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RecSys 2014: CALL FOR DOCTORAL SYMPOSIUM PAPERS
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8th ACM International Conference on Recommender Systems (RecSys 2014)

October 6-10, 2014, Foster City, Silicon Valley, USA
http://recsys.acm.org/recsys14/
Submission Deadline: April 7th 2014

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CALL FOR PAPERS
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The Recommender Systems 2014 Doctoral Symposium provides an opportunity for doctoral students to explore and develop their research interests under the guidance of a panel of distinguished researchers from both academia and industry. We invite students who feel they would benefit from this kind of feedback on their work to apply for this unique opportunity to share their work with students in a similar situation as well as senior researchers in the field. The strongest candidates will be those who have an idea and an area, and have made some progress, but who are not so far along their research that they can no longer make changes. Typically, this means they will have made or are making their dissertation proposal, but still be at least a year from completion. The feedback from attendees in previous years has been very positive and the Doctoral Symposium has been considered very useful in providing research guidance.

RecSys 2013 Doctoral Symposium Chairs
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- Yi Zhang, University of Santa Cruz, USA
- Shlomo Berkovsky, CSIRO, Australia

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Important Dates
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Submissions deadline: June 2, 2014
Notifications: July 7, 2014
Camera Ready papers due: July 24, 2014

All deadlines refer to 23:59 UTC.

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SYMPOSIUM OBJECTIVES
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The symposium has the following objectives:
1. Provide a supportive setting for feedback on students’ current research and guidance on future research directions.
2. Offer each student comments and fresh perspectives on their work from faculty and students outside their own institution.
3. Promote the development of a supportive community of scholars and a spirit of collaborative research.
4. Contribute to the conference goals through interaction with other researchers and conference events.

Student participants will have their extended abstracts (4 pages) published in the conference proceedings. They will also have the opportunity to present a poster of their work during the poster session at the main conference.
All participants are expected to attend the entire symposium, including a group dinner taking place before the conference (subject to funding). Each student will present their work to the group with substantial time allocated for discussion and questions by participating faculty and other students.
Being accepted into the symposium is an honor, and involves a commitment to giving and receiving thoughtful commentary with an eye towards shaping the field and upcoming participants in the field.

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APPLYING FOR THE DOCTORAL SYMPOSIUM
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Submissions are invited from current graduate students pursuing a PhD project who would benefit from detailed workshop discussions of their doctoral research by a panel of established researchers. Funding for selected applicants may be available to offset some accommodation expenses — please check the ACM RecSys website <www.recsys.acm.org> for updates later on.

Submission materials consist of:
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1. An extended abstract (see below).
2. A curriculum vitae.
3. A one-paragraph statement of expected benefits of participation, including questions for symposium mentors. Submit your contribution to [log in to unmask] Your contribution should be named lastname_ds.pdf, where lastname is your family name. The file must be no larger than 5 Mbytes.

Extended Abstract
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Prepare a four-page extended abstract of your thesis work in the ACM SIG Proceedings Format. The extended abstract will be evaluated with regard to:
1. Originality of the work with respect to current concepts and techniques.
2. Importance of the work with respect to fundamental issues in recommender systems.
3. Rigor and validity of claims, argumentation, methodology, results, and interpretations.
4. Clarity and persuasiveness of expression.
The accepted extended abstracts will be published in the Conference Proceedings and available in the ACM Digital library, where they will remain accessible to thousands of researchers and practitioners worldwide.

Additional factors, such as position within the doctoral process and institutional representation, may be taken into account if the number of applicants is particularly large. Candidates who have a developed idea but who still have time to be influenced will receive the strongest consideration. This means that the candidate will have made a dissertation proposal but still be at least a year away from completion. Participants in the symposium will be selected by the Doctoral Symposium Committee.

Confidentiality
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Confidentiality of submissions is maintained during the review process. All rejected submissions will be kept confidential in perpetuity. All submitted materials for accepted submissions will be kept confidential until the start of the conference (with the exception that the contributions will be made available to the symposium participants one week before the event). Submissions should contain no information or materials that are proprietary at publication time.


Doctoral Symposium Application Checklist
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Well in advance of the deadline:
1. Create your submission materials:
1.1. Write an extended abstract according to the ACM SIG Proceedings Format. The abstract must print to no more than 4 pages.
1.2. Write a curriculum vitae.
1.3. Write a one-paragraph statement of expected benefits of participation.
2. Package all materials into a single PDF file. Name it according to the following convention: lastname_ds.pdf. Submit it to [log in to unmask]
3. Test that your PDF prints correctly and that is it no larger than 5 Mbytes.

Please visit the conference website http://recsys.acm.org/recsys14/
for more information.

Check out the ACM RecSys Wiki at www.recsyswiki.com