2015 Canadian AI Graduate Student Symposium (GSS 2015)

The 28th Canadian Conference on Artificial Intelligence invites PhD and master students to submit extended abstracts of their thesis of up to 4 pages for possible inclusion in the AI-2015 Graduate Student Symposium and the Canadian AI proceedings published by Springer.  Authors of papers that are selected will be asked to provide a 20 minute talk on their work followed by 10 minutes of questions and discussion.

The Symposium provides an opportunity for students to discuss and explore their research interests and career objectives with their peers and with a panel of established researchers in Artificial Intelligence, helping to develop a supportive community of scholars and a spirit of collaborative research.

June 2 will be an exciting day for young researchers, beginning with tutorials that will run from 9:00am to 12:00 noon (please register for these separately).  At 1:00pm the Graduate Student Symposium will begin and run until supper.  One or both of theses meals will be provided.  Following this will be the AI/GI/CRV conference reception, which will host a poster session. All GSS participants are encouraged to present posters of their work at this session.

Sponsors:
caiac     ARTINT_Logo2_c_web_more   cslt_logo_NEW_2010ds

Partial financial assistance for travel and accommodations will be available to students presenting at the Symposium, as funding allows.

Date: Tuesday, June 2.   Time: 1200-1800.
Location:  Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia – Sobey Building, SB255
Submissions: See Call for Papers below
Questions:  See FAQ below OR contact one of the two co-chairs.

Important Dates:
Paper submission deadline revised: January 22, 2015  February 05, 2015
Author notification: Feb 20, 2015
Final papers due: March 1, 2015
Tutorials: Morning of June 2, 2015 [register separately for these]
Graduate Student Symposium: Afternoon of June 2, 2015

Schedule:   ** Full program can be found at here **
1200-1300 – Lunch and Networking
1300-1500 – 4 talks, each of 20 minutes with 10 minutes for Q/A and discussion
1500-1530 – Networking break – Refreshments provided
1530-1730 – 4 talks , each of 20 minutes with 10 minutes for Q/A and discussion
1730-1815 – CAIAC 2014 Masters Thesis Award Winner Talk (20 min) and Q/A and discussion (10 min)

Review Panel of Established AI Researchers:
Nathalie Japkowicz (University of Ottawa)
Robert Mercer (The University of Western Ontario)
Peter van Beek (University of Waterloo)
Vlado Keselj (Dalhousie University)

Program Committee:
Daniel L. Silver (Acadia University), Co-Chair – danny.silver@acadiau.ca
Marina Sokolova (University of Ottawa), Co-Chair – sokolova@uottawa.ca
Cory Butz (University of Regina)
Jocelyne Faddoul (Saint Francis Xavier University)
Nathalie Japkowicz (University of Ottawa)
Vlado Keselj (Dalhousie University)
Svetlana Kiritchenko (National Research Council)
Guy Lapalme (Université de Montréal)
Brad Malin (Vanderbilt University)
Robert Mercer (The University of Western Ontario)
Francois Rivest (Royal Military College of Canada)
Ebrahim Bagheri (Ryerson University)
Malek Mouhoub (University of Regina)
Anna Kazantseva (University of Ottawa)
Colin Cherry (National Research Council Canada)
Aminul Islam (Dalhousie University)
Scott Buffett (National Research Council Canada)
Ziad Kobti (University of Windsor)
Adam Krzyzak (Concordia University)
Peter van Beek (University of Waterloo)

Call for Papers
The 28th Canadian Conference on Artificial Intelligence, invites graduate students to submit summary (abstract) papers of their thesis research for possible inclusion in the AI 2015 Graduate Student Symposium and the AI 2015 proceedings published by Springer Verlag in the LNAI series. The Symposium provides an opportunity for Master’s and PhD students to discuss and explore their research interests and career objectives with their peers and with a panel of established researchers in Artificial Intelligence, helping to develop a supportive community of scholars and a spirit of collaborative research.

The symposium will be an pre-conference event, on June 2 from 12:00-6:00pm, where students of accepted abstracts will be invited to give a presentation on their thesis work before a group of peers as well as a small team of recognized AI researchers who will offer a critique of each presentation and provide support, advice, and mentoring. The top 20 submissions will also be invited to participate a poster session on the evening of June 2 during the AI 2015 main conference reception. This will be a great opportunity to present and discuss your work with others.

Graduate students are invited to submit a 4-page summary of their on-going thesis work from all areas of Artificial Intelligence. All submissions must be written in English. The paper should clearly state the research problem, the proposed solution and approach and the description of the progress to date, including significant results. Program committee members will review each submission. Presenting students will be selected based on clarity of the submission, difficulty of the problem, novelty of the solution, quality of the research, and evidence of promise such as published papers or technical reports.

Papers may be up to 4 pages in length and must be formatted according to Springer’s LNCS style. Please follow the instructions for authors at Springer’s website (http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-6-793341-0). The use of the LaTeX2e style file available at Springer’s website is strongly encouraged.

The paper submission should be accompanied by the following materials:

  • A cover letter stating your name, institution, supervisor’s name and email address, program start date, expected graduation date, and 2-5 keywords describing your work. Also include references to any related refereed and non-refereed publications and presentations.
  • A letter of support from your thesis advisor that includes an assessment of the current status of your thesis research and expected contributions and graduation date.

Please combine all materials into one PDF document and submit by the deadline shown on the main GSS-2015 website. To submit your work, please go to the AI 2015 – Graduate Student Symposium Submission site at EasyChair and follow the instructions: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=gss2015

All students are encouraged to attend and participate in the Symposium, whether or not they apply to present their work. All the selected student presenters are expected to actively participate in the full Symposium, as we envision participants gaining as much by interacting with their peers as by having their presentations critiqued by the faculty panel.

Partial financial assistance for travel and accommodations will be available to students presenting at the Symposium, as funding allows.

FAQ:

Q1:  Do I have to be a graduate student to submit an abstract?
A1:  The first author, or a solo author, has to be a graduate student.   An undergraduate student can be a co-author if he/she has helped with experiments.   Note that the abstract has to be presented by the graduate student.

Q2.  Can I submit an abstract of my completed dissertation?
A2.   The Graduate Student Symposium aims to help students to define and make progress on their thesis.  We accept abstracts that show work in progress – during the period from thesis proposal formulation through to theoretical proofs and empirical studies.

Q3.  Should my supervisor(s) support my GSS submission?
A3.  We expect a one-page support letter from your supervisor(s).   The letter must be sent together (as one PDF) with the 4-page abstract and the student cover letter.  Financially, we are hoping that supervisors are able to support their students.

Q4. Can my supervisor(s) co-author the abstract?
A4.   Supervisor(s)  should be acknowledged somewhere in the abstract by are not to be co-authors. Front page’s footnote or  Acknowledgement before Bibliography are good places to list the name(s).   However, your supervisor(s) cannot co-author the abstract.    The same rule applies to post-doctoral fellows:  we would not accept abstracts co-authored by post-doctoral fellows.

Q5.  We are two graduate students and want to submit one abstract for our two research projects.  Is this OK?
A5.  We encourage you to submit separate abstracts.   If a joint project is better explained via one abstract, then you can try to make the case in your cover letter.

Q6.   I have an abstract accepted by GSS.  Can I have some financial support to attend GSS?
A6.  We encourage you to apply for GSS funding in your cover letter.  Presenting students will compete for (partial) funding of their GSS expenses.  You can also apply for financial support for AI 2015 volunteers.

Q7.   I do not have an abstract accepted by GSS. Can I apply for financial support to attend?
A7.   We are working to keep the cost of attending the GSS a low as possible (see the AI-2015 conference website).  Financial support is designed for students whose abstracts have been accepted.   You can also apply for financial support for AI 2015 volunteers.