The organizing committee of ESANN 2024 is looking for suggestions and proposals to organize special sessions during the conference. You will find below details on what are special sessions, who can organize them, how to organize them, what are the advantages for special session organizers, the deadlines, and how to submit your proposal.
A "special session" is a session that focuses on a particular topic in the machine learning or artificial neural networks fields. It is organized by a renowned scientist who solicits (but does not "invite") potential contributors. During the conference, the session begins with an introduction (or tutorial) to the session topic by the session organizer, making it easier for the participants to follow the subsequent talks.
Who can organize special sessions ?
Any scientist in the machine learning field is welcome to submit his/her proposal to organize a special session. He/she should first check is he/she is able to contact enough potential contributors in order to organize a sound session. Special sessions are preferably organized by teams of two or three scientists.
How to organize special sessions ?
We see the role of a session organizer as follows:
- to contact about 10 potential authors among specialists in the field and to ask them to submit a paper to the conference (at least 7-8 submissions are expected);
- to publicize the call for papers of the special sessions through specific distribution lists (in addition to the standard lists used for all ESANN sessions,, such as ML-news, connectionists, ...)
- to organize the review procedure and make sure that each paper is evaluated by 3 independent reviewers; the session organizers have the responsibility to find reviewers who are not ESANN TPC members;
- according to the reviews, to decide the final contents of the session, in agreement with the program committee;
- to chair the session during the conference;
- to present a short tutorial (typically 20 minutes) at the beginning of the session. This tutorial should both introduce the topic to non-specialists, and make the link between the state-of-the-art and the papers presented in the session;
- to write a paper for the proceedings, with the contents of the tutorial.
Please note that part of the work for special session organizers (selecting reviewers and taking decisions once the reviews are received) will probably have to be done respectively end of May and in June). This means that we are counting on the efficient participation from special session organizers during these periods.
The following aspects must be taken into account:
- The session can include oral and poster presentations. Posters presentations are introduced by a 1-minute spotlight during the oral session. There should be between 3 and 5 oral presentations during the session (including the introduction/tutorial), and between 0 and 6 posters.
- Soliciting contributors does not mean that their contributions are automatically accepted. Solicited contributions are submitted to a review process and will be rated according to their scientific value. This must be clearly explained by the session organizer when he/she first contacts the potential contributors.
- Soliciting contributors does not mean too that these contributors are invited to the conference. in case of acceptation of their submission, they will have to register to the conference and pay the registration fee, as any other speaker. This must be clearly explained too by the session organizer when he/she first contacts the potential contributors.
What are the advantages for special session organizers ?
- Session organizers benefit from a 50% reduction on their own registration fees (discount limited to one organizer per session, and only applicable to registrations that do not cover any other paper than the introduction/tutorial paper). Travel and subsistence expenses must be taken in charge by the session organizers.
- The tutorial/introductory paper in the ESANN proceedings is limited to 10 pages instead of 6 pages.
How to submit a proposal to organize a special session ?
Please send as soon as possible, and no later than 8 December 2023 a letter of intention by e-mail to the conference secretariat with
- the title of the session
- a brief description of the session (+- 10 lines, draft of the text that will be later published on the ESANN website)
- the affiliation, address, and e-mail address of all organizers
- a short description of your expertise in the field of the session (or a link to your personal Web page where this information can be found) and in managing review processes.
Please note that this is a letter of intention only; it is not yet a commitment on either side. We will rapidly contact you again for details. However, we need to decide before mid-December if we already have a sufficient number of good proposals for special sessions without sending a more public call, or we choose to send a public call on mailing lists and blogs. This is the goal of the letter of intention that we ask you to send as soon as possible, and in any case before 8 December 2023.