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Conference Officer

2017-10-08T22:58:19Z

YejinChoi:

The conference officer is an at-large executive member position focusing on development, coordination, and management of conference initiatives.

==Term==

The position was inaugurated in 2012. The term runs for three calendar years and is renewed at every third year from 2012. The term runs on the same cycle as the other two at-large positions.

==Duties==

The primary role of the conference officer is integration of the different ACL-wide activities related to conference organization and management, for example, coordinating the timeline across different conferences, improving current practices and policies of paper reviewing and selection, working with the SoftConf support team to improve conference management systems, and promoting activities that support the diversity and equity of the ACL community.

More specifically, the duties of the conference officer include:

* Working with conference organizing committees to develop and promote initiatives that aim to improve the scientific, technical, and educational impact of the ACL conference activities.
* Working with conference organizing committees to develop and promote initiatives that aim to improve the diversity and equity of the ACL community members at all levels of participation.
* Maintaining consistency across conferences by coordinating conference organizations and sharing experiences across different conferences.
* Maintaining updated and accessible conference guidelines.
* Reporting to the ACL Executive Committee on conference developments.
* Attending biannual ACL exec meetings. The summer meeting takes place at the ACL conference, typically one day before the main conference begins. The winter meeting is based on teleconferencing.

==Current and Past IO Officers==

* Yejin Choi (University of Washington, USA) - 2015-2017
* Jian Su (Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R), Singapor) - 2012-2014

Conference Officer

2017-10-08T22:57:56Z

YejinChoi:

The conference officer is an at-large executive member position focusing on development, coordination, and management of conference initiatives.

==Term==

The position was inaugurated in 2012. The term runs for three calendar years and is renewed at every third year from 2012. The term runs on the same cycle as the other two at-large positions.

==Duties==

The primary role of the conference officer is integration of the different ACL-wide activities related to conference organization and management, for example, coordinating the timeline across different conferences, improving current practices and policies of paper reviewing and selection, working with the SoftConf support team to improve conference management systems, and promoting activities that support diversity and equity of the ACL community.

More specifically, the duties of the conference officer include:

* Working with conference organizing committees to develop and promote initiatives that aim to improve the scientific, technical, and educational impact of the ACL conference activities.
* Working with conference organizing committees to develop and promote initiatives that aim to improve diversity and equity of the ACL community members at all levels of participation.
* Maintaining consistency across conferences by coordinating conference organizations and sharing experiences across different conferences.
* Maintaining updated and accessible conference guidelines.
* Reporting to the ACL Executive Committee on conference developments.
* Attending biannual ACL exec meetings. The summer meeting takes place at the ACL conference, typically one day before the main conference begins. The winter meeting is based on teleconferencing.

==Current and Past IO Officers==

* Yejin Choi (University of Washington, USA) - 2015-2017
* Jian Su (Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R), Singapor) - 2012-2014

Conference Officer

2017-10-08T22:56:56Z

YejinChoi:

The conference officer is an at-large executive member position focusing on development, coordination, and management of conference initiatives.

==Term==

The position was inaugurated in 2012. The term runs for three calendar years and is renewed at every third year from 2012. The term runs on the same cycle as the other two at-large positions.

==Duties==

The primary role of the conference officer is integration of the different ACL-wide activities related to conference organization and management, for example, coordinating the timeline across different conferences, improving current practices and policies of paper reviewing and selection, working with the SoftConf support team to improve conference management systems, and promoting activities that support diversity and equity of the ACL community.

More specifically, the duties of the conference officer include:

* Working closely with conference organizing committees to develop and promote initiatives that aim to improve the scientific, technical, and educational impact of the ACL conference activities.
* Maintaining consistency across conferences by coordinating conference organizations and sharing experiences across different conferences.
* Developing and promoting activities that aim to improve diversity and equity of the ACL community members at all levels of participation.
* Maintaining updated and accessible conference guidelines.
* Reporting to the ACL Executive Committee on conference developments.
* Attending biannual ACL exec meetings. The summer meeting takes place at the ACL conference, typically one day before the main conference begins. The winter meeting is based on teleconferencing.

==Current and Past IO Officers==

* Yejin Choi (University of Washington, USA) - 2015-2017
* Jian Su (Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R), Singapor) - 2012-2014

Conference Officer

2017-10-08T22:56:36Z

YejinChoi:

The conference officer is an at-large executive member position focusing on development, coordination, and management of conference initiatives.

==Term==

The position was inaugurated in 2012. The term runs for three calendar years and is renewed at every third year from 2012. The term runs on the same cycle as the other two at-large positions.

==Duties==

The primary role of the conference officer is integration of the different ACL-wide activities related to conference organization and management, for example, coordinating the timeline across different conferences, improving current practices and policies of paper reviews and selection, working with the SoftConf support team to improve conference management systems, and promoting activities that support diversity and equity of the ACL community.

More specifically, the duties of the conference officer include:

* Working closely with conference organizing committees to develop and promote initiatives that aim to improve the scientific, technical, and educational impact of the ACL conference activities.
* Maintaining consistency across conferences by coordinating conference organizations and sharing experiences across different conferences.
* Developing and promoting activities that aim to improve diversity and equity of the ACL community members at all levels of participation.
* Maintaining updated and accessible conference guidelines.
* Reporting to the ACL Executive Committee on conference developments.
* Attending biannual ACL exec meetings. The summer meeting takes place at the ACL conference, typically one day before the main conference begins. The winter meeting is based on teleconferencing.

==Current and Past IO Officers==

* Yejin Choi (University of Washington, USA) - 2015-2017
* Jian Su (Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R), Singapor) - 2012-2014

Conference Officer

2017-10-08T22:55:47Z

YejinChoi:

The conference officer is an at-large executive member position focusing on development, coordination, and management of conference initiatives.

==Term==

The position was inaugurated in 2012. The term runs for three calendar years and is renewed at every third year from 2012. The term runs on the same cycle as the other two at-large positions.

==Duties==

The primary role of the conference officer is integration of the different ACL-wide activities related to conference organization and management, for example, coordinating the timeline across different conferences, improving current practices and policies of paper reviews and selection, working with the SoftConf support team to improve conference management systems, and promoting activities that support diversity and equity of the ACL community.

More specifically, the duties of the conference officer include:

* Working closely with conference organizing committees to develop and promote initiatives that aim to improve the scientific, technical, and educational impact of the ACL conference activities.
* Maintaining consistency across conferences by coordinating conference organizations and sharing experiences across different conferences.
* Developing and promoting activities that aim to improve diversity and equity of the ACL community members at all levels of participation.
* Maintaining updated and accessible conference guidelines.
* Reporting to the ACL Executive Committee on conference developments.
* Attending biannual ACL exec meetings. The summer meeting takes place at the ACL conference, typically on the day of tutorials. The winter meeting is based on teleconferencing.

==Current and Past IO Officers==

* Yejin Choi (University of Washington, USA) - 2015-2017
* Jian Su (Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R), Singapor) - 2012-2014

Conference Officer

2017-10-08T22:54:56Z

YejinChoi:

The conference officer is an at-large executive member position focusing on development, coordination, and management of conference initiatives.

==Term==

The position was inaugurated in 2012. The term runs for three calendar years and is renewed at every third year from 2012. The term runs on the same cycle as the other two at-large positions.

==Duties==

The primary role of the conference officer is integration of the different ACL-wide activities related to conference organization and management, for example, coordinating the timeline across different conferences, improving current practices and policies of paper reviews and selection, working with the SoftConf support team to improve conference management systems, and promoting activities that support diversity and equity of the ACL community.

More specifically, the duties of the conference officer include:

* Working closely with conference organizing committees to develop and promote conference initiatives that aim to improve the scientific, technical, and educational impact of the ACL conference activities.
* Maintaining consistency across conferences by coordinating conference organizations and sharing experiences across different conferences.
* Developing and promoting activities that aim to improve diversity and equity of the ACL community members at all levels of participation.
* Maintaining updated and accessible conference guidelines.
* Reporting to the ACL Executive Committee on conference developments.
* Attending biannual ACL exec meetings. The summer meeting takes place at the ACL conference, typically on the day of tutorials. The winter meeting is based on teleconferencing.

==Current and Past IO Officers==

* Yejin Choi (University of Washington, USA) - 2015-2017
* Jian Su (Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R), Singapor) - 2012-2014

Conference Officer

2017-10-08T22:32:45Z

YejinChoi:

The conference officer is an at-large executive member position focusing on development, coordination, and management of various conference initiatives.

==Term==

The position was inaugurated in 2012. The term runs for three calendar years and is renewed at the same cycle as the other two at-large positions.

==Duties==

The primary role of the conference officer is integration of the different ACL-wide activities related to conference organization and management, for example, timeline coordination across different conferences, improving current practices and policies of paper reviews and selection, coordination with the SoftConf support team to improve conference management systems, and initiative development in support of diversity and equity of the ACL community.

More specifically, the duties of the conference officer include:

* Working closely with conference organizing committees to initiate, develop, and support conference initiatives to improve the scientific, technical, and educational impact of the ACL conference activities while also ensuring continual support for diversity and equity of the ACL community.
* Maintaining consistency across conferences by coordinating conference initiatives and sharing experiences across different conferences.
* Developing conference-related and program-related initiatives.
* Tracking initiatives and work with conference organizers to ensure that successful initiatives are continued.
* Maintaining updated and accessible conference guidelines.
* Reporting to the ACL Executive Committee on conference developments.
* Attending biannual ACL exec meetings. The summer meeting takes place at the ACL conference, typically on the day of tutorials. The winter meeting is based on teleconferencing.

==Current and Past IO Officers==

* Yejin Choi (University of Washington, USA) - 2015-2017
* Jian Su (Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R), Singapor) - 2012-2014

Conference Officer

2017-10-08T22:25:48Z

YejinChoi:

The conference officer is an at-large executive member position.

==Term==

The position runs for three years and is renewed at the same cycle as the other two at-large positions. It was inaugurated in 2012.

==Duties==

The primary role of the conference officer is integration of the different ACL-wide activities related to conference organization and management, for example, timeline coordination across different conferences, improving current practices and policies of paper reviews and selection, coordination with SoftConf to improve conference management systems, and developing initiatives in support of diversity and equity of the ACL community.

The conference officer will work closely with conference organizing committees to initiate, develop, and support conference initiatives to improve the scientific, technical, and educational impact of the ACL conference activities while also ensuring continual support for diversity and equity of the ACL community. More specifically, the conference officer will:

* Maintain consistency across conferences by coordinating conference initiatives and sharing experiences across different conferences.
* Develop conference-related and program-related initiatives.
* Track initiatives and work with conference organizers to ensure that successful initiatives are continued.
* Maintain updated and accessible conference guidelines.
* Report to the ACL Executive Committee on conference developments.
* Attend biannual ACL exec meetings. The summer meeting takes place at the ACL conference, typically on the day of tutorials. The winter meeting is based on teleconferencing.

==Current and Past IO Officers==

* Yejin Choi (University of Washington, USA) - 2015-2017
* Jian Su (Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R), Singapor) - 2012-2014

Conference Officer

2017-10-08T22:24:04Z

YejinChoi:

The conference officer is an at-large executive member position. The position runs for three years and is renewed at the same cycle as the other two at-large positions. It was inaugurated in 2012.

The primary role of the conference officer is integration of the different ACL-wide activities related to conference organization and management, for example, timeline coordination across different conferences, improving current practices and policies of paper reviews and selection, coordination with SoftConf to improve conference management systems, and developing initiatives in support of diversity and equity of the ACL community.

The conference officer will work closely with conference organizing committees to initiate, develop, and support conference initiatives to improve the scientific, technical, and educational impact of the ACL conference activities while also ensuring continual support for diversity and equity of the ACL community. More specifically, the conference officer will:

* Maintain consistency across conferences by coordinating conference initiatives and sharing experiences across different conferences.
* Develop conference-related and program-related initiatives.
* Track initiatives and work with conference organizers to ensure that successful initiatives are continued.
* Maintain updated and accessible conference guidelines.
* Report to the ACL Executive Committee on conference developments.
* Attend biannual ACL exec meetings. The summer meeting takes place at the ACL conference, typically on the day of tutorials. The winter meeting is based on teleconferencing.

== Current and Past IO Officers==

* Yejin Choi (University of Washington, USA) - 2015-2017
* Jian Su (Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R), Singapor) - 2012-2014

Conference Officer

2017-10-08T22:11:28Z

YejinChoi:

The conference officer is an at-large executive member position. Currently, it is renewed at the same cycle as the other two at-large positions. It was inaugurated on the 2012 cycle.

The conference officer portfolio includes integration of the different ACL-wide activities that are related to conference organization and management, including conference timeline coordination, review management, conference management software systems, and conference logistics.

The conference officer will work closely with conference organizing committees to initiate, develop, and support conference initiatives to improve the scientific, technical, and educational impact of the ACL conference activities and support the diversity and equity of the ACL community. More specifically, the conference officer will:

* Maintain consistency across conferences by coordinating conference initiatives and sharing experiences across different conferences.
* Develop conference-related and program-related initiatives.
* Track initiatives and work with conference organizers to ensure that successful initiatives are continued.
* Maintain updated and accessible conference guidelines.
* Report to the ACL Executive Committee on conference developments.

== Current and Past IO Officers==

* Yejin Choi (University of Washington, USA) - 2015-2017
* Jian Su (Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R), Singapor) - 2012-2014

Conference Officer

2017-10-08T21:55:39Z

YejinChoi:

The conference officer develops and tracks conference initiatives.

* Works to maintain consistency across conferences by coordinating conference initiatives and sharing experiences across different conferences.
* Develops conference-related and program-related initiatives.
* Tracks initiatives and work with conference organizers to ensure that successful initiatives are continued.
* Maintains updated and accessible conference guidelines.
* Reports to the ACL Executive Committee on conference developments.

== Current and Past IO Officers==

* Yejin Choi (University of Washington, USA) - 2015-2017
* Jian Su (Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R), Singapor) - 2012-2014

Conference Officer

2017-10-08T21:47:37Z

YejinChoi: Created page with "The conference officer develops and tracks conference initiatives. The conference officer position addresses a weakness in the current ACL administration, where each one-off..."

The conference officer develops and tracks conference initiatives.

The conference officer position addresses a weakness in the current ACL administration, where each one-off Vice-President (VP) hires a one-off General Chair (GC) and a one-off Program Chair (PC), with no continuity between conferences. The conference officer:

* Develops conference-related and program-related initiatives.
* Tracks initiatives and work with conference organizers to ensure that successful initiatives are continued.
* Maintains updated and accessible conference guidelines.
* Reports to the ACL Executive Committee on conference developments.

== Current and Past IO Officers==

* Yejin Choi (University of Washington, USA) - 2015-2017
* Jian Su (Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R), Singapor) - 2012-2014

2017Q3 Reports: Conference Officer

2017-07-24T03:50:46Z

YejinChoi: /* ACL Guidelines on Remote Conference Participation */

==ACL Guidelines on Remote Conference Participation==

ACL conferences have been requiring at least one of the authors to be present at the conference and give a talk in order for their paper to appear in the proceedings. In the unusual circumstances where none of the authors could make it to the conference due to visa issues or illness, an acceptable common practice has been for the authors to arrange a designated speaker who can deliver the talk on behalf of the authors. However, there have been increasing recent concerns regarding traveling bans (e.g., the US government in 2017 tried to impose a traveling ban on Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen), which will likely impact many valuable members of our conferences.

Recognizing this challenge imposed on our members, ACL now strongly recommends that conference organizers of all ACL endorsed conferences facilitate technical support for participants to present their work and engage with the audience remotely. Until we gain further experience in this, the exact details on how to arrange technical support remain somewhat open-ended. However, the general guideline has been formulated and posted at the ACL handbook. One decision point that raised the most discussion is whether remote poster presentation should be facilitated at all, given the apparent challenge in arranging lively interactions with remote poster presentations. However, depending on the fraction of the conference presentations that need to be presented remotely, it may work against the overall conference experience if there are too many remote oral presentations. For now it is up to the conference organizers to decide the balance between the remote oral vs poster presentations based on the resources available at the local venue. We will follow up with a revised policy once we gain some experience from this year's conferences.

2017Q3 Reports: Conference Officer

2017-07-24T03:49:10Z

YejinChoi: /* ACL Guidelines on Remote Conference Participation */

==ACL Guidelines on Remote Conference Participation==

ACL conferences have been requiring at least one of the authors to be present at the conference and give a talk in order for their paper to appear in the proceedings. In the unusual circumstances where none of the authors could make it to the conference due to visa issues or illness, an acceptable common practice has been for the authors to arrange a designated speaker who can deliver the talk on behalf of the authors. However, there have been increasing recent concerns regarding traveling bans (e.g., the US government in 2017 tried to impose a traveling ban on Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen), which will likely impact many valuable members of our conferences.

Recognizing this challenge imposed on our members, ACL now strongly recommends that conference organizers of all ACL endorsed conferences facilitate technical support for participants to present their work and engage with the audience remotely. Until we gain further experience in this, the exact details on how to arrange technical support remain somewhat open-ended. However, the general guideline has been formulated and posted at the ACL handbook. One decision point that raised the most discussion is whether remote poster presentation should be facilitated at all, given the apparent challenge in arranging lively experience in remote poster presentations. However, depending on the fraction of the conference presentations that need to be presented remotely, it may work against the overall conference experience if there are too many remote oral presentations. For now it is by and large up to the conference organizers to decide the balance between the remote oral vs poster presentations based on the resources available at the local venue.

2017Q3 Reports: Conference Officer

2017-07-24T03:42:41Z

YejinChoi: Created page with "==ACL Guidelines on Remote Conference Participation== ACL conferences have been requiring at least one of the authors to be present at the conference and give a talk in order..."

2017Q1 Reports: Conference Officer

2017-02-14T09:26:45Z

YejinChoi: /* Scaling up ACL Conferences */

==Actions and Voices in Support of Diversity==

The past year has been a memorable year for ACL to have more distinct voices and actions in support of diversity on several fronts. First, an ad hoc committee has been formed about a year ago to investigate current practices and policies for nominating and selecting various roles and awards in ACL, including ACL Fellows, life time achievements awards, and ACL chairs. A report was presented at ACL 2016 and was well received with broad interests from the community. The revised policy will be effective starting from 2017. The committee continues to work on preparing detailed recommendations and a new system to better support the execution of the new policy. Second, there have been great interests to initiate "Women in NLP" workshops in the coming NLP conferences in support of women and other minorities in NLP. Third, with leading efforts from Meg Mitchell, Emily Bender, and Hal Daume and others, ACL has made a statement in support of students and researchers from certain geographic locations whose participation may be affected in future ACL conferences.

==Scaling up Conference Management==

As there has been a considerable growth in the number of submissions made to ACL conferences in recent years, we has been increasing need to better automate core functions of the conference management system. In response to the enthusiastic request from ACL 2017 organizers and others, SoftConf has agreed to integrate Toronto Matching system to automate topic-based reviewer-to-paper assignments. The expectation is that Toronto matching system, which has been successfully used for several other conferences with considerably larger submissions, will have repeated uses for future ACL conferences. This feature complements the already existing reviewer-to-area assignments newly introduced for NAACL 2016. While the reviewer-to-area assignments work based on a manually specified set of keywords to match expertise, new Toronto matching system will match reviewers to papers based on automatically parsed information from publication records, which in turn can be automatically downloaded from people's homepages, Google Scholar, and other pages that have links to pdf papers.

2017Q1 Reports: Conference Officer

2017-02-14T09:26:30Z

YejinChoi: /* Scaling up Conference Management */

==Actions and Voices in Support of Diversity==

The past year has been a memorable year for ACL to have more distinct voices and actions in support of diversity on several fronts. First, an ad hoc committee has been formed about a year ago to investigate current practices and policies for nominating and selecting various roles and awards in ACL, including ACL Fellows, life time achievements awards, and ACL chairs. A report was presented at ACL 2016 and was well received with broad interests from the community. The revised policy will be effective starting from 2017. The committee continues to work on preparing detailed recommendations and a new system to better support the execution of the new policy. Second, there have been great interests to initiate "Women in NLP" workshops in the coming NLP conferences in support of women and other minorities in NLP. Third, with leading efforts from Meg Mitchell, Emily Bender, and Hal Daume and others, ACL has made a statement in support of students and researchers from certain geographic locations whose participation may be affected in future ACL conferences.

==Scaling up ACL Conferences==

As there has been a considerable growth in the number of submissions made to ACL conferences in recent years, we has been increasing need to better automate core functions of the conference management system. In response to the enthusiastic request from ACL 2017 organizers and others, SoftConf has agreed to integrate Toronto Matching system to automate topic-based reviewer-to-paper assignments. The expectation is that Toronto matching system, which has been successfully used for several other conferences with considerably larger submissions, will have repeated uses for future ACL conferences. This feature complements the already existing reviewer-to-area assignments newly introduced for NAACL 2016. While the reviewer-to-area assignments work based on a manually specified set of keywords to match expertise, new Toronto matching system will match reviewers to papers based on automatically parsed information from publication records, which in turn can be automatically downloaded from people's homepages, Google Scholar, and other pages that have links to pdf papers.

2017Q1 Reports: Conference Officer

2017-02-14T09:25:07Z

YejinChoi: /* Scaling up Conference Management in Response to Recent Growth in ACL */

2017Q1 Reports: Conference Officer

2017-02-14T09:24:24Z

YejinChoi: /* Scaling up Conference Management */

==Actions and Voices in Support of Diversity==

The past year has been a memorable year for ACL to have more distinct voices and actions in support of diversity on several fronts. First, an ad hoc committee has been formed about a year ago to investigate current practices and policies for nominating and selecting various roles and awards in ACL, including ACL Fellows, life time achievements awards, and ACL chairs. A report was presented at ACL 2016 and was well received with broad interests from the community. The revised policy will be effective starting from 2017. The committee continues to work on preparing detailed recommendations and a new system to better support the execution of the new policy. Second, there have been great interests to initiate "Women in NLP" workshops in the coming NLP conferences in support of women and other minorities in NLP. Third, with leading efforts from Meg Mitchell, Emily Bender, and Hal Daume and others, ACL has made a statement in support of students and researchers from certain geographic locations whose participation may be affected in future ACL conferences.

==Scaling up Conference Management in Response to Recent Growth in ACL==

As there has been a considerable growth in the number of submissions made to ACL conferences in recent years, we has been increasing need to better automate core functions of the conference management system. In response to the enthusiastic request from ACL 2017 organizers and others, SoftConf has agreed to integrate Toronto Matching system to automate topic-based reviewer-to-paper assignments. The expectation is that Toronto matching system, which has been successfully used for several other conferences with considerably larger submissions, will have repeated uses for future ACL conferences. This feature complements the already existing reviewer-to-area assignments newly introduced for NAACL 2016. While the reviewer-to-area assignments work based on a manually specified set of keywords to match expertise, new Toronto matching system will match reviewers to papers based on automatically parsed information from publication records, which in turn can be automatically downloaded from people's homepages, Google Scholar, and other pages that have links to pdf papers.

2017Q1 Reports: Conference Officer

2017-02-14T09:24:04Z

YejinChoi: /* Updates on SoftConf Conference Management System */

2017Q1 Reports: Conference Officer

2017-02-14T09:21:30Z

YejinChoi: /* START Support for Toronto Matching System */

==Actions and Voices in Support of Diversity==

The past year has been a memorable year for ACL to have more distinct voices and actions in support of diversity on several fronts. First, an ad hoc committee has been formed about a year ago to investigate current practices and policies for nominating and selecting various roles and awards in ACL, including ACL Fellows, life time achievements awards, and ACL chairs. A report was presented at ACL 2016 and was well received with broad interests from the community. The revised policy will be effective starting from 2017. The committee continues to work on preparing detailed recommendations and a new system to better support the execution of the new policy. Second, there have been great interests to initiate "Women in NLP" workshops in the coming NLP conferences in support of women and other minorities in NLP. Third, with leading efforts from Meg Mitchell, Emily Bender, and Hal Daume and others, ACL has made a statement in support of students and researchers from certain geographic locations whose participation may be affected in future ACL conferences.

==Updates on SoftConf Conference Management System==

As there has been a considerable growth in the number of submissions made to ACL conferences in recent years, we has been increasing need to better automate core functions of the conference management system. In response to the enthusiastic request from ACL 2017 organizers and others, SoftConf has agreed to integrate Toronto Matching system to automate topic-based reviewer-to-paper assignments. The expectation is that Toronto matching system, which has been successfully used for several other conferences with considerably larger submissions, will have repeated uses for future ACL conferences. This feature complements the already existing reviewer-to-area assignments newly introduced for NAACL 2016. While the reviewer-to-area assignments work based on a manually specified set of keywords to match expertise, new Toronto matching system will match reviewers to papers based on automatically parsed information from publication records, which in turn can be automatically downloaded from people's homepages, Google Scholar, and other pages that have links to pdf papers.

2017Q1 Reports: Conference Officer

2017-02-14T09:19:40Z

YejinChoi:

==Actions and Voices in Support of Diversity==

The past year has been a memorable year for ACL to have more distinct voices and actions in support of diversity on several fronts. First, an ad hoc committee has been formed about a year ago to investigate current practices and policies for nominating and selecting various roles and awards in ACL, including ACL Fellows, life time achievements awards, and ACL chairs. A report was presented at ACL 2016 and was well received with broad interests from the community. The revised policy will be effective starting from 2017. The committee continues to work on preparing detailed recommendations and a new system to better support the execution of the new policy. Second, there have been great interests to initiate "Women in NLP" workshops in the coming NLP conferences in support of women and other minorities in NLP. Third, with leading efforts from Meg Mitchell, Emily Bender, and Hal Daume and others, ACL has made a statement in support of students and researchers from certain geographic locations whose participation may be affected in future ACL conferences.

==START Support for Toronto Matching System==

As there has been a considerable growth in the number of submissions made to ACL conferences in recent years, we has been increasing need to better automate core functions of the conference management system. In response to the enthusiastic request from ACL 2017 organizers and others, SoftConf has agreed to integrate Toronto Matching system to automate topic-based reviewer-to-paper assignments. The expectation is that Toronto matching system, which has been successfully used for several other conferences with considerably larger submissions, will have repeated uses for future ACL conferences. This feature complements the already existing reviewer-to-area assignments newly introduced for NAACL 2016. While the reviewer-to-area assignments work based on a manually specified set of keywords to match expertise, new Toronto matching system will match reviewers to papers based on automatically parsed information from publication records, which in turn can be automatically downloaded from people's homepages, Google Scholar, and other pages that have links to pdf papers.

2017Q1 Reports: Conference Officer

2017-02-14T09:18:58Z

YejinChoi: /* Actions and Voices in Support of Diversity */

==Actions and Voices in Support of Diversity==

The past year has been a memorable year for ACL to have more distinct voices and actions in support of diversity on several fronts. First, an ad hoc committee has been formed about a year ago to investigate current practices and policies for nominating and selecting various roles and awards in ACL, including ACL Fellows, life time achievements awards, and ACL chairs. A report was presented at ACL 2016 and well received. The revised policy will be effective starting from 2017. The committee continues to work on preparing detailed recommendations and a new system to better support the execution of the new policy. Second, there have been great interests to initiate "Women in NLP" workshops in the coming NLP conferences in support of women and other minorities in NLP. Third, with leading efforts from Meg Mitchell, Emily Bender, and Hal Daume and others, ACL has made a statement in support of students and researchers from certain geographic locations whose participation may be affected in future ACL conferences.

==START Support for Toronto Matching System==

As there has been a considerable growth in the number of submissions made to ACL conferences in recent years, we has been increasing need to better automate core functions of the conference management system. In response to the enthusiastic request from ACL 2017 organizers and others, SoftConf has agreed to integrate Toronto Matching system to automate topic-based reviewer-to-paper assignments. The expectation is that Toronto matching system, which has been successfully used for several other conferences with considerably larger submissions, will have repeated uses for future ACL conferences. This feature complements the already existing reviewer-to-area assignments newly introduced for NAACL 2016. While the reviewer-to-area assignments work based on a manually specified set of keywords to match expertise, new Toronto matching system will match reviewers to papers based on automatically parsed information from publication records, which in turn can be automatically downloaded from people's homepages, Google Scholar, and other pages that have links to pdf papers.

2017Q1 Reports: Conference Officer

2017-02-14T09:17:35Z

YejinChoi: /* Actions and Voices in Support of Diversity */

==Actions and Voices in Support of Diversity==

The past year has been a memorable year for ACL to have more voices and actions in support of diversity on several fronts. First, an ad hoc committee has been formed about a year ago to investigate current practices and policies for nominating and selecting various roles and awards in ACL, including ACL Fellows, life time achievements awards, and ACL chairs. A report was presented at ACL 2016 and well received. The revised policy will be effective starting from 2017. The committee continues to work on preparing detailed recommendations and a new system to better support the execution of the new policy. Second, there have been great interests to initiate "Women in NLP" workshops in the coming NLP conferences in support of women and other minorities in NLP. Third, with leading efforts from Meg Mitchell, Emily Bender, and Hal Daume and others, ACL has made a statement in support of students and researchers from certain geographic locations whose participation may be affected in future ACL conferences.

==START Support for Toronto Matching System==

As there has been a considerable growth in the number of submissions made to ACL conferences in recent years, we has been increasing need to better automate core functions of the conference management system. In response to the enthusiastic request from ACL 2017 organizers and others, SoftConf has agreed to integrate Toronto Matching system to automate topic-based reviewer-to-paper assignments. The expectation is that Toronto matching system, which has been successfully used for several other conferences with considerably larger submissions, will have repeated uses for future ACL conferences. This feature complements the already existing reviewer-to-area assignments newly introduced for NAACL 2016. While the reviewer-to-area assignments work based on a manually specified set of keywords to match expertise, new Toronto matching system will match reviewers to papers based on automatically parsed information from publication records, which in turn can be automatically downloaded from people's homepages, Google Scholar, and other pages that have links to pdf papers.

2017Q1 Reports: Conference Officer

2017-02-14T09:17:01Z

YejinChoi: /* Actions and Voices in Support of Diversity */

==Actions and Voices in Support of Diversity==

The past year has been a memorable year for ACL to have more voices and actions in support of diversity on several fronts. First, an ad hoc committee has been formed about a year ago to investigate current practices and policies for nominating and selecting various roles and awards in ACL, including ACL Fellows, life time achievements awards, and ACL chairs. A report was presented at ACL 2016 and well received. The revised policy will be effective starting from 2017. The committee continues to work on preparing detailed recommendations and a new system to better support the execution of the new policy. Second, there have been great interests to initiate "Women in NLP" workshops in the coming NLP conferences in support of women and other minorities in NLP. Third, with leading efforts from Meg Mitchell, Emily Bender, and Hal Daume and several others, the ACL has made a statement in support of students and researchers from certain geographic locations whose participation may be affected in future ACL conferences.

==START Support for Toronto Matching System==

As there has been a considerable growth in the number of submissions made to ACL conferences in recent years, we has been increasing need to better automate core functions of the conference management system. In response to the enthusiastic request from ACL 2017 organizers and others, SoftConf has agreed to integrate Toronto Matching system to automate topic-based reviewer-to-paper assignments. The expectation is that Toronto matching system, which has been successfully used for several other conferences with considerably larger submissions, will have repeated uses for future ACL conferences. This feature complements the already existing reviewer-to-area assignments newly introduced for NAACL 2016. While the reviewer-to-area assignments work based on a manually specified set of keywords to match expertise, new Toronto matching system will match reviewers to papers based on automatically parsed information from publication records, which in turn can be automatically downloaded from people's homepages, Google Scholar, and other pages that have links to pdf papers.

2017Q1 Reports: Conference Officer

2017-02-14T09:16:08Z

YejinChoi:

==Actions and Voices in Support of Diversity==

The past year has been a memorable year for ACL to have more voices and actions in support of diversity on several fronts. First, an ad hoc committee has been formed about a year ago to investigate current practices and policies for nominating and selecting various roles and awards in ACL, including ACL Fellows, life time achievements awards, and ACL chairs. A report was presented at ACL 2016 and well received. The revised policy will be effective starting from 2017. The committee continues to work on preparing detailed recommendations and a new system to better support the execution of the new policy. Second, there have been great interests to initiate "Women in NLP" workshops in the coming NLP conferences. Third, with leading efforts from Meg Mitchell, Emily Bender, and Hal Daume and several others, the ACL has made a statement in support of students and researchers from certain geographic locations whose participation may be affected in future ACL conferences.

==START Support for Toronto Matching System==

As there has been a considerable growth in the number of submissions made to ACL conferences in recent years, we has been increasing need to better automate core functions of the conference management system. In response to the enthusiastic request from ACL 2017 organizers and others, SoftConf has agreed to integrate Toronto Matching system to automate topic-based reviewer-to-paper assignments. The expectation is that Toronto matching system, which has been successfully used for several other conferences with considerably larger submissions, will have repeated uses for future ACL conferences. This feature complements the already existing reviewer-to-area assignments newly introduced for NAACL 2016. While the reviewer-to-area assignments work based on a manually specified set of keywords to match expertise, new Toronto matching system will match reviewers to papers based on automatically parsed information from publication records, which in turn can be automatically downloaded from people's homepages, Google Scholar, and other pages that have links to pdf papers.

2017Q1 Reports: Conference Officer

2017-02-14T09:15:59Z

YejinChoi:

==Actions and Voices in Support of Diversity==

The past year has been a memorable year for ACL to have more voices and actions in support of diversity on several fronts. First, an ad hoc committee has been formed about a year ago to investigate current practices and policies for nominating and selecting various roles and awards in ACL, including ACL Fellows, life time achievements awards, and ACL chairs. A report was presented at ACL 2016 and was well received. The revised policy will be effective starting from 2017. The committee continues to work on preparing detailed recommendations and a new system to better support the execution of the new policy. Second, there have been great interests to initiate "Women in NLP" workshops in the coming NLP conferences. Third, with leading efforts from Meg Mitchell, Emily Bender, and Hal Daume and several others, the ACL has made a statement in support of students and researchers from certain geographic locations whose participation may be affected in future ACL conferences.

==START Support for Toronto Matching System==

As there has been a considerable growth in the number of submissions made to ACL conferences in recent years, we has been increasing need to better automate core functions of the conference management system. In response to the enthusiastic request from ACL 2017 organizers and others, SoftConf has agreed to integrate Toronto Matching system to automate topic-based reviewer-to-paper assignments. The expectation is that Toronto matching system, which has been successfully used for several other conferences with considerably larger submissions, will have repeated uses for future ACL conferences. This feature complements the already existing reviewer-to-area assignments newly introduced for NAACL 2016. While the reviewer-to-area assignments work based on a manually specified set of keywords to match expertise, new Toronto matching system will match reviewers to papers based on automatically parsed information from publication records, which in turn can be automatically downloaded from people's homepages, Google Scholar, and other pages that have links to pdf papers.

2017Q1 Reports: Conference Officer

2017-02-14T09:15:13Z

YejinChoi:

==Actions and Voices in Support of Diversity==

The past year has been a memorable year for ACL to have more voices and actions in support of diversity on several fronts. First, an ad hoc committee has been formed about a year ago to investigate current practices and policies for nominating and selecting various roles and awards in ACL, including ACL Fellows, life time achievements awards, and ACL chairs. A report was presented at ACL 2016 and was received with great interests. The revised policy will be effective starting from 2017. The committee continues to work on preparing detailed recommendations and a new system to better support the execution of the new policy. Second, there have been great interests to initiate "Women in NLP" workshops in the coming NLP conferences. Third, with leading efforts from Meg Mitchell, Emily Bender, and Hal Daume and several others, the ACL has made a statement in support of students and researchers from certain geographic locations whose participation may be affected in future ACL conferences.

==START Support for Toronto Matching System==

As there has been a considerable growth in the number of submissions made to ACL conferences in recent years, we has been increasing need to better automate core functions of the conference management system. In response to the enthusiastic request from ACL 2017 organizers and others, SoftConf has agreed to integrate Toronto Matching system to automate topic-based reviewer-to-paper assignments. The expectation is that Toronto matching system, which has been successfully used for several other conferences with considerably larger submissions, will have repeated uses for future ACL conferences. This feature complements the already existing reviewer-to-area assignments newly introduced for NAACL 2016. While the reviewer-to-area assignments work based on a manually specified set of keywords to match expertise, new Toronto matching system will match reviewers to papers based on automatically parsed information from publication records, which in turn can be automatically downloaded from people's homepages, Google Scholar, and other pages that have links to pdf papers.

2017Q1 Reports: Conference Officer

2017-02-14T09:14:40Z

YejinChoi:

==Actions in support of Diversity==

The past year has been a memorable year for ACL to have more voices and actions in support of diversity on several fronts. First, an ad hoc committee has been formed about a year ago to investigate current practices and policies for nominating and selecting various roles and awards in ACL, including ACL Fellows, life time achievements awards, and ACL chairs. A report was presented at ACL 2016 and was received with great interests. The revised policy will be effective starting from 2017. The committee continues to work on preparing detailed recommendations and a new system to better support the execution of the new policy. Second, there have been great interests to initiate "Women in NLP" workshops in the coming NLP conferences. Third, with leading efforts from Meg Mitchell, Emily Bender, and Hal Daume and several others, the ACL has made a statement in support of students and researchers from certain geographic locations whose participation may be affected in future ACL conferences.

==START support for Toronto Matching System==

As there has been a considerable growth in the number of submissions made to ACL conferences in recent years, we has been increasing need to better automate core functions of the conference management system. In response to the enthusiastic request from ACL 2017 organizers and others, SoftConf has agreed to integrate Toronto Matching system to automate topic-based reviewer-to-paper assignments. The expectation is that Toronto matching system, which has been successfully used for several other conferences with considerably larger submissions, will have repeated uses for future ACL conferences. This feature complements the already existing reviewer-to-area assignments newly introduced for NAACL 2016. While the reviewer-to-area assignments work based on a manually specified set of keywords to match expertise, new Toronto matching system will match reviewers to papers based on automatically parsed information from publication records, which in turn can be automatically downloaded from people's homepages, Google Scholar, and other pages that have links to pdf papers.

2017Q1 Reports: Conference Officer

2017-02-14T09:03:45Z

YejinChoi:

==Ad Hoc Committee for Diversity==

About a year ago, an ad hoc committee was formed to investigate current practices and policies for nominating and selecting various roles and awards in ACL, including ACL Fellows, life time achievements awards, and ACL chairs. A report was presented and discussed at ACL 2016. The revised policy on ACL fellow nomination will be effective starting from 2017. The committee continues to work on preparing more detailed recommendations and a new system to better support the execution of the new policy.

==START support for Toronto Matching System==

As there has been a considerable growth in the number of submissions made to ACL conferences in recent years, we has been increasing need to better automate core functions of the conference management system. In response to the enthusiastic request from ACL 2017 organizers and others, SoftConf has agreed to integrate Toronto Matching system to automate topic-based reviewer-to-paper assignments. The expectation is that Toronto matching system, which has been successfully used for several other conferences with considerably larger submissions, will have repeated uses for future ACL conferences. This feature complements the already existing reviewer-to-area assignments newly introduced for NAACL 2016. While the reviewer-to-area assignments work based on a manually specified set of keywords to match expertise, new Toronto matching system will match reviewers to papers based on automatically parsed information from publication records, which in turn can be automatically downloaded from people's homepages, Google Scholar, and other pages that have links to pdf papers.

2017Q1 Reports: Conference Officer

2017-02-14T08:57:22Z

YejinChoi: Created page with "==START support for Toronto Matching System== As there has been a considerable growth in the number of submissions made to ACL conferences in recent years, we has been increa..."

==START support for Toronto Matching System==

As there has been a considerable growth in the number of submissions made to ACL conferences in recent years, we has been increasing need to better automate core functions of the conference management system. In response to the enthusiastic request from ACL 2017 organizers and others, SoftConf has agreed to integrate Toronto Matching system to automate topic-based reviewer-to-paper assignments. The expectation is that Toronto matching system, which has been successfully used for several other conferences with considerably larger submissions, will have repeated uses for future ACL conferences. This feature complements the already existing reviewer-to-area assignments newly introduced for NAACL 2016. While the reviewer-to-area assignments work based on a manually specified set of keywords to match expertise, new Toronto matching system will match reviewers to papers based on automatically parsed information from publication records, which in turn can be automatically downloaded from people's homepages, Google Scholar, and other pages that have links to pdf papers.

2016Q3 Reports: Conference Officer

2016-07-25T08:25:27Z

YejinChoi: /* Ad Hoc Committee for Diversity */

==Conference Timelines==

ACL 2016 has adopted a new reversed ordering between the short and long deadlines. Overall, it worked out successfully. Based on this year’s experience, a reversed ordering is highly recommended for future conferences, especially in years when ACL is either in Asia or in Europe so that there will be a separate NAACL deadline beforehand. By pushing the long deadline until after the short deadline, it is possible to create a sufficient time gap between the NAACL deadline and the ACL long deadline --- as much as 2 month gap, which is substantially larger than what was previously possible.

ACL 2017 plans to adopt yet another new scheme — merging long and short deadlines. Since ACL 2017 will be held in Vancouver, ACL will not need to coordinate the deadlines with NAACL. Thus there are clearly less motivations for keeping separate and reversed deadlines. ACL traditionally maintained separate long and short deadlines and it will be for the first time for ACL 2017 to experiment with the merged deadlines. In fact, the idea of merging deadlines has been raised in the past, but we have been avoiding it due to the increased scale of ACL that became nearly twice of that of NAACL. However, this concern may have been too strong: EMNLP last year received a historically large volume of submissions, which now matches the current scale of ACL, and the merged deadlines of EMNLP seem to have worked out well after all. Thus, it seems reasonable to expect that ACL 2017 should be able to handle the similar workload incurred by the merged deadlines.

==START support for Reviewer to Area Assignment==

START support team has implemented a new feature to help with reviewer-to-area assignments, which has been used by NAACL 2016. This feature automatically allocates reviewers to areas based on keyword matching between reviewers and area chairs using a simple greedy algorithm. The current implementation supports weighted features, though NAACL 2016 operated with unweighted keyword matching. This feature was particularly helpful for NAACL 2016 as they were experimenting with a new definition of areas where areas are defined by the expertise of area chairs. This definition led to areas that can potentially be overlapping with other areas while also being diverse within each area, depending on the breadth of the research interests of the area chairs. NAACL 2016 reports that this experiment was a success.

EMNLP 2016 has decided to return to the more traditional method of assigning reviewers to area chairs based on the preferences specified by the reviewers and area chairs.

==Publication Format==

One question raised in the past ACL exec meeting was whether we should require additional file formats like XML or latex source files for camera-ready as they may be useful for scientific search engines, which can then help disseminating the scientific findings in our community. Based on inquiries made to some experts in scientific search and past publication chairs who have experimented with XML conversion, the verdict seems to be that latex sources are definitely useful, while the benefit of XML files is less clear.

==Ad Hoc Committee for Diversity==

An ad hoc committee has been formed to revise the current practices and policies for nominating and selecting various roles and awards in ACL, including ACL Fellows, life time achievements awards, and ACL chairs. The committee has prepared a report, which will be discussed at ACL 2016.

2016Q3 Reports: Conference Officer

2016-07-25T08:25:05Z

YejinChoi: /* Ad Hoc Committee for Diversity */

==Conference Timelines==

ACL 2016 has adopted a new reversed ordering between the short and long deadlines. Overall, it worked out successfully. Based on this year’s experience, a reversed ordering is highly recommended for future conferences, especially in years when ACL is either in Asia or in Europe so that there will be a separate NAACL deadline beforehand. By pushing the long deadline until after the short deadline, it is possible to create a sufficient time gap between the NAACL deadline and the ACL long deadline --- as much as 2 month gap, which is substantially larger than what was previously possible.

ACL 2017 plans to adopt yet another new scheme — merging long and short deadlines. Since ACL 2017 will be held in Vancouver, ACL will not need to coordinate the deadlines with NAACL. Thus there are clearly less motivations for keeping separate and reversed deadlines. ACL traditionally maintained separate long and short deadlines and it will be for the first time for ACL 2017 to experiment with the merged deadlines. In fact, the idea of merging deadlines has been raised in the past, but we have been avoiding it due to the increased scale of ACL that became nearly twice of that of NAACL. However, this concern may have been too strong: EMNLP last year received a historically large volume of submissions, which now matches the current scale of ACL, and the merged deadlines of EMNLP seem to have worked out well after all. Thus, it seems reasonable to expect that ACL 2017 should be able to handle the similar workload incurred by the merged deadlines.

==START support for Reviewer to Area Assignment==

START support team has implemented a new feature to help with reviewer-to-area assignments, which has been used by NAACL 2016. This feature automatically allocates reviewers to areas based on keyword matching between reviewers and area chairs using a simple greedy algorithm. The current implementation supports weighted features, though NAACL 2016 operated with unweighted keyword matching. This feature was particularly helpful for NAACL 2016 as they were experimenting with a new definition of areas where areas are defined by the expertise of area chairs. This definition led to areas that can potentially be overlapping with other areas while also being diverse within each area, depending on the breadth of the research interests of the area chairs. NAACL 2016 reports that this experiment was a success.

EMNLP 2016 has decided to return to the more traditional method of assigning reviewers to area chairs based on the preferences specified by the reviewers and area chairs.

==Publication Format==

One question raised in the past ACL exec meeting was whether we should require additional file formats like XML or latex source files for camera-ready as they may be useful for scientific search engines, which can then help disseminating the scientific findings in our community. Based on inquiries made to some experts in scientific search and past publication chairs who have experimented with XML conversion, the verdict seems to be that latex sources are definitely useful, while the benefit of XML files is less clear.

==Ad Hoc Committee for Diversity==

An ad hoc committee has been formed to revise the current practices and policies for nominating and selecting various roles and awards in ACL, including ACL Fellows, life time achievements awards, ACL chairs and so forth. The committee has prepared a report, which will be discussed at ACL 2016.

2016Q3 Reports: Conference Officer

2016-07-25T08:24:49Z

YejinChoi: /* Publication Format */

==Conference Timelines==

ACL 2016 has adopted a new reversed ordering between the short and long deadlines. Overall, it worked out successfully. Based on this year’s experience, a reversed ordering is highly recommended for future conferences, especially in years when ACL is either in Asia or in Europe so that there will be a separate NAACL deadline beforehand. By pushing the long deadline until after the short deadline, it is possible to create a sufficient time gap between the NAACL deadline and the ACL long deadline --- as much as 2 month gap, which is substantially larger than what was previously possible.

ACL 2017 plans to adopt yet another new scheme — merging long and short deadlines. Since ACL 2017 will be held in Vancouver, ACL will not need to coordinate the deadlines with NAACL. Thus there are clearly less motivations for keeping separate and reversed deadlines. ACL traditionally maintained separate long and short deadlines and it will be for the first time for ACL 2017 to experiment with the merged deadlines. In fact, the idea of merging deadlines has been raised in the past, but we have been avoiding it due to the increased scale of ACL that became nearly twice of that of NAACL. However, this concern may have been too strong: EMNLP last year received a historically large volume of submissions, which now matches the current scale of ACL, and the merged deadlines of EMNLP seem to have worked out well after all. Thus, it seems reasonable to expect that ACL 2017 should be able to handle the similar workload incurred by the merged deadlines.

==START support for Reviewer to Area Assignment==

START support team has implemented a new feature to help with reviewer-to-area assignments, which has been used by NAACL 2016. This feature automatically allocates reviewers to areas based on keyword matching between reviewers and area chairs using a simple greedy algorithm. The current implementation supports weighted features, though NAACL 2016 operated with unweighted keyword matching. This feature was particularly helpful for NAACL 2016 as they were experimenting with a new definition of areas where areas are defined by the expertise of area chairs. This definition led to areas that can potentially be overlapping with other areas while also being diverse within each area, depending on the breadth of the research interests of the area chairs. NAACL 2016 reports that this experiment was a success.

EMNLP 2016 has decided to return to the more traditional method of assigning reviewers to area chairs based on the preferences specified by the reviewers and area chairs.

==Publication Format==

One question raised in the past ACL exec meeting was whether we should require additional file formats like XML or latex source files for camera-ready as they may be useful for scientific search engines, which can then help disseminating the scientific findings in our community. Based on inquiries made to some experts in scientific search and past publication chairs who have experimented with XML conversion, the verdict seems to be that latex sources are definitely useful, while the benefit of XML files is less clear.

==Ad Hoc Committee for Diversity==

An ad hoc committee has been formed to revise the current practices and polities for nominating and selecting various roles and awards in ACL, including ACL Fellows, life time achievements awards, ACL chairs and so forth. The committee has prepared a report, which will be discussed at ACL 2016.

2016Q3 Reports: Conference Officer

2016-07-25T08:24:16Z

YejinChoi: /* Publication Format */

==Conference Timelines==

ACL 2016 has adopted a new reversed ordering between the short and long deadlines. Overall, it worked out successfully. Based on this year’s experience, a reversed ordering is highly recommended for future conferences, especially in years when ACL is either in Asia or in Europe so that there will be a separate NAACL deadline beforehand. By pushing the long deadline until after the short deadline, it is possible to create a sufficient time gap between the NAACL deadline and the ACL long deadline --- as much as 2 month gap, which is substantially larger than what was previously possible.

ACL 2017 plans to adopt yet another new scheme — merging long and short deadlines. Since ACL 2017 will be held in Vancouver, ACL will not need to coordinate the deadlines with NAACL. Thus there are clearly less motivations for keeping separate and reversed deadlines. ACL traditionally maintained separate long and short deadlines and it will be for the first time for ACL 2017 to experiment with the merged deadlines. In fact, the idea of merging deadlines has been raised in the past, but we have been avoiding it due to the increased scale of ACL that became nearly twice of that of NAACL. However, this concern may have been too strong: EMNLP last year received a historically large volume of submissions, which now matches the current scale of ACL, and the merged deadlines of EMNLP seem to have worked out well after all. Thus, it seems reasonable to expect that ACL 2017 should be able to handle the similar workload incurred by the merged deadlines.

==START support for Reviewer to Area Assignment==

START support team has implemented a new feature to help with reviewer-to-area assignments, which has been used by NAACL 2016. This feature automatically allocates reviewers to areas based on keyword matching between reviewers and area chairs using a simple greedy algorithm. The current implementation supports weighted features, though NAACL 2016 operated with unweighted keyword matching. This feature was particularly helpful for NAACL 2016 as they were experimenting with a new definition of areas where areas are defined by the expertise of area chairs. This definition led to areas that can potentially be overlapping with other areas while also being diverse within each area, depending on the breadth of the research interests of the area chairs. NAACL 2016 reports that this experiment was a success.

EMNLP 2016 has decided to return to the more traditional method of assigning reviewers to area chairs based on the preferences specified by the reviewers and area chairs.

==Publication Format==

One question raised in the past ACL exec meeting was whether we should require additional file formats like XML or latex source files for camera-ready as they may be useful for scientific search engines, which can then help disseminating the scientific findings in our community. Based on inquiries made to some experts in scientific search and past publication chairs who have experimented with XML format, the verdict seems to be that latex sources are definitely useful, while the benefit of XML files is less clear.

==Ad Hoc Committee for Diversity==

An ad hoc committee has been formed to revise the current practices and polities for nominating and selecting various roles and awards in ACL, including ACL Fellows, life time achievements awards, ACL chairs and so forth. The committee has prepared a report, which will be discussed at ACL 2016.

2016Q3 Reports: Conference Officer

2016-07-25T08:24:00Z

YejinChoi: /* Publication Format */

==Conference Timelines==

ACL 2016 has adopted a new reversed ordering between the short and long deadlines. Overall, it worked out successfully. Based on this year’s experience, a reversed ordering is highly recommended for future conferences, especially in years when ACL is either in Asia or in Europe so that there will be a separate NAACL deadline beforehand. By pushing the long deadline until after the short deadline, it is possible to create a sufficient time gap between the NAACL deadline and the ACL long deadline --- as much as 2 month gap, which is substantially larger than what was previously possible.

ACL 2017 plans to adopt yet another new scheme — merging long and short deadlines. Since ACL 2017 will be held in Vancouver, ACL will not need to coordinate the deadlines with NAACL. Thus there are clearly less motivations for keeping separate and reversed deadlines. ACL traditionally maintained separate long and short deadlines and it will be for the first time for ACL 2017 to experiment with the merged deadlines. In fact, the idea of merging deadlines has been raised in the past, but we have been avoiding it due to the increased scale of ACL that became nearly twice of that of NAACL. However, this concern may have been too strong: EMNLP last year received a historically large volume of submissions, which now matches the current scale of ACL, and the merged deadlines of EMNLP seem to have worked out well after all. Thus, it seems reasonable to expect that ACL 2017 should be able to handle the similar workload incurred by the merged deadlines.

==START support for Reviewer to Area Assignment==

START support team has implemented a new feature to help with reviewer-to-area assignments, which has been used by NAACL 2016. This feature automatically allocates reviewers to areas based on keyword matching between reviewers and area chairs using a simple greedy algorithm. The current implementation supports weighted features, though NAACL 2016 operated with unweighted keyword matching. This feature was particularly helpful for NAACL 2016 as they were experimenting with a new definition of areas where areas are defined by the expertise of area chairs. This definition led to areas that can potentially be overlapping with other areas while also being diverse within each area, depending on the breadth of the research interests of the area chairs. NAACL 2016 reports that this experiment was a success.

EMNLP 2016 has decided to return to the more traditional method of assigning reviewers to area chairs based on the preferences specified by the reviewers and area chairs.

==Publication Format==

One question raised in the past ACL exec meeting was whether we should require additional file formats like XML or latex source files for camera-ready as they may be useful for scientific search engines, which can then help disseminating the scientific findings in our community. Based on inquiries made to some experts in scientific search and past publication chairs who have experimented with XML format, the verdict seems to be that latex sources are definitely helpful, while the benefit of XML files is less clear.

==Ad Hoc Committee for Diversity==

An ad hoc committee has been formed to revise the current practices and polities for nominating and selecting various roles and awards in ACL, including ACL Fellows, life time achievements awards, ACL chairs and so forth. The committee has prepared a report, which will be discussed at ACL 2016.

2016Q3 Reports: Conference Officer

2016-07-25T08:23:21Z

YejinChoi: /* Publication Format */

==Conference Timelines==

ACL 2016 has adopted a new reversed ordering between the short and long deadlines. Overall, it worked out successfully. Based on this year’s experience, a reversed ordering is highly recommended for future conferences, especially in years when ACL is either in Asia or in Europe so that there will be a separate NAACL deadline beforehand. By pushing the long deadline until after the short deadline, it is possible to create a sufficient time gap between the NAACL deadline and the ACL long deadline --- as much as 2 month gap, which is substantially larger than what was previously possible.

ACL 2017 plans to adopt yet another new scheme — merging long and short deadlines. Since ACL 2017 will be held in Vancouver, ACL will not need to coordinate the deadlines with NAACL. Thus there are clearly less motivations for keeping separate and reversed deadlines. ACL traditionally maintained separate long and short deadlines and it will be for the first time for ACL 2017 to experiment with the merged deadlines. In fact, the idea of merging deadlines has been raised in the past, but we have been avoiding it due to the increased scale of ACL that became nearly twice of that of NAACL. However, this concern may have been too strong: EMNLP last year received a historically large volume of submissions, which now matches the current scale of ACL, and the merged deadlines of EMNLP seem to have worked out well after all. Thus, it seems reasonable to expect that ACL 2017 should be able to handle the similar workload incurred by the merged deadlines.

==START support for Reviewer to Area Assignment==

START support team has implemented a new feature to help with reviewer-to-area assignments, which has been used by NAACL 2016. This feature automatically allocates reviewers to areas based on keyword matching between reviewers and area chairs using a simple greedy algorithm. The current implementation supports weighted features, though NAACL 2016 operated with unweighted keyword matching. This feature was particularly helpful for NAACL 2016 as they were experimenting with a new definition of areas where areas are defined by the expertise of area chairs. This definition led to areas that can potentially be overlapping with other areas while also being diverse within each area, depending on the breadth of the research interests of the area chairs. NAACL 2016 reports that this experiment was a success.

EMNLP 2016 has decided to return to the more traditional method of assigning reviewers to area chairs based on the preferences specified by the reviewers and area chairs.

==Publication Format==

One question raised in the past ACL exec meeting was whether we should require additional file formats like XML or latex source files for camera-ready as they may be useful for scientific search engines, which can then help disseminating the scientific findings in our community. Based on inquiries made to experts in scientific search and past publication chairs, the verdict seems to be that latex sources are definitely helpful, while the benefit of XML files is less clear.

==Ad Hoc Committee for Diversity==

An ad hoc committee has been formed to revise the current practices and polities for nominating and selecting various roles and awards in ACL, including ACL Fellows, life time achievements awards, ACL chairs and so forth. The committee has prepared a report, which will be discussed at ACL 2016.

2016Q3 Reports: Conference Officer

2016-07-25T08:22:37Z

YejinChoi: /* Publication Format */

==Conference Timelines==

ACL 2016 has adopted a new reversed ordering between the short and long deadlines. Overall, it worked out successfully. Based on this year’s experience, a reversed ordering is highly recommended for future conferences, especially in years when ACL is either in Asia or in Europe so that there will be a separate NAACL deadline beforehand. By pushing the long deadline until after the short deadline, it is possible to create a sufficient time gap between the NAACL deadline and the ACL long deadline --- as much as 2 month gap, which is substantially larger than what was previously possible.

ACL 2017 plans to adopt yet another new scheme — merging long and short deadlines. Since ACL 2017 will be held in Vancouver, ACL will not need to coordinate the deadlines with NAACL. Thus there are clearly less motivations for keeping separate and reversed deadlines. ACL traditionally maintained separate long and short deadlines and it will be for the first time for ACL 2017 to experiment with the merged deadlines. In fact, the idea of merging deadlines has been raised in the past, but we have been avoiding it due to the increased scale of ACL that became nearly twice of that of NAACL. However, this concern may have been too strong: EMNLP last year received a historically large volume of submissions, which now matches the current scale of ACL, and the merged deadlines of EMNLP seem to have worked out well after all. Thus, it seems reasonable to expect that ACL 2017 should be able to handle the similar workload incurred by the merged deadlines.

==START support for Reviewer to Area Assignment==

START support team has implemented a new feature to help with reviewer-to-area assignments, which has been used by NAACL 2016. This feature automatically allocates reviewers to areas based on keyword matching between reviewers and area chairs using a simple greedy algorithm. The current implementation supports weighted features, though NAACL 2016 operated with unweighted keyword matching. This feature was particularly helpful for NAACL 2016 as they were experimenting with a new definition of areas where areas are defined by the expertise of area chairs. This definition led to areas that can potentially be overlapping with other areas while also being diverse within each area, depending on the breadth of the research interests of the area chairs. NAACL 2016 reports that this experiment was a success.

EMNLP 2016 has decided to return to the more traditional method of assigning reviewers to area chairs based on the preferences specified by the reviewers and area chairs.

==Publication Format==

One question raised in the past ACL exec meeting was whether we should require additional file formats like XML or latex source files for camera-ready as they may be useful for scientific search engines. Based on inquiries made to experts in scientific search and past publication chairs, the verdict seems to be that latex sources are definitely helpful, while the benefit of XML files is less clear.

==Ad Hoc Committee for Diversity==

An ad hoc committee has been formed to revise the current practices and polities for nominating and selecting various roles and awards in ACL, including ACL Fellows, life time achievements awards, ACL chairs and so forth. The committee has prepared a report, which will be discussed at ACL 2016.

2016Q3 Reports: Conference Officer

2016-07-25T08:21:48Z

YejinChoi: /* Publication Format */

==Conference Timelines==

ACL 2016 has adopted a new reversed ordering between the short and long deadlines. Overall, it worked out successfully. Based on this year’s experience, a reversed ordering is highly recommended for future conferences, especially in years when ACL is either in Asia or in Europe so that there will be a separate NAACL deadline beforehand. By pushing the long deadline until after the short deadline, it is possible to create a sufficient time gap between the NAACL deadline and the ACL long deadline --- as much as 2 month gap, which is substantially larger than what was previously possible.

ACL 2017 plans to adopt yet another new scheme — merging long and short deadlines. Since ACL 2017 will be held in Vancouver, ACL will not need to coordinate the deadlines with NAACL. Thus there are clearly less motivations for keeping separate and reversed deadlines. ACL traditionally maintained separate long and short deadlines and it will be for the first time for ACL 2017 to experiment with the merged deadlines. In fact, the idea of merging deadlines has been raised in the past, but we have been avoiding it due to the increased scale of ACL that became nearly twice of that of NAACL. However, this concern may have been too strong: EMNLP last year received a historically large volume of submissions, which now matches the current scale of ACL, and the merged deadlines of EMNLP seem to have worked out well after all. Thus, it seems reasonable to expect that ACL 2017 should be able to handle the similar workload incurred by the merged deadlines.

==START support for Reviewer to Area Assignment==

START support team has implemented a new feature to help with reviewer-to-area assignments, which has been used by NAACL 2016. This feature automatically allocates reviewers to areas based on keyword matching between reviewers and area chairs using a simple greedy algorithm. The current implementation supports weighted features, though NAACL 2016 operated with unweighted keyword matching. This feature was particularly helpful for NAACL 2016 as they were experimenting with a new definition of areas where areas are defined by the expertise of area chairs. This definition led to areas that can potentially be overlapping with other areas while also being diverse within each area, depending on the breadth of the research interests of the area chairs. NAACL 2016 reports that this experiment was a success.

EMNLP 2016 has decided to return to the more traditional method of assigning reviewers to area chairs based on the preferences specified by the reviewers and area chairs.

==Publication Format==

There have been discussions whether we should require additional file formats like XML or latex source files for camera-ready as they may be useful for scientific search engines. Based on inquiries made to experts in scientific search and past publication chairs, the verdict seems to be that latex sources are definitely helpful, while the benefit of XML files is less clear.

==Ad Hoc Committee for Diversity==

An ad hoc committee has been formed to revise the current practices and polities for nominating and selecting various roles and awards in ACL, including ACL Fellows, life time achievements awards, ACL chairs and so forth. The committee has prepared a report, which will be discussed at ACL 2016.

2016Q3 Reports: Conference Officer

2016-07-25T08:20:57Z

YejinChoi: /* Publication Format */

==Conference Timelines==

ACL 2016 has adopted a new reversed ordering between the short and long deadlines. Overall, it worked out successfully. Based on this year’s experience, a reversed ordering is highly recommended for future conferences, especially in years when ACL is either in Asia or in Europe so that there will be a separate NAACL deadline beforehand. By pushing the long deadline until after the short deadline, it is possible to create a sufficient time gap between the NAACL deadline and the ACL long deadline --- as much as 2 month gap, which is substantially larger than what was previously possible.

ACL 2017 plans to adopt yet another new scheme — merging long and short deadlines. Since ACL 2017 will be held in Vancouver, ACL will not need to coordinate the deadlines with NAACL. Thus there are clearly less motivations for keeping separate and reversed deadlines. ACL traditionally maintained separate long and short deadlines and it will be for the first time for ACL 2017 to experiment with the merged deadlines. In fact, the idea of merging deadlines has been raised in the past, but we have been avoiding it due to the increased scale of ACL that became nearly twice of that of NAACL. However, this concern may have been too strong: EMNLP last year received a historically large volume of submissions, which now matches the current scale of ACL, and the merged deadlines of EMNLP seem to have worked out well after all. Thus, it seems reasonable to expect that ACL 2017 should be able to handle the similar workload incurred by the merged deadlines.

==START support for Reviewer to Area Assignment==

START support team has implemented a new feature to help with reviewer-to-area assignments, which has been used by NAACL 2016. This feature automatically allocates reviewers to areas based on keyword matching between reviewers and area chairs using a simple greedy algorithm. The current implementation supports weighted features, though NAACL 2016 operated with unweighted keyword matching. This feature was particularly helpful for NAACL 2016 as they were experimenting with a new definition of areas where areas are defined by the expertise of area chairs. This definition led to areas that can potentially be overlapping with other areas while also being diverse within each area, depending on the breadth of the research interests of the area chairs. NAACL 2016 reports that this experiment was a success.

EMNLP 2016 has decided to return to the more traditional method of assigning reviewers to area chairs based on the preferences specified by the reviewers and area chairs.

==Publication Format==

There have been discussions whether we should require additional file formats like XML or latex source files for camera-ready as they may be useful for scientific search engines. Based on injuries to Semantic Scholar and past publication chairs who have dealt with XML file formats, the verdict seems to be that latex sources are definitely helpful, while the benefit of XML files is less clear.

==Ad Hoc Committee for Diversity==

An ad hoc committee has been formed to revise the current practices and polities for nominating and selecting various roles and awards in ACL, including ACL Fellows, life time achievements awards, ACL chairs and so forth. The committee has prepared a report, which will be discussed at ACL 2016.

2016Q3 Reports: Conference Officer

2016-07-25T08:20:03Z

YejinChoi: /* START support for Reviewer to Area Assignment */

==Conference Timelines==

ACL 2016 has adopted a new reversed ordering between the short and long deadlines. Overall, it worked out successfully. Based on this year’s experience, a reversed ordering is highly recommended for future conferences, especially in years when ACL is either in Asia or in Europe so that there will be a separate NAACL deadline beforehand. By pushing the long deadline until after the short deadline, it is possible to create a sufficient time gap between the NAACL deadline and the ACL long deadline --- as much as 2 month gap, which is substantially larger than what was previously possible.

ACL 2017 plans to adopt yet another new scheme — merging long and short deadlines. Since ACL 2017 will be held in Vancouver, ACL will not need to coordinate the deadlines with NAACL. Thus there are clearly less motivations for keeping separate and reversed deadlines. ACL traditionally maintained separate long and short deadlines and it will be for the first time for ACL 2017 to experiment with the merged deadlines. In fact, the idea of merging deadlines has been raised in the past, but we have been avoiding it due to the increased scale of ACL that became nearly twice of that of NAACL. However, this concern may have been too strong: EMNLP last year received a historically large volume of submissions, which now matches the current scale of ACL, and the merged deadlines of EMNLP seem to have worked out well after all. Thus, it seems reasonable to expect that ACL 2017 should be able to handle the similar workload incurred by the merged deadlines.

==START support for Reviewer to Area Assignment==

START support team has implemented a new feature to help with reviewer-to-area assignments, which has been used by NAACL 2016. This feature automatically allocates reviewers to areas based on keyword matching between reviewers and area chairs using a simple greedy algorithm. The current implementation supports weighted features, though NAACL 2016 operated with unweighted keyword matching. This feature was particularly helpful for NAACL 2016 as they were experimenting with a new definition of areas where areas are defined by the expertise of area chairs. This definition led to areas that can potentially be overlapping with other areas while also being diverse within each area, depending on the breadth of the research interests of the area chairs. NAACL 2016 reports that this experiment was a success.

EMNLP 2016 has decided to return to the more traditional method of assigning reviewers to area chairs based on the preferences specified by the reviewers and area chairs.

==Publication Format==

There have been discussions whether we should integrate additional file formats like XML or latex source files that may be useful for scientific search engines. Based on injuries to Semantic Scholar and past publication chairs who have dealt with XML file formats, the verdict seems to be that latex sources are definitely helpful, while the benefit of XML files is less clear.

==Ad Hoc Committee for Diversity==

An ad hoc committee has been formed to revise the current practices and polities for nominating and selecting various roles and awards in ACL, including ACL Fellows, life time achievements awards, ACL chairs and so forth. The committee has prepared a report, which will be discussed at ACL 2016.

2016Q3 Reports: Conference Officer

2016-07-25T08:19:18Z

YejinChoi: /* START support for Reviewer to Area Assignment */

==Conference Timelines==

ACL 2016 has adopted a new reversed ordering between the short and long deadlines. Overall, it worked out successfully. Based on this year’s experience, a reversed ordering is highly recommended for future conferences, especially in years when ACL is either in Asia or in Europe so that there will be a separate NAACL deadline beforehand. By pushing the long deadline until after the short deadline, it is possible to create a sufficient time gap between the NAACL deadline and the ACL long deadline --- as much as 2 month gap, which is substantially larger than what was previously possible.

ACL 2017 plans to adopt yet another new scheme — merging long and short deadlines. Since ACL 2017 will be held in Vancouver, ACL will not need to coordinate the deadlines with NAACL. Thus there are clearly less motivations for keeping separate and reversed deadlines. ACL traditionally maintained separate long and short deadlines and it will be for the first time for ACL 2017 to experiment with the merged deadlines. In fact, the idea of merging deadlines has been raised in the past, but we have been avoiding it due to the increased scale of ACL that became nearly twice of that of NAACL. However, this concern may have been too strong: EMNLP last year received a historically large volume of submissions, which now matches the current scale of ACL, and the merged deadlines of EMNLP seem to have worked out well after all. Thus, it seems reasonable to expect that ACL 2017 should be able to handle the similar workload incurred by the merged deadlines.

==START support for Reviewer to Area Assignment==

START support team has implemented a new feature to help with reviewer-to-area assignments, which has been used by NAACL 2016. This feature automatically allocates reviewers to areas based on keyword matching between reviewers and area chairs using a simple greedy algorithm. The current implementation supports weighted features, though NAACL 2016 operated with unweighted keyword matching. This feature was particularly helpful for NAACL 2016 as they were experimenting with a new definition of areas where areas are defined by the expertise of area chairs. This definition led to areas that can potentially be overlapping with other areas while also being diverse within each area, depending on the breadth of the research interests of the area chairs. NAACL 2016 reports that this experiment was a success. However, EMNLP 2016 has decided to return to the more traditional method of assigning reviewers to area chairs based on the preferences specified by the reviewers and area chairs.

==Publication Format==

There have been discussions whether we should integrate additional file formats like XML or latex source files that may be useful for scientific search engines. Based on injuries to Semantic Scholar and past publication chairs who have dealt with XML file formats, the verdict seems to be that latex sources are definitely helpful, while the benefit of XML files is less clear.

==Ad Hoc Committee for Diversity==

An ad hoc committee has been formed to revise the current practices and polities for nominating and selecting various roles and awards in ACL, including ACL Fellows, life time achievements awards, ACL chairs and so forth. The committee has prepared a report, which will be discussed at ACL 2016.

2016Q3 Reports: Conference Officer

2016-07-25T08:18:52Z

YejinChoi: /* START support for Reviewer to Area Assignment */

==Conference Timelines==

ACL 2016 has adopted a new reversed ordering between the short and long deadlines. Overall, it worked out successfully. Based on this year’s experience, a reversed ordering is highly recommended for future conferences, especially in years when ACL is either in Asia or in Europe so that there will be a separate NAACL deadline beforehand. By pushing the long deadline until after the short deadline, it is possible to create a sufficient time gap between the NAACL deadline and the ACL long deadline --- as much as 2 month gap, which is substantially larger than what was previously possible.

ACL 2017 plans to adopt yet another new scheme — merging long and short deadlines. Since ACL 2017 will be held in Vancouver, ACL will not need to coordinate the deadlines with NAACL. Thus there are clearly less motivations for keeping separate and reversed deadlines. ACL traditionally maintained separate long and short deadlines and it will be for the first time for ACL 2017 to experiment with the merged deadlines. In fact, the idea of merging deadlines has been raised in the past, but we have been avoiding it due to the increased scale of ACL that became nearly twice of that of NAACL. However, this concern may have been too strong: EMNLP last year received a historically large volume of submissions, which now matches the current scale of ACL, and the merged deadlines of EMNLP seem to have worked out well after all. Thus, it seems reasonable to expect that ACL 2017 should be able to handle the similar workload incurred by the merged deadlines.

==START support for Reviewer to Area Assignment==

START support team has implemented a new feature to help with reviewer-to-area assignments, which has been used by NAACL 2016. This feature automatically allocates reviewers to areas based on keyword matching between reviewers and area chairs. The current implementation supports weighted features, though NAACL 2016 operated with unweighted keyword matching. This feature was particularly helpful for NAACL 2016 as they were experimenting with a new definition of areas where areas are defined by the expertise of area chairs. This definition led to areas that can potentially be overlapping with other areas while also being diverse within each area, depending on the breadth of the research interests of the area chairs. NAACL 2016 reports that this experiment was a success. However, EMNLP 2016 has decided to return to the more traditional method of assigning reviewers to area chairs based on the preferences specified by the reviewers and area chairs.

==Publication Format==

There have been discussions whether we should integrate additional file formats like XML or latex source files that may be useful for scientific search engines. Based on injuries to Semantic Scholar and past publication chairs who have dealt with XML file formats, the verdict seems to be that latex sources are definitely helpful, while the benefit of XML files is less clear.

==Ad Hoc Committee for Diversity==

An ad hoc committee has been formed to revise the current practices and polities for nominating and selecting various roles and awards in ACL, including ACL Fellows, life time achievements awards, ACL chairs and so forth. The committee has prepared a report, which will be discussed at ACL 2016.

2016Q3 Reports: Conference Officer

2016-07-25T08:18:30Z

YejinChoi: /* Conference Timelines */

==Conference Timelines==

ACL 2016 has adopted a new reversed ordering between the short and long deadlines. Overall, it worked out successfully. Based on this year’s experience, a reversed ordering is highly recommended for future conferences, especially in years when ACL is either in Asia or in Europe so that there will be a separate NAACL deadline beforehand. By pushing the long deadline until after the short deadline, it is possible to create a sufficient time gap between the NAACL deadline and the ACL long deadline --- as much as 2 month gap, which is substantially larger than what was previously possible.

ACL 2017 plans to adopt yet another new scheme — merging long and short deadlines. Since ACL 2017 will be held in Vancouver, ACL will not need to coordinate the deadlines with NAACL. Thus there are clearly less motivations for keeping separate and reversed deadlines. ACL traditionally maintained separate long and short deadlines and it will be for the first time for ACL 2017 to experiment with the merged deadlines. In fact, the idea of merging deadlines has been raised in the past, but we have been avoiding it due to the increased scale of ACL that became nearly twice of that of NAACL. However, this concern may have been too strong: EMNLP last year received a historically large volume of submissions, which now matches the current scale of ACL, and the merged deadlines of EMNLP seem to have worked out well after all. Thus, it seems reasonable to expect that ACL 2017 should be able to handle the similar workload incurred by the merged deadlines.

==START support for Reviewer to Area Assignment==

START support team has implemented a new feature to help with reviewer-to-area assignments, which have been used by NAACL 2016. This feature automatically allocates reviewers to areas based on keyword matching between reviewers and area chairs. The current implementation supports weighted features, though NAACL 2016 operated with unweighted keyword matching. This feature was particularly helpful for NAACL 2016 as they were experimenting with a new definition of areas where areas are defined by the expertise of area chairs. This definition led to areas that can potentially be overlapping with other areas while also being diverse within each area, depending on the breadth of the research interests of the area chairs. NAACL 2016 reports that this experiment was a success. However, EMNLP 2016 has decided to return to the more traditional method of assigning reviewers to area chairs based on the preferences specified by the reviewers and area chairs.

==Publication Format==

There have been discussions whether we should integrate additional file formats like XML or latex source files that may be useful for scientific search engines. Based on injuries to Semantic Scholar and past publication chairs who have dealt with XML file formats, the verdict seems to be that latex sources are definitely helpful, while the benefit of XML files is less clear.

==Ad Hoc Committee for Diversity==

An ad hoc committee has been formed to revise the current practices and polities for nominating and selecting various roles and awards in ACL, including ACL Fellows, life time achievements awards, ACL chairs and so forth. The committee has prepared a report, which will be discussed at ACL 2016.

2016Q3 Reports: Conference Officer

2016-07-25T08:18:12Z

YejinChoi: /* Conference Timelines */

==Conference Timelines==

ACL 2016 has adopted a new reversed ordering between the short and long deadlines. Overall, it worked out successfully. Based on this year’s experience, a reversed ordering is highly recommended for future conferences, especially in years when ACL is either in Asia or in Europe so that there will be a separate NAACL deadline beforehand. By pushing the long deadline until after the short deadline, it is possible to create a sufficient time gap between the NAACL deadline and the ACL long deadline --- as much as 2 month gap, which is substantially larger than what was previously possible.

ACL 2017 plans to adopt yet another new scheme — merging long and short deadlines. Since ACL 2017 will be held in Vancouver, ACL will not need to coordinate the deadlines with NAACL. Thus there are clearly less motivations for keeping separate and reversed deadlines. ACL traditionally maintained separate long and short deadlines and it will be for the first time for ACL 2017 to experiment with the merged deadlines. In fact, the idea of merging deadlines has been raised in the past, but we have been avoiding it due to the increased scale of ACL that became nearly twice of that of NAACL. However, this concern may have been too strong: EMNLP last year received a historically large volume of submissions, which now matches the current scale of ACL, and the merged deadlines of EMNLP seem to have worked out well after all. Thus, it seems reasonable to expect that ACL 2017 can handle the similar workload incurred by the merged deadlines.

==START support for Reviewer to Area Assignment==

START support team has implemented a new feature to help with reviewer-to-area assignments, which have been used by NAACL 2016. This feature automatically allocates reviewers to areas based on keyword matching between reviewers and area chairs. The current implementation supports weighted features, though NAACL 2016 operated with unweighted keyword matching. This feature was particularly helpful for NAACL 2016 as they were experimenting with a new definition of areas where areas are defined by the expertise of area chairs. This definition led to areas that can potentially be overlapping with other areas while also being diverse within each area, depending on the breadth of the research interests of the area chairs. NAACL 2016 reports that this experiment was a success. However, EMNLP 2016 has decided to return to the more traditional method of assigning reviewers to area chairs based on the preferences specified by the reviewers and area chairs.

==Publication Format==

There have been discussions whether we should integrate additional file formats like XML or latex source files that may be useful for scientific search engines. Based on injuries to Semantic Scholar and past publication chairs who have dealt with XML file formats, the verdict seems to be that latex sources are definitely helpful, while the benefit of XML files is less clear.

==Ad Hoc Committee for Diversity==

An ad hoc committee has been formed to revise the current practices and polities for nominating and selecting various roles and awards in ACL, including ACL Fellows, life time achievements awards, ACL chairs and so forth. The committee has prepared a report, which will be discussed at ACL 2016.

2016Q3 Reports: Conference Officer

2016-07-25T08:16:53Z

YejinChoi:

==Conference Timelines==

ACL 2016 has adopted a new reversed ordering between the short and long deadlines. Overall, it worked out successfully. Based on this year’s experience, a reversed ordering is highly recommended for future conferences, especially in years when ACL is either in Asia or in Europe so that there will be a separate NAACL deadline beforehand. By pushing the long deadline until after the short deadline, it is possible to create a sufficient time gap between the NAACL deadline and the ACL long deadline --- as much as 2 month gap, which is substantially larger than what was previously possible.

ACL 2017 plans to adopt yet another new scheme — merging long and short deadlines. Since ACL 2017 will be held in Vancouver, ACL will not need to coordinate the deadlines with NAACL. Thus there are clearly less motivations for keeping separate and reversed deadlines. ACL traditionally maintained separate long and short deadlines and it will be for the first time for ACL 2017 to experiment with the merged deadlines. In fact, the idea of merging deadlines has been raised in the past, but we have been avoiding it due to the increased scale of ACL that became nearly twice of that of NAACL. However, this concern may have been too strong given that EMNLP last year received a historically large volume of submissions, which now matches the current scale of ACL, and the merged deadlines of EMNLP seem to have worked out well after all. Thus, it seems reasonable to expect that ACL 2017 can handle the similar workload incurred by the merged deadlines.

==START support for Reviewer to Area Assignment==

START support team has implemented a new feature to help with reviewer-to-area assignments, which have been used by NAACL 2016. This feature automatically allocates reviewers to areas based on keyword matching between reviewers and area chairs. The current implementation supports weighted features, though NAACL 2016 operated with unweighted keyword matching. This feature was particularly helpful for NAACL 2016 as they were experimenting with a new definition of areas where areas are defined by the expertise of area chairs. This definition led to areas that can potentially be overlapping with other areas while also being diverse within each area, depending on the breadth of the research interests of the area chairs. NAACL 2016 reports that this experiment was a success. However, EMNLP 2016 has decided to return to the more traditional method of assigning reviewers to area chairs based on the preferences specified by the reviewers and area chairs.

==Publication Format==

There have been discussions whether we should integrate additional file formats like XML or latex source files that may be useful for scientific search engines. Based on injuries to Semantic Scholar and past publication chairs who have dealt with XML file formats, the verdict seems to be that latex sources are definitely helpful, while the benefit of XML files is less clear.

==Ad Hoc Committee for Diversity==

An ad hoc committee has been formed to revise the current practices and polities for nominating and selecting various roles and awards in ACL, including ACL Fellows, life time achievements awards, ACL chairs and so forth. The committee has prepared a report, which will be discussed at ACL 2016.

2016Q3 Reports: Conference Officer

2016-07-25T08:15:31Z

YejinChoi: Created page with "==Conference Timelines== ACL 2016 has adopted a new reversed ordering between the short and long deadlines. Overall, it worked out successfully. Based on this year’s experi..."

==Conference Timelines==

ACL 2016 has adopted a new reversed ordering between the short and long deadlines. Overall, it worked out successfully. Based on this year’s experience, a reversed ordering is highly recommended for future conferences, especially in years when ACL is either in Asia or in Europe so that there will be a separate NAACL deadline beforehand. By pushing the long deadline until after the short deadline, it is possible to create a sufficient time gap between the NAACL deadline and the ACL long deadline --- substantially larger than what was previously possible — as much as 2 month gap.

ACL 2017 plans to adopt yet another new scheme — merging long and short deadlines. Since ACL 2017 will be held in Vancouver, ACL will not need to coordinate the deadlines with NAACL. Thus there’s clearly less motivations for keeping separate and reversed deadlines. ACL traditionally maintained separate long and short deadlines and it will be for the first time for ACL 2017 to experiment with the merged deadlines. In fact, the idea of merging deadlines has been raised in the past, but we have been avoiding it due to the increased scale of ACL that became nearly twice of that of NAACL. However, this concern may have been too strong given that EMNLP last year received a historically large volume of submissions, which now matches the current scale of ACL, and the merged deadlines of EMNLP seem to have worked out well after all. Thus, it seems reasonable to expect that ACL 2017 can handle the similar workload incurred by the merged deadlines.

==START support for Reviewer to Area Assignment==

START support team has implemented a new feature to help with reviewer-to-area assignments, which have been used by NAACL 2016. This feature automatically allocates reviewers to areas based on keyword matching between reviewers and area chairs. The current implementation supports weighted features, though NAACL 2016 operated with unweighted keyword matching. This feature was particularly helpful for NAACL 2016 as they were experimenting with a new definition of areas where areas are defined by the expertise of area chairs. This definition led to areas that can potentially be overlapping with other areas while also being diverse within each area, depending on the breadth of the research interests of the area chairs. NAACL 2016 reports that this experiment was a success. However, EMNLP 2016 has decided to return to the more traditional method of assigning reviewers to area chairs based on the preferences specified by the reviewers and area chairs.

==Publication Format==

There have been discussions whether we should integrate additional file formats like XML or latex source files that may be useful for scientific search engines. Based on injuries to Semantic Scholar and past publication chairs who have dealt with XML file formats, the verdict seems to be that latex sources are definitely helpful, while the benefit of XML files is less clear.

==Ad Hoc Committee for Diversity==

An ad hoc committee has been formed to revise the current practices and polities for nominating and selecting various roles and awards in ACL, including ACL Fellows, life time achievements awards, ACL chairs and so forth. The committee has prepared a report, which will be discussed at ACL 2016.

2016Q1 Reports: Conference Officer

2016-02-22T22:16:06Z

YejinChoi: /* Minority */

==Conference Management==

There have been efforts to improve the overall conference management and integrate some of the new functionalities into the START system. Many thanks to the NAACL program chairs this year (Nenkova and Rambow) who have spearheaded the efforts by implementing several innovative methods. More specifically, (a) dynamic area definitions, (b) semi-automatic management of the reviewer pool, (c) automatic paper-to-area assignment, and (d) semi-automatic reviewer-to-area assignment. Thus far, the START support team has implemented (c), which is based on weighted key-word matching and it has been already used by NAACL 2016. The START support team is willing to implement (d), which we expect to be a relatively easy extension to the algorithm implemented for (c).

As these changes are somewhat exploratory, the ACL 2016 coordinating team will stay with the traditional method while focusing on other innovative pursuits (new outstanding paper awards targeting a larger pool of recipients, reversed ordering of long-short deadlines). Some of these changes will be picked up by the EMNLP 2016 coordinating committee. We look forward to seeing the feedback survey from the NAACL 2016 experience, which will guide the coordination of the 2017 conference management.

==COIs of the Program Chairs==

There have been discussions about the paper submission by students of the program chairs. The official policy discourages, but does not ban, the submissions by students of the program chairs. Some voiced strong concerns for the potential misuse of the power. Even without deliberate misuse, there have been concerns about subconscious biases --- not only between the program chairs, but also the dynamics between the area chairs and the program chairs. Now that we have TACL deadlines year around, which allows the authors of the accepted papers to attend the conference of their choosing, it seems relatively easy for the program chairs to find other publication outlets for their students. So, the consensus has been that it seems reasonable to continue discouraging the submissions from the program chairs for the conference they are in charge.

That said, some of the past and current program chairs proposed that the recruiting committee should inform future program chairs well in advance about this issue, preferably before they officially accept the offer to serve as the program chairs. While this knowledge would have not changed their decisions to accept the offers, it would have helped them better prepared for the upcoming conference deadlines, and also it's preferable not to find surprises later on.

==Balanced Representation of Minority==

There have been discussions about the balanced representation of minorities for broad ACL activities including the selection procedure of the ACL fellows. A new committee has been formed (Joakim, Min-yen, Marilyn, myself) and investigation is under way.

==Timeline of Conference Deadlines==

The timeline of deadlines has continued to be a tricky matter for those years when we have both NAACL and ACL. The NAACL coordinating committee last year had proposed the ACL to merge the long and short deadlines. However, initial investigation indicated that it may not be practical to merge deadlines given the recent substantial growth of the ACL submissions. Thus, as an alternative solution, the ACL 2016 program chairs have decided to try out the reverse ordering of deadlines, i.e., short first, long next. This will potentially ease out the tight scheduling between NAACL and ACL long-paper deadlines and lessen the reviewing overhead caused by the overflow of rejected long papers turning up as short paper submissions.

2016Q1 Reports: Conference Officer

2016-02-22T22:14:52Z

YejinChoi: /* Conference Management */

==Conference Management==

There have been efforts to improve the overall conference management and integrate some of the new functionalities into the START system. Many thanks to the NAACL program chairs this year (Nenkova and Rambow) who have spearheaded the efforts by implementing several innovative methods. More specifically, (a) dynamic area definitions, (b) semi-automatic management of the reviewer pool, (c) automatic paper-to-area assignment, and (d) semi-automatic reviewer-to-area assignment. Thus far, the START support team has implemented (c), which is based on weighted key-word matching and it has been already used by NAACL 2016. The START support team is willing to implement (d), which we expect to be a relatively easy extension to the algorithm implemented for (c).

As these changes are somewhat exploratory, the ACL 2016 coordinating team will stay with the traditional method while focusing on other innovative pursuits (new outstanding paper awards targeting a larger pool of recipients, reversed ordering of long-short deadlines). Some of these changes will be picked up by the EMNLP 2016 coordinating committee. We look forward to seeing the feedback survey from the NAACL 2016 experience, which will guide the coordination of the 2017 conference management.

==COIs of the Program Chairs==

There have been discussions about the paper submission by students of the program chairs. The official policy discourages, but does not ban, the submissions by students of the program chairs. Some voiced strong concerns for the potential misuse of the power. Even without deliberate misuse, there have been concerns about subconscious biases --- not only between the program chairs, but also the dynamics between the area chairs and the program chairs. Now that we have TACL deadlines year around, which allows the authors of the accepted papers to attend the conference of their choosing, it seems relatively easy for the program chairs to find other publication outlets for their students. So, the consensus has been that it seems reasonable to continue discouraging the submissions from the program chairs for the conference they are in charge.

That said, some of the past and current program chairs proposed that the recruiting committee should inform future program chairs well in advance about this issue, preferably before they officially accept the offer to serve as the program chairs. While this knowledge would have not changed their decisions to accept the offers, it would have helped them better prepared for the upcoming conference deadlines, and also it's preferable not to find surprises later on.

==Minority==

There have been discussions about the balanced representation of minorities for broad ACL activities including the selection procedure of the ACL fellows. A new committee has been formed (Joakim, Min-yen, Marilyn, myself) and investigation is under way.

==Timeline of Conference Deadlines==

The timeline of deadlines has continued to be a tricky matter for those years when we have both NAACL and ACL. The NAACL coordinating committee last year had proposed the ACL to merge the long and short deadlines. However, initial investigation indicated that it may not be practical to merge deadlines given the recent substantial growth of the ACL submissions. Thus, as an alternative solution, the ACL 2016 program chairs have decided to try out the reverse ordering of deadlines, i.e., short first, long next. This will potentially ease out the tight scheduling between NAACL and ACL long-paper deadlines and lessen the reviewing overhead caused by the overflow of rejected long papers turning up as short paper submissions.

2016Q1 Reports: Conference Officer

2016-02-22T22:14:28Z

YejinChoi: /* Conference Management */

==Conference Management==

There have been efforts to improve the overall conference management and integrate some of the new functionalities into the START system. Many thanks to the NAACL program chairs this year (Nenkova and Rambow) who have spearheaded the efforts by implementing several innovative methods. More specifically, (a) dynamic area definitions, (b) semi-automatic management of the reviewer pool, (c) automatic paper-to-area assignment, and (d) semi-automatic reviewer-to-area assignment. Thus far, the START support team has implemented (c), which is based on weighted key-word matching and it has been already used by NAACL 2016. The START support team is willing to implement (d), which we expect to be a relatively easy extension to the algorithm implemented for (c).

As these changes are somewhat exploratory, the ACL 2016 coordinating team will stay with the traditional method while focusing on other innovative pursuits (new outstanding paper awards targeting a larger pool of recipients, reversed ordering of short & long paper deadlines). Some of these changes will be picked up by the EMNLP 2016 coordinating committee. We look forward to seeing the feedback survey from the NAACL 2016 experience, which will guide the coordination of the 2017 conference management.

==COIs of the Program Chairs==

There have been discussions about the paper submission by students of the program chairs. The official policy discourages, but does not ban, the submissions by students of the program chairs. Some voiced strong concerns for the potential misuse of the power. Even without deliberate misuse, there have been concerns about subconscious biases --- not only between the program chairs, but also the dynamics between the area chairs and the program chairs. Now that we have TACL deadlines year around, which allows the authors of the accepted papers to attend the conference of their choosing, it seems relatively easy for the program chairs to find other publication outlets for their students. So, the consensus has been that it seems reasonable to continue discouraging the submissions from the program chairs for the conference they are in charge.

That said, some of the past and current program chairs proposed that the recruiting committee should inform future program chairs well in advance about this issue, preferably before they officially accept the offer to serve as the program chairs. While this knowledge would have not changed their decisions to accept the offers, it would have helped them better prepared for the upcoming conference deadlines, and also it's preferable not to find surprises later on.

==Minority==

There have been discussions about the balanced representation of minorities for broad ACL activities including the selection procedure of the ACL fellows. A new committee has been formed (Joakim, Min-yen, Marilyn, myself) and investigation is under way.

==Timeline of Conference Deadlines==

The timeline of deadlines has continued to be a tricky matter for those years when we have both NAACL and ACL. The NAACL coordinating committee last year had proposed the ACL to merge the long and short deadlines. However, initial investigation indicated that it may not be practical to merge deadlines given the recent substantial growth of the ACL submissions. Thus, as an alternative solution, the ACL 2016 program chairs have decided to try out the reverse ordering of deadlines, i.e., short first, long next. This will potentially ease out the tight scheduling between NAACL and ACL long-paper deadlines and lessen the reviewing overhead caused by the overflow of rejected long papers turning up as short paper submissions.