ACM SIGIR 2018
The 41st International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval

July 8-12, 2018.   Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A.

Call for Demonstrations

SIGIR is the major international forum for the presentation of new research results and for the demonstration of new systems and techniques in the broad field of Information Retrieval (IR). SIGIR 2018 will be held in Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A. from 8-12 July 2018. The Conference and Program Chairs cordially invite all those working in areas related to IR to submit original proposals for demonstrations.

Demonstrations present first-hand experience with research prototypes or operational systems. They provide opportunities to exchange ideas gained from implementing IR systems, and to obtain feedback from expert users. Accepted demonstration submissions will appear in the conference proceedings.

A good demonstration submission should be interesting to a SIGIR audience and should show a novel solution to a problem. The demonstration submission should address the following questions: Who is your target user? Why does your system exist and why is it important? What does your demonstration do and how does it work? What does it look like? How does it compare with existing systems? Finally, how and when might your technology have an impact, either technically or commercially?

To help the reviewers and the readers of your demonstration paper intuitively and fully understand your system, it is probably a good idea to include images, screen captures, and other visual presentations in the submission. We therefore extend the old SIGIR demo paper page limit from 2 to 4 to encourage you to add more visual cues in your submission.

Scope
Demonstration submissions are welcome in any of the areas related to any aspects of IR, as identified in the Call for Full Papers for SIGIR 2018.

Submission guidelines
Submissions of demonstration papers must be in English and can be up to 4 pages in SIGIR format (including references and figures). The first 2 pages are expected to describe your system. The third and fourth pages are expected to be used for diagrams, images, references, and demo requirements. You should expect wireless network access, along with a table and poster mount backdrop, will be provided for all accepted demonstrations. We cannot guarantee additional technical or practical requests. Upon acceptance, all pages will be published in the SIGIR proceedings.

Suitable LaTeX and Word templates for SIGIR are available from the ACM Website (use the 2017 ACM Master Article Template. LaTex users should use the standard ‘sigconf’ proceedings template). It is the responsibility of the authors to ensure that the PDF submission has been uploaded successfully. We suggest downloading the PDF after submission to check it is ok. Papers should be submitted electronically via the EasyChair SIGIR2018 demo paper submission site. At least one author of each accepted demonstration must register and attend the conference. Unlike short and full-paper submissions, authors of demonstration submissions are not expected to take measures to conceal their identity from reviewers. Submissions that are over the 4-page
limit and incomplete submissions will be rejected without review. Authors should also go through ACM’s authorship policy before making a submission.  Authors should note that changes to the author list after the submission deadline are not allowed without permission from the PC Chairs. At least one author of each accepted paper is required to register for, attend, and present the work at the conference in order for the paper to appear in the conference proceedings in the ACM Digital Library.

Important Dates (Timezone: Anywhere on Earth)
February 12, 2018 Demo papers due
April 11, 2018 Demo papers notification
May 2, 2018 Camera-ready deadline for accepted demo papers
July 8-12, 2018 ACM SIGIR 2018, Main Conference

Demo Chairs
Grace Hui Yang (Georgetown University)
Yue Wang (University of Michigan)

Please email inquiries to: sigir2018-demos@umich.edu