CALL FOR DOCTORAL SYMPOSIUM

The annual ACM/IFIP Middleware conference will include a doctoral symposium, to which all PhD students working on the topics of the Middleware conference are invited to apply. The doctoral symposium will be held prior to the main conference.

The goal of the doctoral symposium is to provide a welcoming and supportive environment where PhD students working in related fields can receive feedback, discuss their work, and prepare to get the most out of their participation in the main conference. All participating students will be offered the opportunity to engage with their peers, as well as with senior academic and industrial members of the Middleware community. This will include the feedback of panel members on the day of the symposium and individual meetings with a personal mentor during the conference. The symposium is open to PhD students at any stage of their studies.

Applicants will be divided into two groups:

• Early-stage research: students at an early stage of their thesis who are focused on crafting their research proposal and completing background research.

• Late-stage research: students closer to finishing their thesis or dissertation and thinking about how to present their research, its results, and its impact.

All PhD students carrying out research on middleware topics are invited to submit a position paper to the doctoral symposium. Papers will be peer-reviewed by the symposium’s committee of selected mentors. The criteria for accepting papers includes the extent of the contribution of the work to the field, the originality of the problem, and the overall quality of the position paper. Position papers should fit within the research topics of the Middleware 2021 main conference.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Position papers are limited to 2 pages (for early-stage research students) or 4 pages (for late-stage research students). Students should identify the category they belong to. Submissions must use the same format as for the research papers. The suggested format is detailed on the Middleware 2021 website. Please see the submission format for the research track.

The submissions should include an author name and associated affiliation: the only author should be the PhD student (other contributors, e.g., the PhD student’s advisor(s), can be acknowledged in a separate section at the end). The students should ask a letter of reference from their PhD advisor, which should accompany the submission.

Contributions to the Middleware 2021 Doctoral symposium will appear in the proceedings that supplements the main conference proceedings.

Accepted position paper will lead to a presentation during the doctoral symposium.

• Presentation format: Please see this section.

IMPORTANT DATES

• Submission: Wednesday, September 22 September 29, 2021

• Notification: Friday, October 1 Monday, October 18, 2021

• Camera Ready Deadline: Friday, October 8 Monday, October 25, 2021

All deadlines are 23:59 AOE.

SUBMISSION WEBSITE

Submissions will be handled through HotCRP: https://middleware2021ds.hotcrp.com/

STUDENT TRAVEL GRANTS

Doctoral students that submit their work to this symposium are strongly encouraged to apply for student travel grants to attend Middleware 2021. Students participating in the doctoral symposium will be given priority for the travel grants.

Please see the conference website for more details about the student travel grant.

PRESENTATION INSTRUCTIONS

We will give you the option to present your work live. The duration of your talk will be 10 minutes, during which you should provide an overview of their work.

Although authors will present their work live, *all authors* are required to upload a 10-minute video of your talk by November 23rd, 2021 (middlewareconf@gmail.com).

The video will be streamed during the technical session for authors who cannot present their work live. If you cannot present your work online, you need to inform the Symposium chairs.

Irrespective whether the talk is presented live or broadcasted from the recording, at least one author from each paper must be present to answer questions for the Q&A /discussion period.

For details on extra resources and how to submit and upload videos, please visit https://middleware-conf.github.io/2021/presentation-instructions/ and read instructions on video submissions and link sharing. Authors must attend their respective Zoom sessions for the Q&A immediately following their live talk or the broadcast of their video.

Details of video files

Duration: 10 minutes

File format: .mp4 using the H.264 and AAC codecs following YouTube guidelines.

Video quality: at least HD (720p)

Audio quality: please verify that your speech is clear before uploading (you may wish to include subtitles)

Q&A during the session

Authors must attend their respective Zoom sessions for the Q&A immediately following their live talk or the broadcast of their video.

Content of the video recording

Authors should treat the video recording as a direct substitute for a physical presence. Thus, the audio should contain a spoken narration of the presentation, and the accompanying video should include a complete walkthrough of the presentation slides. The presenter is also strongly encouraged to overlay a thumbnail-sized camera feed showing the speaker.

For authors presenting live, please add some 2-3 discussion points to your conclusion slide. For those who choose to broadcast their talk video, please include the discussion points as well and highlight technical details or future work to facilitate questions during the Q&A.

Resources

We recommend the following resources to record your video:

ASPLOS 2020 YouTube Channel: Example conference presentation videos.

Remote Video Presentation Guide: Guide for recording presentations with slides and camera overlay.

Guide to Best Practices: Section 3.2 from this ACM guide presents some suggestions of equipment to use.

Open Broadcaster Software is an open-source software for recording videos: scenes can be created which compose the computer screen with a camera feed.

Zoom provides a simple method for recording videos by simply starting a meeting in solitaire, opening the camera and sharing the screen.

PowerPoint also provides a mechanism for recording slides.

Do not hesitate to contact the chairs of your respective track and the general chairs if you have any questions.

PROGRAM