia, China)
Andrew McCallum  (University of Massachusetts, USA)
Katja Markert (University of Leeds, UK)
Lluis Marquez  (Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Spain)
Raymond Mooney (University of Texas at Austin, USA)
Rashmi Prasad (Univ of Penn, USA)
Helmut Schmid (Univ Stuttgart, Germany)
Sabine Schulte im Walde (Stuttgart University, Germany)
Manfred Stede (Potsdam University, Germany)
Keiichi Tokuda (Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan)
Taro Watanabe (NTT Communication Science Laboratories, Japan)
Janyce Wiebe (University of Pittsburgh, USA)
David Weir (Sussex University, UK)

Local Arrangements:
Chris Brew cbrew@ling.osu.edu
Donna Byron dbyron@cse.osu.edu
Eric Fosler-Lussier fosler@cse.osu.edu
Detmar Meurers dm@ling.osu.edu
Michael White mwhite@ling.osu.edu

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 ACL-08: HLT

Call for Tutorial Proposals

Proposals are invited for the Tutorial Program for the 46th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Human Language Technologies (ACL-08:HLT) to be held in Columbus, Ohio, from June 15 to June 20, 2008. The tutorials will be held on Sunday, June 15, 2008.

Proposals for tutorials on all topics of natural language processing, speech processing and information retrieval are sought. Especially encouraged are tutorials that educate the community about advancements in emerging areas not covered by previous tutorials, as well as tutorials that span multiple areas of human language processing. More information on the tutorial instructor payment policy can be found at http://aclweb.org/aclwiki/index.php?title=Tutorial_teacher_payment_policy

SUBMISSION DETAILS

Proposals for tutorials should contain:

1.      A title and brief description of the tutorial content and its relevance to the ACL community (not more than 2 pages).

2.      A brief outline of the tutorial structure showing that the tutorial's core content can be covered in a three-hour slot (including a coffee break). In exceptional cases six-hour tutorial slots are available as well.

3.      The names, postal addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of the tutorial instructors, including a one-paragraph statement of their research interests and areas of expertise.

4.      A list of previous venues and approximate audience sizes, if the same or a similar tutorial has been given elsewhere; otherwise an estimate of the audience size.

5.      A description of special requirements for technical equipment (e.g., internet access).

Proposals should be submitted by electronic mail, in plain ASCII text no later than January 4, 2008 to tutorials-acl08 "at" lists "dot" seas "dot" upenn "dot" edu

The subject line should be: "ACL-08:HLT TUTORIAL PROPOSAL".

PLEASE NOTE: PROPOSALS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED BY REGULAR MAIL OR FAX

TUTORIAL SPEAKER RESPONSIBILITIES

Accepted tutorial speakers will be notified by February 4, 2008, and must then provide abstracts of their tutorials for inclusion in the conference registration material by February 21, 2008. The description should be in two formats: an ASCII version that can be included in email announcements and published on the conference web site, and a PDF version for inclusion in the electronic proceedings (detailed instructions to follow). Tutorial speakers must provide tutorial materials, at least containing copies of the course slides as well as a bibliography for the material covered in the tutorial, by May 5, 2008. 

IMPORTANT DATES

Submission deadline for tutorial proposals: January 4, 2008
Notification of acceptance: February 4, 2008
Tutorial descriptions due: February 21, 2008
Tutorial course material due: May 5, 2008
Tutorial date: June 15, 2008

TUTORIALS CHAIR Ani Nenkova, University of Pennsylvania, US

TUTORIALS CO-CHAIRS

Eugene Agichtein, Emory University, USA
Marilyn Walker, University of Sheffield, UK 

Please send inquiries concerning ACL-08 tutorials to tutorials-acl08 "at" lists "dot" seas "dot" upenn "dot" edu.

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ACL-08: HLT

Call For Workshop Proposals

The Association for Computational Linguistics invites proposals for workshops to be held in conjunction with the 46th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL-08: HLT), June 15-20, 2008, in Columbus, Ohio, United States. We solicit proposals on any topic of interest to the ACL community. The workshops will be held on June 19 and June 20, 2008 at the main conference venue.

The ACL has a set of policies on workshops. You can find general information on policies regarding attendance, publication, financing, and sponsorship, as well as on specific policies on sponsorship and financial support of SIG workshops, at the following URL: http://www.cis.udel.edu/~carberry/ACL/index-policies.html Your proposal should include a budget, a clear motivation and estimates of numbers of submissions and attendees.

SUBMISSION DETAILS

A workshop proposal submission form is available online at http://www.ling.osu.edu/~djh/acl08/acl08_workshop_proposal_submission_form.txt containing prompts for information that is expected in the proposal.

Proposals for workshops should contain:

1.                  A title and brief description (max. 500 words) of the workshop topic and its motivation.

2.                  A description of target audience and expected number of participants.

3.                  The intended length and format of the workshop (half a day to two days)

4.                  A budget proposal (ACL workshops are expected to be self-financing).

5.                  Dates for paper submission deadline and notification of acceptances

6.                  A list of individuals who have agreed to be part of the workshop program committee if the workshop proposal is accepted.

7.                  Full postal address, phone number, e-mail and fax of the workshop contact person.

8.                  Special requirements (e.g. computer infrastructure or shared tasks)  

Please submit proposals by electronic mail (submission form strongly preferred) as soon as possible, but before December 15 2007, to acl08workshops at ling dot osu dot edu with the subject line: "ACL 2008 WORKSHOP PROPOSAL".

IMPORTANT DATES

December 15, 2007 - Submission deadline for workshop proposals
January 15, 2008 - Notification of acceptance of workshop proposals
March 14, 2008 - Workshop Paper Submission deadline (suggested)
April 21, 2008 - Camera ready deadline to Publications Chair
June 19-20, 2008 - Workshop Dates

WORKSHOP PROGRAM COMMITTEE

Ming Zhou (Chair), Microsoft Research Asia
Chengxiang Zhai (Co-Chair), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Helen Meng (Co-Chair), Chinese University of Hong Kong

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ACL 2010: Call for Bids

The Association for Computational Linguistics invites proposals to host the 48th Annual Meeting of the ACL, to be held in Europe in June or July, 2010.

At this time, we seek draft proposals from prospective bidders. Based on an evaluation of the draft proposals, promising bidders will be asked to provide additional information for the final selection process.

The ACL-2010 Coordinating Committee, made up of executive committee members from the ACL together with its European chapter (EACL), will select the General Chair, Program Committee Co-Chairs and all other chairs for the conference, including Sponsorship Chair, Tutorial Chair, Demo Chair, Publications Chair, and Student Research Workshop Co-Chairs.

Draft proposals should identify a Local Arrangements Chair, who will be responsible for arranging meeting rooms, equipment, security for equipment, refreshments, housing, on-site registration, participant e-mail access, the reception, the banquet, and working with the General Chair and the Coordinating Committee to develop the budget and registration materials.

Instructions

Draft proposals should include information on:

• Location (accessibility; conference venue, e.g., hotel or university; accommodation, e.g., hotels, motels, student housing)
• Proposed dates
• Local Arrangements team (chair/co-chair, committee, volunteer labor, registration handling; describing any experience the team has had in organizing previous conferences)
• Local Computational Linguistics community
• Meeting venues (space for plenary sessions, tutorials, workshops, posters, exhibits, demos and small meetings)
• High speed, all-ports-open, easy-to-use internet access for participants
• Audiovisual equipment
• Catering, including receptions, banquet, and entertainment
• Local sponsorships
• Budget estimates (NB ACL provides a standard spreadsheet for this, and bidders only provide estimates on local items such as cost of the room hire and wifi access; obtain this from Steven Bird, and complete it as part of the submission)

Evaluation

Proposals will be evaluated according to the following criteria (unordered):

• Experience of local arrangements team
• Local CL community support
• Local government and industry support
• Accessibility and attractiveness of proposed site
• Appropriateness of proposed dates
• Adequacy of conference and exhibit facilities for the anticipated number of registrants
• Adequacy of residence accommodations and food services in a range of price categories and close to the conference facilities
• Reasonableness of expected registration fees
• Adequacy of budget projections and expected surplus, and use of ACL's budget spreadsheet
• Geographical and national balance with regard to meetings in the decade prior to 2010: Saarbruecken (Coling 2000), Toulouse (ACL 2001), Budapest (EACL 2003), Geneva (Coling 2004), Barcelona (ACL 2004), Trento (EACL 2006), Prague (ACL 2007), Manchester (Coling 2008), Athens (EACL 2009)

Information about ACL, its policies and the ACL conference handbook may be found at: http://www.aclweb.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=62&Itemid=44.

Successful sample bids for previous conferences may be found at: http://www.aclweb.org/archive/bids.html. If you have any queries about drafting your bid please contact Steven Bird.

Important Dates

June 23, 2007 Call for Bids Posted
February 15, 2008 Draft proposals due
March 14, 2008 Committee provides feedback to bidders
April 18, 2008 Bidders provide any requested information
May 16, 2008 Bid selected

Please send draft proposals to:

Assoc Prof Steven Bird
Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering
University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia
Email: sb@csse.unimelb.edu.au
Phone: +61 3 8344-1361
Fax: +61 3 9348-1184

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