Author Instructions

This page contains the author instructions for conference submissions.

Download the Call For Proposals PDF here.

Submission Types

The conference accepts the following type of submissions; follow the links for full details on each submission type:

Format

All documents must follow the ACM Proceedings Format. Detailed author instructions for each type of submission will be added soon (below). Submissions will be received and processed with EasyChair. The conference proceedings will include all accepted conference submissions except tutorial proposals and workshop papers.

The conference will also include a doctoral consortium, the details of which will be available soon.

Best Paper Award

The three full papers that obtain the highest scores from the reviewers will be “nominees for the best paper award”. A committee composed by the program chairs of the current and past edition of the conference will choose the “best paper award” among the nominees. Both the nominees and the best paper award will be reflected in the proceedings.

Relevant Dates

  • 21 October 2013: Deadline for full/short papers, panel proposals, workshop proposals, tutorial proposals, demonstrations and posters (no extension will be considered).
  • 11 November 2013: Notification of acceptance for workshop and tutorial proposals.
  • 16 December 2013: Notification of acceptance for full/short papers, panel proposals, demonstrations and posters.
  • 3 February 2014: Final version of accepted papers due.
  • 24-28 March 2014: Conference.

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FULL PAPERS, SHORT PAPERS, AND PANELS

Quick Facts

  • Submission deadline: 21st October, 2013
  • Submission link: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=lak14
  • Notification of acceptance: 16th December, 2013
  • Final version due: 3rd February, 2014
  • Format of the submission: Full papers: 10 pages, Short papers: 5 pages, Panel proposals 4 + 2 pages in ACM Proceedings Format
  • Review process: Non-blind peer review
  • Presentation at the conference:
    •  Full paper: 25 min. + 5 min questions
    • short paper 15 min. + 5 min. question
    • Panel: 90 mins
  • Archiving after the conference: Conference proceedings will be published in ACM Digital Library

Message from the Chair

Full papers include a clearly explained substantial conceptual, technical or empirical contribution. The scope of the paper must be properly placed with respect to the current state of the field, and the contribution should be clearly described. This includes the conceptual or theoretical aspects at the foundation of the contribution, an explanation of the technical setting (tools used, how are they integrated in the contribution), analysis, and results of a successfully completed experience.

Short papers can address on-going work, which may include a briefly described theoretical underpinning, an initial proposal or rationale for a technical solution, and preliminary results in an experience.

Panels provide an opportunity for several experts to address a specific topical issue by sharing, debating, and comparing different approaches to a problem. The proposal should provide a description of an issue in the area of Learning Analytics, a description of why this issue is worth discussing, the benefits that may derive from such discussion, and the list of proposed experts to discuss it during the conference.

In order to identify the type of papers that are appropriate for presentation at LAK, we provide some basic guidelines:

Conceptual contributions. A paper presenting a good conceptual contribution should demonstrate how the use of analytics builds on what we know about how people learn to advance that knowledge and to provide new avenues for supporting learning. These contributions could include models, personalization, adaptation, how the design process is influenced by analytics, ideas on educational research methods related to analytics, ethical considerations, the connection of analytics with emotion and affect, or learner modeling. These papers should clearly articulate which learning-related issues are addressed, the advances offered by the work, the environment in which it was investigated, and who will benefit from the work.

Technical innovations. A paper presenting a technical innovation should describe a new algorithm or application of technology that advances the state of the art in learning analytics. Possible options include reports on how to overcome technical challenges in areas such as visualization, natural language processing, recommendation, decision support, social network analysis, etc. These papers should include a solid justification of the innovation, the context in which it is applied, and the potential benefits from using the new contribution.

Applications and case use cases. A paper presenting an application or use case should include a detailed description of the scenario in which the application is used and why, rigorous data analysis (qualitative, quantitative or mixed) with on an appropriately sized population, and a clear description of how such study could be replicated.

  • Stephanie Teasley, University of Michigan, MI, USA (steasley@umich.edu)
  • Abelardo Pardo, The University of Sydney, Australia (abelardo.pardo@sydney.edu.au)

Preparations

Submissions for full papers may be up to 10 pages and short papers up to 5 pages in the ACM Proceedings Format. At least one of the authors must register for the conference before the article can be included in the the proceedings.

In an effort to maximize the impact of the contributions and engage with researchers not attending the conference, authors of both full and short papers are encouraged to provide a video of up to 5 min. in length, 100 MB in size, and in MP4 format encoded with H.264 describing the idea included in the paper. The videos will be available on the conference web site before and after the conference.

Submissions for panel proposals may be up to 4 pages in the ACM Proceedings Format. These submissions can also include up to 2 additional pages (not to be published in the proceedings) with the names and qualifications of confirmed panelists. The panelists must register for the conference before the panel proposal can be included in the proceedings.

Reviewing Process

Each full paper, short paper and panel proposal will be reviewed by at least three reviewers designated by the program chairs. The review process will not be blind. The comments for each paper will be shared among the reviewers of that paper and the program chairs. Submissions with the highest evaluations will be accepted for presentation in the conference, pending final review by the program chairs.

The three full papers with the highest rankings provided by the reviewers will be nominated for the “best paper award”. A committee formed by the current and past program chairs of the conference will then choose the “best paper award” among the nominees. The award will be made public during the conference. The best paper winner and all nominees will be designated in the proceedings.

At the Conference

Authors of full papers will have 25 minutes to present their contribution, followed by 5 minutes for questions. Authors of short papers will have 15 minutes to present their contribution, followed by 5 minutes for questions.  Panels will be have a duration of approximately 90 minutes.

After the Conference

Conference proceedings will be available through ACM Digital Library. Some of the presentations in the conference may be recorded and made available after the event.

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WORKSHOPS AND TUTORIALS

Quick Facts

  • Proposal submission deadline:
    • 1st October, 2013 Mandatory submission of an abstract
    • 21st October, 2013 (No extensions) Full proposal submission
  • Submission link: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=lak14
  • Notification of proposal acceptance:
    • Workshops: 11th November, 2013
    • Tutorials: 16th December, 2013
  • WS Paper submission deadline: 20th January, 2014
  • WS Paper notification deadline: 3rd February, 2014
  • Format of the submission: ACM Proceedings Format
  • Review process: Proposals will be reviewed by the workshop and tutorial chairs based on relevance to LAK, level of innovation, extent of interaction, overall quality, and comprehensiveness of planning.
  • Presentation at the conference: Workshops and tutorials can be full or half days. Each workshop/tutorial provides a #hashtag to enable tracking of online communication.
  • Archiving after the conference: Organizers are asked to prepare the papers for a proceedings volume of all LAK 2014 workshops at the http://ceur-ws.org online archive. Additionally, the best papers of each workshop will be invited to extend their contribution and submit to a special issue of the International Journal for Learning Analytics.

Message from the Chair

LAK 2014 welcomes workshop and tutorial proposal submissions. Workshops provide an efficient forum for community building and sharing of ideas on emerging research topics or specific questions. Tutorials aim to educate stakeholders in a specific Learning Analytics topic. Due to ACM regulations only the workshop summaries will be published in the conference proceedings.

IMPORTANT DATES

  • 1st October 2013 – Mandatory submission of an abstract
  • 21st October 2013 (No extensions) – Proposal submission deadline
  • 11th November 2013 – Notification of workshops acceptance
  • 16th December 2013 – Notification of tutorials acceptance
  • 20th January 2014 – Workshop paper submission deadline
  • 3rd February 2014 – Workshop paper notification deadline

 

Preparations

Each workshop or tutorial should preferably have at least two organizers. Proposals should describe in a maximum of 3 pages the following information to judge the importance, quality, and benefits for the LAK community. Please use the ACM style guidelines to describe the workshop proposal an example can be found in the previous LAK proceedings.
Cover page including:

  • Workshop or tutorial title
  • Name, affiliation, full postal address, homepage and e-mail address for each organizer
  • Identification of the primary contact person(s)
  • Short biography of each organizer stating their qualifications related to the workshop or tutorial topics
  • Expected participants and domains addressed
  • Required equipment for the workshop / tutorial
  • Dissemination activities (e.g. #hashtag of the event, mailing lists, etc.)

Description of the workshop / tutorial:

  • Motivation: What is the overall topic of the workshop or tutorial? Why is this topic of particular interest for LAK 2014? What is it’s contribution to the research field?
  • Objectives: What are the objectives that the workshop or tutorial aims to achieve? If a similar workshop or tutorial has been organized in the past at LAK or another conference, please give details (audience, URL) and describe how your proposal builds upon these past events.

Target group:

  • A brief explanation of why and to whom the workshop or tutorial is of interest: target audience, areas from which the participants are expected to come.
  • Indicate how you plan to reach and attract your target group. Estimate the number of participants, if possible, give a list of tentatively confirmed participants.
  • Names and contact information of PC members, if available.

Format:

  • A description of the proposed workshop or tutorial format, including the planned activities, as well as how these activities address the objectives.
  • Provide a preliminary schedule with estimated times. Design your schedule for a length of 3 hours (half-day) or 6 hours (full-day) with a lunch break and one or two coffee breaks, respectively.

Reviewing Process

The workshop selection will be handled competitively; proposals will be ranked according to 5 criteria:

  1. Relevance to LAK
  2. Innovativeness
  3. Extent of interaction
  4. Overall quality
  5. Comprehensiveness of planning

Workshop organizers are encouraged to propose innovative and interactive formats, which will be given priority in the selection process. The proposals will be reviewed and evaluated by the workshop and tutorial chairs and the LAK 2014 organizing team. In case of overlapping proposals, the workshop chairs might propose to merge two workshops or tutorials into a single one.

If the proposal is accepted.

Identification of workshop participants, and call for workshop contributions will be handled by the workshop organizers. Submissions need to follow ACM guidelines and go through a double blind review process. The workshop organizers should manage the submission process through a conference management system like Easychair. Workshop and tutorials can be full or half days. The length of accepted events will be finalised according to the number of papers and registration numbers. Each workshop/tutorial needs to provide a #hashtag to enable tracking of online communication in an early stage.

At the Conference

Workshop organizers are responsible to schedule the sessions, making sure the presenters are contacted in advance, the slides are available online with the #hashtag of the workshop, and the local organizers are informed to prepare the workshop rooms. In addition, each workshop is expected to produce an open access document (for example, a Google Doc or a slide pack) synthesising the key outcomes and agreed follow-on activities.

After the Conference

The workshop organizers are asked to prepare their collected papers for a comprehensive proceedings volume of all LAK 2014 workshops at the http://ceur-ws.org online archive. In addition, a special issue will be organized for the best papers of each workshop at the International Journal for Learning Analytics. Half day workshops may select 2 best papers and full day workshop 3 best papers for the special issue. It is the responsibility of the workshop organizers to manage the selection process for the best papers of each workshop. The selected papers need to extend the previously published workshop papers sufficiently (at least 25-30% of new contribution) to be considered for publication in the special issue.

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DEMOS

Quick Facts

  • Submission deadline: 21st of October, 2013 (no extensions)
  • Submission link: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=lak14
  • Notification of acceptance: 16th December, 2013
  • Format of the submission: ACM Proceedings Format
  • Review process: Each submission will be evaluated by a panel of conference organizers and volunteers based on the following criteria: (1) Relevance, (2) Originality, and (3) Utility. Submissions will not be blind. Demo video submissions will be also posted on the conference website.
  • Presentation at the conference: Accepted Demos will be presented during the conference. Authors will be expected to attend the LAK 2014 conference in Indianapolis, Indiana and will be assigned a time and a location to present their demo to conference attendees. A firehose session will be held during which accepted demo authors will give a one minute, single slide presentation to the attendees of the conference to advertise their demo. The best Demo will receive an award and will be announced in conference plenary together with Best Paper and Poster.
  • Archiving after the conference: Accepted demo papers will be distributed in the electronic LAK conference proceedings. Demos will be publicized on the conference Website indefinitely.

Message from the Chair

The Demo session will highlight tools created by the research community. While scholarly publications work to disseminate knowledge, the Demo session wishes to recognize engineering contributions that help to broaden the technical capabilities of the community by expanding our toolset. Demos may involve a particular example application but should be intended for general use.

We welcome demonstration of tools in support of, but not limited to, the following range of activities:

  • Data gathering and filtering
  • Data processing and analysis
  • Data sharing and exchange
  • Content authoring
  • Content exploration and use
  • Visualizations and dashboards
  • Sensors and signals capturing

These may be demonstrations of in-use examples showcasing learning analytics tools in real world and lab settings.

Preparation

Contributors should prepare a 2-page submission describing the featured tool and details of the particular demonstration. Tool papers should be in ACM Proceedings Format and submitted as a PDF file. Your  paper should be camera-ready (thoroughly copy-edited and including all author names, affiliations and contact information). Uploading a supplementary original 3-4 minute youtube video describing, and/or demoing the tool is encouraged. Video submissions will be placed on the LAK Demos web page, promoting the tools. Video submissions should use the creative commons license so they may be added to the LAK14 Website.

Reviewing Process

Each submission will be evaluated by a panel of conference organizers and volunteers based on the following criteria:

  1. Significance: How important is the problem or question that this submission addresses? How significant is this contribution to the LAK 2014 conference themes? How important is the output of this work for the advancement of the LAK community?
  2. Originality: How novel is the contribution of this work? How clearly does the submission communicate the ways that it differs from and goes beyond the most relevant previous work in this area?
  3. Written Presentation of the Demo Paper: How clear, structured and understandable is the writing in the demo paper? To what extent does the demo paper conform to all formatting requirements and the 2-page limit?
  4. Presentation of the Demo Video: How well does the Demo Video effectively communicate the work? To what extent is the demo video attractive, innovative and visually compelling and therefore likely to draw in an audience?
  5. Ability to Stimulate Discussion: To what degree will the presentation of this work stimulate interesting conversation among researchers and/or practitioners?

At the conference

Demo presenters will have their own desk space setup at the conference venue with four chairs per desk for attendees. Presenters may conduct their demo in whichever manner they please; however, we suggest planning a 5-12 minute demonstration to allow many attendees to experience your presentation throughout the session.

After the conference

The abstract from the two page demo description will be published in the proceedings of LAK 2014. Additionally, Demo titles and video links will be published on the LAK 2014 Demos web page.

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POSTERS

Quick Facts

  • Submission deadline: 21st October, 2013 (no exceptions)
  • Submission link: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=lak14
  • Notification of acceptance: 16th of December, 2013
  • Format of the submission: ACM Proceedings Format
  • Review process: Each submission will be evaluated by a panel of conference organizers and volunteers based on the following criteria: (1) Significance, (2) Originality, (3) Written Presentation of the Poster Paper, (4) Visual Presentation The Poster, and (5) Ability to Stimulate Discussion. Submissions will be non anonymous. Posters submissions will be also posted on the conference Website where conference attendees will be able to vote for the Best Poster competition.
  • Presentation at the conference: Accepted Posters will be presented during the conference. Authors will be expected to attend the LAK 2014 conference in Indianapolis, Indiana and will be assigned a time and a location to present their poster to conference attendees. Authors will be required to set up beforehand and stand with their posters during the assigned time. A firehose session will be held during which accepted poster authors will give a one minute, single slide presentation to the attendees of the conference to advertise their poster. The best Poster will receive an award and will be announced in conference plenary together with Best Paper and Demo.
  • Archiving after the conference: Accepted poster papers will be distributed in the electronic LAK conference proceedings. They will also be included in the ACM Digital Library. Posters and Best Poster award will be publicized on the conference Website indefinitely.

Message from the Chair

LAK 2014 will include an interactive poster category for late-breaking and preliminary results. Posters submissions provide an opportunity to showcase work–in-progress and exciting new work that is still at early stage, innovative ideas not yet validated through user studies, early student research, and other research best presented in an interactive forum.

Posters will be presented in a special Poster Session where researchers will interact directly with conference attendees.

Accepted Interactive Poster papers will be published in ACM Digital Library and distributed to conference attendees as part of the Conference Proceeding.

Poster and Demo Chairs

Preparation

Submission Type

Poster submissions provide an opportunity to present a concise report of new findings or other types of innovative or thought-provoking work relevant to the LAK community. The difference between Posters and other venues (e.g., full and short papers) is that the work submitted to the Poster venue may not necessarily have been completed. Moreover, the focus of interactive Posters is on the discussion between the author and attendees that will be engendered by the visual presentation of the work.

Submissions to this venue may include, but are not limited to, the following types of work:

  • Evaluations of systems, techniques, practices or other phenomena relevant to LAK.
  • Descriptions of new methods, processes, techniques, or tools for use in interactive system design, development or deployment.
  • Reflections from practice, including lessons learned or principles derived from real-world experiences and backed by thought-provoking and well-substantiated analyses.

Submission Requirements

Posters submissions consist of two related documents:

  • A 2-pages poster paper prepared in the ACM Proceedings Format and submitted as a PDF file. Your poster paper should be camera-ready (thoroughly copy-edited and including all author names, affiliations and contact information). Submissions to the Poster venue are not anonymous.
  • An electronic version of the poster that you will present at the conference. This will be a Draft version and may be edited before the conference (also according to reviewers comments). For the review process, your poster should be reduced to one standard page in size and submitted as a PDF file. Please note that the physical posters presented at the conference may not be larger than an A0.

Both the poster paper and the poster should communicate:

  • A concise description of the work
  • Implications of the work for the LAK community
  • Recommendations for further investigation and/or application in practice

Each of the PDF files must be smaller than 4Mb in size. These documents must be submitted via the EasyChair system by the 21 October 2013 deadline.

Reviewing Process

Each submission will be evaluated by a panel of conference organizers and volunteers based on the following criteria:

  1. Significance: How important is the problem or question that this submission addresses? How significant is this contribution to the LAK 2014 conference themes? How important is the output of this work for the advancement of the LAK community?
  2. Originality: How novel is the contribution of this work? How clearly does the submission communicate the ways that it differs from and goes beyond the most relevant previous work in this area?
  3. Written Presentation of the Poster Paper: How clear, structured and understandable is the writing in the poster paper? To what extent does the poster paper conform to all formatting requirements and the 2-page limit?
  4. Visual Presentation The Poster: How well does the design of the poster effectively communicate the work? To what extent is the Poster attractive, innovative and visually compelling and therefore likely to draw in an audience?
  5. Ability to Stimulate Discussion: To what degree will the presentation of this work stimulate interesting conversation among researchers and/or practitioners?

Upon Acceptance

Posters authors will be notified of acceptance or rejection in December 2013. If a submission is accepted, the contact person will receive further instructions regarding the inclusion of their poster paper in the LAK 2014 Proceedings as well as important information related to the poster presentation at the conference.

At the conference

Accepted Posters will be presented during the conference. Authors will be expected to attend the LAK 2014 conference in Indianapolis, Indiana and will be assigned a time and a location to present their poster to conference attendees. Authors will be required to set up beforehand and stand with their posters during the assigned time.

Information on poster session timing will be posted to the website before the conference.

Posters submissions will be also posted on the conference Website.

The best Poster will receive an award and will be announced in conference plenary together with Best Paper and Demo.

After the conference

Accepted poster papers will be distributed in the electronic LAK proceedings. They will also be included in the ACM Digital Library, where they will remain accessible to thousands of researchers and practitioners worldwide. The Best Poster award will be publicized on the conference Website indefinitely.

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