Call for Theory, Opinion, and Reflection

ACM UMAP – User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization – is the premier international conference for researchers and practitioners working on systems that adapt to individual users or to groups of users, and that collect, represent, and model user information.

Theory, Opinion and Reflection (TOR) are position papers that critically look at ongoing and emerging research topics, reflections on persistent or fleeting trends in the field and blue sky future ideas for UMAP research. They offer an opportunity for discussing thought-provoking work relevant to the UMAP community, albeit they are not yet ready to be published as a full length research papers at a refereed conference. Moreover, to mark the 30th year of the UMAP conference, this track encourages papers that consider a broad perspective on how the field has evolved and the challenges and directions that lay ahead. We encourage both qualitative and quantitative historical analyses, and reflections on persistent or fleeting trends in the field, although blue-sky ideas and early-stage works are also welcome, as long as their aim is to foster discussions and collaborations among colleagues.

Submissions should be of sufficient quality and relevance to the UMAP community and demonstrate the ability to spur discussion and debate on the future course of the UMAP research.

The presentations will be scheduled at the end of a plenary conference session, just before a break. The presenters will present the topic and raise relevant questions to stimulate discussion during the breaks.

Submissions should have a length of up to 4 pages (excluding references) in the new ACM single-column style and will be published as part of the ACM UMAP 2022 Adjunct Proceedings.

Submission via https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=umap22.

Important Dates

  • Deadline submission:  April 15, 2022
  • Notification of acceptance: May 10, 2022
  • Camera-ready versions of accepted papers: May 18, 2022
  • Conference: July 4-7, 2022 

Note: The submissions times are 11:59 pm AoE time (Anywhere on Earth)

Submission formats and Review Process

Papers will be reviewed single-blind and do not need to be anonymized before submission. Maximum length is 4 pages (excluding references) in the new ACM single-column style.

Papers must be formatted according to the new workflow for ACM publications. The templates and instructions are available here: https://www.acm.org/publications/taps/word-template-workflow.

Authors should submit their papers as single-column. The templates are available here (we strongly recommend the usage of LaTeX for the camera-ready papers to minimize the extent of reformatting):

Note: Accepted papers will require a further revision to meet the requirements and page limits of the camera-ready format required by ACM. Instructions for the preparation of the camera-ready versions of the papers will be provided after acceptance.

The ACM Code of Ethics gives the UMAP program committee the right to (desk-)reject papers that perpetuate harmful stereotypes, employ unethical research practices, or uncritically present outcomes/implications that clearly disadvantage minority communities. 

Submit your papers in PDF format via EasyChair for ACM UMAP 2022 at  https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=umap22 (choose “New Submission” and make sure to select “UMAP ’22 – TOR” track).

The review process will be single-blind, i.e. authors’ names should be included in the papers. Submissions will be reviewed by at least two independent reviewers. They will be assessed based on their originality and novelty, potential contribution to the research field, potential impact in particular use cases, and the usefulness of presented experiences, as well as their overall readability.

Papers that exceed the page limits or do not adhere to the formatting guidelines will be returned without review.

Publication and Presentation

Accepted TOR papers will be published in the ACM UMAP 2022 Adjunct Proceedings in the ACM Digital Library. They will be presented in the main conference before breaks to stimulate discussions during the breaks.

  • To be included in the Proceedings, at least one author of each accepted paper must register for the conference.