The ISWC 2024 Doctoral Consortium (DC) will take place as part of the 23rd International Semantic Web Conference. This forum will provide PhD students an opportunity to:
● present and discuss their research ideas in a supportive, formative and yet critical environment.
● receive feedback from mentors, typically senior members of the Semantic Web research community, and peers.
● explore career pathways available after completing a PhD degree, and finally
● network and build collaborations with other members of the community.
The event is intended for students who have articulated a reasonably detailed research proposal, preferably supported by some preliminary results. The aim is to support the students in refining their proposal and suggest possible ways to improve their research plan and achieve results with prospective greater impact. While doctoral degrees can vary in format and conduct, we aim this Call for Papers to PhD candidates who will have already partially investigated some specific problems. Students will be required to submit a paper to the doctoral consortium, structured like a research proposal (see “Submission Details” below). All proposals submitted to the Doctoral Consortium will undergo a careful review process by the International Programme Committee, who will provide detailed and constructive feedback and select those submissions to be presented at the Doctoral Consortium. If accepted, students will have to register and attend the event, which will include a range of interactive activities.
Doctoral candidates with papers accepted for the Consortium will be given priority consideration for SWSA travel grants to the Conference.
Important Dates – All deadlines are 23:59 AoE (Anywhere on Earth)
Submissions Due: May 2nd, 2024
Notification Due: May 30th, 2024
Camera-Ready Papers Due: after the conference
Doctoral Consortium: November 11th, 2024
Conference in Baltimore, Maryland, USA
November 11th – 15th, 2024
Topics of Interest
We are the doctoral consortium of the ISWC. As such, submissions should broadly fit the topics of interest of the ISWC research track.
Submission Details
Students should submit a description of their PhD research proposal in 4 to 6 pages excluding references. All proposals must be submitted electronically via the EasyChair conference submission system.
The submission should address the following questions. We are not expecting definitive answers in all cases. You are invited to share your thoughts on where you need help to choose alternative paths or to improve the scientific rigour.
1. Problem statement: what is the problem that you are trying to solve?
2. Importance: Why is this problem important and for whom? Who will benefit and who should care? What is the impact of solving this problem (for the research community, or society in general)?
3. Related work: Has a solution to this problem been attempted before and how? If not, have research efforts addressed similar problems? What can you learn from these efforts? If you are addressing an existing problem, what are the limitations of current solutions? What are you adding that is novel? Why?
4. Research question(s) and hypotheses: What hypotheses do you make in formulating your solution? What are the questions you need to answer in order to solve the problem? Are there boundary cases you plan to exclude or assumptions your work is based on?
5. Research methods: What methods did you follow in your proposal? Have you produced any results so far?
6. Evaluation: How do you know when you have answered your question(s)? What are the methods you apply to test your hypotheses? Have you identified criteria to measure the degree of success of your solution?
7. Limitations and future work: Are there any limitations in your approach? What are your planned next steps to complete your investigation?
Please aim to answer the above questions with as much detail as possible, especially questions 2 and 4. You should provide as much detail as possible to allow a knowledgeable reviewer from the Semantic Web community, but possibly not an expert in your topic, to assess the validity of your research contribution.
All submissions should include references, which are not counted towards the max page limit. All papers exceeding 6 pages plus references will be desk rejected and therefore will not be reviewed.
Submissions should be authored by the student only. The supervisor(s) should be acknowledged at the end of the paper, together with a funding agency or any other party who supports or contributes to the research.
Submissions must use the CEUR-ART style. For details on the CEUR-ART style, see Publishing at CEUR-WS.org. They must be submitted online via EasyChair, in PDF format.
Authors of accepted papers must register to the conference and present their work at the Doctoral Consortium. Students are expected to attend the DC for the whole day in order to gain as much value as possible from the experience.
Authors must be enrolled in a doctoral programme and must not have submitted their dissertation at the time of submission to the Doctoral Consortium.
DC Proceedings will be published with CEUR-WS.org. Camera-ready versions will be due after the conference (date to be decided) so that authors can incorporate feedback received during the event into the published version of their paper.
Doctoral Consortium Track Chairs
Contact: iswc2024-doctoral-consortium@easychair.org
Antoine Zimmermann
Mines Saint-Étienne, France
Kerry Taylor
Australian National University, Australia