*** Apologies for multiple postings ***

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RecSys 2015: CALL FOR DOCTORAL SYMPOSIUM PAPERS
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9th ACM International Conference on Recommender Systems (RecSys 2015)

September 16-20, 2015, Vienna, Austria
http://recsys.acm.org/recsys15/

Submission Deadline: May 15, 2015

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The Recommender Systems 2015 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.

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 (Sep.15th). 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 research area.

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Proposal Format and Submission
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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 here for updates later on.

Submissions should include the following:

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.

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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.

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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.

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APPLICATION CHECKLIST
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Well in advance of the deadline:

1. Create your submission materials:
- Write an extended abstract according to the ACM SIG Proceedings 
Format. The abstract must print to no more than 4 pages.
- Write a curriculum vitae.
- 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.

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Important Dates
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Paper Submission: May 15th, 2015
Notification: June 24th, 2015
Camera-ready papers due: July 16th, 2015

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Doctoral Symposium Chairs
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- Gedas Adomavicius, University of Minnesota, USA
- Dietmar Jannach, TU Dortmund, Germany