• Call for Doctoral Consortium Papers

The annual SIGIR conference is the major international forum for the presentation of new research results, and the demonstration of new systems and techniques, in the broad field of information retrieval (IR). The 46th ACM SIGIR conference, will run as a hybrid conference – in person in Taiwan, with support for remote participation, from July 23rd to 27th, 2023.

The SIGIR 2023 Doctoral Consortium (DC) provides an opportunity for doctoral students to explore and develop their research interests under the guidance of distinguished researchers from both academia and industry. We invite students to apply for this unique opportunity, which will allow them to share their work with their peers as well as with senior researchers in the field. The DC is particularly suited for candidates who have made some research progress, but who are not so far along that they can no longer make changes in their research plans. Typically, this means that they have defined their topic and have completed some research, but still have at least a year of research remaining before completing a dissertation (in many universities this corresponds to the dissertation proposal stage).

The objectives of the Doctoral Consortium are:

    • To provide a forum where doctoral students can present and discuss their research with experienced IR researchers: the members of the Doctoral Consortium Program Committee.
    • To provide students with an opportunity to establish a supportive community, including other doctoral students at a similar stage of their dissertation research.
    • Contribute to the conference goals through interaction with other researchers and conference events.

Student participants will have their extended abstracts published in the conference proceedings.

Important Dates

Time zone: Anywhere on Earth(AoE)
DC papers due: March 2, 2023
DC papers notification: March 30, 2023
DC camera-ready submission of invited extended abstract: Apr 26, 2023

Consortium Format and Participation Expectations

The DC will take place the day before the main conference (on Sunday, July 23rd, 2023). We anticipate student presentations with plenary discussions, individual 1:1 meetings with experienced researchers, and interactive networking sessions. Nevertheless, due to the hybrid nature of the SIGIR 2023 conference, the final format is subject to change to effectively accommodate remote presentations and 1:1 mentoring meetings.

To apply to participate in the DC, doctoral students should submit a paper of 4 to 6 pages (excluding references) along with a 1-page appendix (for details please see the submission guidelines below).

Candidates will be selected based on the potential of their research for future impact on the field of information retrieval, as well as for the likely benefit to the student from participating in the DC. Note that SIGIR 2023 DC is deeply committed to improving the field of IR by making it more diverse, equitable, and inclusive. We highly encourage women and students from other underrepresented groups to apply.

A high level overview of the work proposed by students accepted to the DC will be included in the SIGIR 2023 conference proceedings. Details of said overview will be shared with camera-ready instructions upon acceptance.

Doctoral students who submit to the DC are allowed to have previously published their research and are encouraged to submit their work to the different SIGIR 2023 tracks and associated workshops.

Priority is given to students chosen to attend the DC when travel grants are determined for the conference. Application details for travel grants will be available on the SIGIR 2023 website (you must apply for the grant to be considered).

Submission Guidelines

The submitted paper, solely authored by the student, will be the basis for selection to participate in the DC and subsequent detailed discussions at the DC. Therefore, the submitted paper should include:

    • Motivation for the proposed research.
    • Background and related work (including key references).
    • Description of the proposed research, including main research questions.
    • Research methodology and proposed experiments (where appropriate).
    • Specific research issues for discussion at the DC.

In addition, the paper should include a 1-page appendix (placed after the references) with:

    • A detailed statement by the student explaining why they want to participate in the SIGIR 2023 DC at this point in their doctoral studies, and how they hope it will contribute to the development of their work and potential future career.
    • A statement by the student’s advisor/supervisor saying how the student would benefit by attending the DC. Advisors should also specifically state whether the student has written, or is close to completing, a thesis proposal (or equivalent), and when they expect the student would defend their dissertation if they progress at a typical rate.

Format Requirements

Doctoral students should submit their papers for review in a single-column format. Instructions for Word and LaTeX authors are given below:

    • Microsoft Word: Write your paper using the Submission Template (Review Submission Format). Follow the embedded instructions to apply the paragraph styles
      to your various text elements. The text is in single-column format at this stage and no additional formatting is required at this point.
    • LaTeX: Please use the latest version of the Primary Article Template – LaTeX to create your submission. You must use the “manuscript” option with the \documentclass[manuscript]{acmart} command to generate the output in a single-column format which is required for review. Please see the LaTeX documentation and ACM’s LaTeX best practices guide for further instructions. To ensure 100% compatibility with The ACM Publishing System (TAPS), please restrict the use of packages to the whitelist of approved LaTeX packages.

The paper should be 4 to 6 pages in length (excluding references). The appendix does not count toward page limitations.

The first page must contain the title of the paper, full author name, affiliation and contact details, an abstract of up to 250 words, ACM Computing Classification System (CCS) categories, and up to 3 keywords describing the topic areas. Information about categories and keywords can be found on ACM Web pages on the computing classification system.

It is the responsibility of the student to ensure that their submissions use no unusual format features and are printable on a standard printer. Submissions will be reviewed by the members of the DC Program Committee.

Authors are strongly encouraged to provide “alt text” (alternative text) for floats (images, tables, etc.) in their content so that readers with disabilities can be given descriptive
information for these floats that are important to the work. The descriptive text will be displayed in place of a float if the float cannot be loaded. This benefits the author as well as it broadens the reader base for the author’s work. Moreover, the alt text provides in-depth float descriptions to search engine crawlers, which helps to properly index these floats. Additionally, authors should follow the ACM Accessibility Recommendations for Publishing in Color and SIG ACCESS guidelines on describing figures.

DC submissions should be submitted in PDF through the EasyChair system (Doctoral Consortium track): https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=sigir23

Review Process and Selection Criteria

Confidentiality of submissions is maintained during the review process. All rejected submissions will be kept confidential in perpetuity. Submissions should contain no information or materials that are proprietary at publication time.

Doctoral student papers will be evaluated by the DC Program Committee based on:

    1. Originality of the work with respect to current concepts and techniques (provide relevant citations).
    2. Importance of the work with respect to fundamental issues in information retrieval (clearly identify the problems you are trying to solve).
    3. Rigor and validity of claims, argumentation, methodology, results, and interpretations.
    4. Clarity and persuasiveness of expression.

To provide maximum feedback to each student, participation in the DC is limited. Selection is based on three broad criteria:

    • The degree to which the applicant is positioned to benefit from participation, including the student’s position in the doctoral process (the greatest benefit is for students with a developed research idea but much of the work yet undone).
    • The degree to which the student may otherwise lack access to a diverse set of feedback and input on their research plans (e.g., availability of local experts and advisors).
    • Diversity of participation, including diversity by institution, country, research topic and approach, and demographics. In general, we might limit participation to one or two students per institution, depending on the number of applicants.

Doctoral Consortium Chairs

    • Debasis Ganguly, University of Glasgow
    • Sole Pera, TU Delft

Contact

For further information, please contact the SIGIR 2023 DC Co-chairs by email to sigir23-dc@easychair.org