After two years of online experience, SIGIR will move to a hybrid on-site + online format. Empowering in-person conferences with remote participation has been a growing aspiration long before the pandemic. This will be an exciting opportunity to make it happen, and will serve as a testbed in moving towards a more inclusive and environment-friendly conference model. As any new experience, this is both exciting and challenging – we hope the learnings will carry over to future years. We thank all the SIGIR 2022 participants for joining and supporting us in this journey, and for your patience with any aspects that can and should be improved.
In order to help everyone find their way in this new conference format, we summarize here some guidelines for all SIGIR 2022 participants – please read them carefully. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the technical organization secretariat at sigir2022@pacifico-meetings.com.
1. Hybrid format overview
All events in the SIGIR 2022 technical program (oral paper sessions, SIRIP, tutorials, workshops and the Doctoral Consortium – all except on-site poster & demo sessions), as well as the collocated ICTIR 2022, will be streamed live to registered participants through Zoom meetings and A/V equipment in all on-site rooms. Attendees will be able to follow all sessions either online or in person. Remote attendees can interact with speakers by posting questions on Zoom Q&A. Presenters will have the option to present their work either on site, or remotely through Zoom, and take questions from both the on-site and online audiences.
While we provide full support for remote participation, the program will pivot around the physical component, and the schedule will be anchored in local time during the main conference week (July 11th to 15th). We wish to ensure that the participants who opt in for the time and cost involved in physical attendance have a meaningful on-site conference experience.
The conference will nonetheless include a fully online day on Thursday, July 7th, prior to the on-site conference days. The program that day will comprise fully online sessions with paper, poster and demo presentations. Depending on program needs, some online paper presentations may be scheduled along with other in-person presentations in the main conference days (July 12th to 14th).
Moreover, the main conference sessions (full / perspectives / reproducibility / SIRIP / TOIS papers, keynotes, panel, tutorials) will all be recorded and made available for viewing offline. This way, attendees in any time zone will be able to follow all events either live or offline at their convenience.
2. All attendees
On-site attendees will just need to locate the room of the session you are interested in, sit through the presentations, ask questions at the end, and have coffee in between sessions. A (frugal) lunch box will be provided for all in-person attendees.
Remote attendees will find specific zoom links for each session on the online conference platform – links to the online platform will be added here shortly before the conference. Login is required and will be provided by email in advance to all registrants, and the online platform will be available as soon as the conference begins. Remote attendees will join the sessions directly through the Zoom interface (i.e. no embedding in a different platform). On-site attendees will also get access to the online platform for their convenience.
3. Presenters
All presenters should proceed to the speaker’s corner in 4th floor (Fuentecilla) to upload their slides at least 20m before their session starts.
Remote presenters (full, perspectives, short, demos, resource, reproducibility, SIRIP and TOIS papers) will all be required to submit a video recording of their presentation, as a backup in case anything breaks unexpectedly during the live sessions. The submitted videos will be made available on the online conference platform in advance to the session date.
Submitting a presentation recording is optional for in-person presenters of full, perspectives, reproducibility, SIRIP and TOIS papers, as the live sessions will be recorded and made available on the conference platform for later offline viewing.
Students presenting their work in the Doctoral Consortium (DC) do not need to submit any presentation material beforehand. The consortium will be held in its own private Zoom meeting where all participants are connected on an equal footing. Further details of the DC session structure and dynamics will be defined and communicated to the students and mentors by the DC chairs.
Workshops will also define their own procedure and indications for speakers and participants. Workshop organizers will take care of recording the sessions at their own discretion. The conference organization will support the functionality and storage for these recordings on Zoom.
3.1 Oral presentations
Oral paper presentations (full, perspectives, reproducibility, TOIS and SIRIP papers) should take 12 minutes at most, leaving at least 3 minutes for Q&A.
On-site speakers should introduce themselves to their session chair 15-30 minutes before the session starts.
Remote presenters should join the session Zoom meeting 30 minutes before the session begins, and will be assisted by an organization staff member. Presenters will test their mic, webcam and screen sharing during this time and make sure everything works smoothly. Please make sure you have the last version of Zoom installed on your device.
Remote presenters should submit a video recording of their presentation, up to 12 mins in length. This video will be used as a backup in case anything fails during the live session, and will also be made available on the online conference platform beforehand for all attendees. Submitting this video recording is optional for on-site presenters.
3.2 Poster and demo presentations
On-site poster and demo sessions (where short papers, resource papers and demos will be presented) will have a traditional format where physical posters (printed and brought to the venue by presenters) will be displayed on poster boards in designated spaces at the venue. All physical posters should be printed in A0 size with portrait orientation (1189mm height x 841mm width).
Demo presenters will have a table where they can place their equipment (laptop, etc.), a poster board where they can display a poster summarizing their work, and the standard conference wifi connection. If you have any further technical requirements, please contact the demo chairs at sigir22-demos@easychair.org.
On-site poster and demo sessions (July 12th and 13th) will not be recorded, nor will they be accessible live by remote attendees – they will be an onsite-only activity.
Remote posters and demos will all be presented in a live online session on Thursday July 7th. You should upload your poster in pdf format through the materials upload form (see paragraphs at the beginning of section 3 above). You may use the same poster dimensions as physical posters, though you can afford further flexibility and creativity as you will be free from the physical constraints when you present your work online (e.g. you may choose a landscape poster orientation suiting standard device screens).
Live interaction between authors and attendees during these sessions will be based on Jitsi meetings. Each poster and demo has a Jitsi link on the schedule view in the online platform. Each presenter will click on this link for their poster/demo and by doing so they will start a Jitsi video conference room where they can interact with attendees. Presenters will wait in this room for attendees to join during the poster & demo session.
Attendees can scan the list of posters & demos in the online schedule view and join the room started by the corresponding author anytime by clicking on the same link. This way, presenters and attendees will meet and be able to interact directly. Attendees can switch between poster/demos anytime, as they would do in in-person sessions, by simply leaving and joining different Jitsi rooms through the corresponding links.
All (on-site and online) poster and demo presenters should submit a video recording where the work is presented. The video should be no longer than 5 mins for short papers and demos, and 12 mins for resource papers. The videos will be made available on the online conference platform for all attendees to view at any time.
3.3. Presentation materials
- Slides: will display best in 16:9 format, both for live (in-person and remote) oral presentations, and for remote presentation recordings.
- Posters: A0 size with portrait orientation (1189mm height x 841mm width) for in-person poster & demo sessions. Posters in online presentations can use further flexibility – e.g. you may choose a landscape poster orientation suiting standard device screen sizes.
- Recorded presentations: the video format should be 16:9 in full HD, stored as a .mp4 file.
4. Session chairs
For an optimal on-site experience, we will need all session chairs to be physically present at the venue, except for the online sessions on July 7th, where all participants and session chairs will be online.
Please meet the presenters of your session 15-30 minutes before the session starts, to check that everyone is present and tackle any last-minute glitches.
The organization will take care of connecting with remote presenters and displaying their Zoom video/audio input on the room screen and sound – you just need to announce the remote presenters and moderate Q&A in exactly the same way as you will with in-person speakers.
You will be provided with a tablet where you will be able to see the Q&A from the online audience, select and read questions for the presenters. You may moderate and select the questions at your own discretion – we suggest taking questions from both the physical and online audiences in the mix.
If an author does not show up, fails to connect to the session to deliver their presentation, or the connection breaks, the organization will play their recorded presentation. Should everything fail, you can move on to the next presenter, and use the spare time for longer Q&A or finishing the session earlier, as you see fit.
If the audience is being slow in coming up with questions, be prepared to ask some questions yourself.
5. Childcare support
SIGIR 2022 provides childcare services on demand for on-site attendees. Please contact sigir2022@pacifico-meetings.com to provide your particular needs and request childcare support.