2012 WSDM Doctoral Consortium Call for Participation

The inaugural WSDM 2012 Doctoral Consortium will provide doctoral students with a unique opportunity to have substantive interaction with other researchers regarding their proposed dissertation research.

The objectives of the Doctoral Consortium are:

  • To provide a forum where doctoral students can present and discuss their research with experienced Web, Search and Data Mining researchers who are members of the Doctoral Consortium Committee.
  • To provide students with an opportunity to establish and contribute to a supportive community, including other doctoral students at a similar stage of their dissertation research.

The Consortium will take place on Wed Feb 8, the same day as the Tutorials. The format will include student presentations with plenary discussions, individual meetings with experienced researchers, and discussions over lunch and breaks.

Prospective attendees should have written, or be close to completing, a thesis proposal (or equivalent). It is desirable that the student not be so close to completion that the event would have little impact on their work. Before submitting, students should discuss this criterion with their advisor.

Candidates for the Doctoral Consortium will be selected based on the potential of their research for future impact on the field of Web Search and Data Mining and the likely benefit to the student of participating in the Consortium.

This selection will be based in part on a written paper, singly authored by the student. For students who are selected to participate in the Consortium, a two-page extended abstract will be published in the WSDM Conference Proceedings.

Doctoral students who submit to the Consortium are permitted to have previously published on their research, and are encouraged to submit papers or posters to WSDM and associated workshops.

Submission Guidelines

The submitted paper (up to five pages) will be the basis for detailed discussions at the Consortium. It should include:

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

In addition, a one-page appendix to the paper describing benefits that would be obtained by attending the Consortium. It should include:

  • A statement by the student saying why they want to attend the Consortium.
  • A statement by their advisor saying how the student would benefit by attending the Consortium. 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

Submissions must be written in English and submitted in the ACM Conference style (for LaTeX, use the "Option 2" style). The paper should be no more than 5 pages in length including all figures and references, but not including the one page appendix. 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 Reviews categories, and up to 3 keywords describing the topic areas. Information about categories and keywords can be found in ACM Web pages on the computing classification system and in the LaTeX and Word templates.

Note: The full Doctoral Consortium submissions will not be published in the WSDM Conference Proceedings. However two-page extended abstracts will be published for all accepted submissions.

Consortium submissions must be in PDF format and submitted using the EasyChair system: http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=wsdm2012dc

Submissions will be reviewed by the members of the Doctoral Consortium Committee.

Questions can be addressed to: wsdm2012dc@easychair.org

Important Dates

  • Sep 16, 2011 - Doctoral Consortium submissions due
  • Oct 26, 2011 - Notification of decisions
  • Dec 7, 2011 - Camera ready deadline
  • Feb 8, 2012 - Doctoral Consortium at WSDM 2012 (Seattle)

Doctoral Consortium Co-Chairs

Brian D. Davison, Lehigh University (USA)
Susan T. Dumais, Microsoft Research (USA)

Doctoral Consortium Committee/Mentors

In preparation