Guidelines for ITRW
ISCA tutorial and research workshops 
Rolf Carlson rolf@speech.kth.se
06/05/2004

See also a draft check list for workshop organizers

ISCA tutorial and research workshops (formerly ETRWs) have been organized since 1989 with about three occurring each year. Topics vary widely, as can be seen from the ISCA Tutorial and Research Workshops home page . ITRWs are usually  2-3 day workshops, often held in a somewhat remote location, where participants stay close together in common housing for the duration of the workshop.

For some topics, it has been useful to start the ITRW with a tutorial day, primarily aimed at participants from industry who want to be introduced to the area quickly. This tutorial day can be charged for separately.  For topics of less immediate industrial interest,  the tutorial aspect can be addressed by invited speakers introducing the subtopics of individual sessions, typically two each day.

Size

The goal for an ITRW is to create a productive workshop atmosphere. If there are too many participants this may not be possible. The number of possible contributions that should be scheduled in two or three days will be limited if sufficient time is allotted for discussions. Parallel events might  be a way out of this dilemma, but that would contradict the workshop purpose and thus are not recommended.

A target workshop size of  50-100 participants is recommended.

Announcements and mailings

Four mailings are generally needed:

  1. The "Call for participation," issued about one year prior to the ITRW, is enough for general distribution, if carefully planned. A standard layout is our goal, with the ISCA logo (and logos of other sponsoring organizations) on the outside.


An example of  a previous announcement can be provided by ISCA. It is A4 format, folded in thirds. One third is the reply/registration slip; make sure that no indispensable information is printed on the back.
Massive mailings are quite expensive. Different workshops require specialized advertising, personal contacts, etc. Use email lists. Journals such as Speech Communication have sections for upcoming conferences and workshops. Related projects or concerned organizations are often helpful.

  1. Acknowledgements of submitted abstracts.
  2. Notification of acceptance/rejections to those who submitted abstracts. Information on lodging, etc. to pre-registered persons, if the initial registration information does not include this.
  3. Preliminary program and practical information, to registered participants.

Web page

A web page should be set up with appropriate information as soon as the first "Call for participation" is distributed. The address should be given to ISCA for inclusion in its upcoming event list.

The web page should be maintained for at least one year after the workshop.

Handling of abstracts

Abstracts can be delivered electronically or, if the organizers so wish, by ordinary mail. In order to have a smooth interaction with the authors it is recommended that submitted abstracts be acknowledged promptly.

All abstracts should be reviewed by at least two reviewers selected from a scientific committee. It is important to select a scientific committee that has the knowledge and the time to perform such a task.

Publication & Sales

Contributions are published in proceedings. An A4 format with a reasonably uniform cover is used. Don't forget the back when designing the cover. An ISCA logo should be included on the front cover. Typically 10 pages are allowed for invited contributions and 4 pages for other contributions (oral or poster).

In order to have a paper published in the proceedings, at least one of the authors must attend the workshop.

The name of the proceedings should be “Proceedings of the ISCA Tutorial and Research Workshop ….”. The ISSN 1680-8908 number should appear on the cover and also inside the proceedings.  The ISO Standard recommends to print the "ISSN" letters followed by the 8 digit number on each edition, preferably at the top right of the cover page.

It is important for the quality of the publication that clear guidelines are issued to authors, with an explicit example. These instructions should be checked with your own printer to assure correctness.  If the guidelines are issued as files, be sure that they have been virus-checked. Pagination,  table of contents, and index to authors should be included. It is preferred that proceedings be printed from camera-ready originals, in order to follow the author's intentions. If electronic submissions are accepted, printouts should be compared to submitted paper originals.

It is ISCA policy that publication in the proceedings does not exclude subsequent publication. For example, a selection of papers from previous ITRWs has been published as a special issue in the Journal of Speech Communication and individual papers have been published as regular papers in this or other journals. The proceedings of some ITRWs have also been published as books.

The cost of proceedings is included in the registration fee, and copies are normally available at registration. Back copies of  previous ITRW are advertised through ISCA and may be ordered through the secretariat .  To simplify distribution, a number of back copies (about 20) should be mailed to the secretariat. The profit from sales is kept by ISCA. The workshop organizers should notify the ISCA secretariat when the no proceedings are available. The organizers are, of course, are also allowed to sell and distribute copies independent of ISCA and, in this case, retain the profit from the sales.

At least two copies of the proceedings should be mailed to the ISCA secretariat for reference.
Two copies of the proceedings should be mailed to the ITRW-responsible person for reference (See address below)

Papers on the web and archiving

Events and papers will in the future be archived by ISCA. If the papers submitted to an ISCA event are placed on the event home page, archiving can easily be done by creating a mirror page stored on a CD and mailed to  the ISCA secretariat for reference.

Financing & Budget

ITRWs are intended to be non-profit, as is ISCA. ISCA does not have a budget for ITRWs, but can provide seed money, which is regarded as a loan. The seed money must be paid back in full. This means that exchange rate loss and bank transfer are to be taken as expenses on the workshop expense budget. To keep the registration fees as low as possible, the work inside the organizing group is normally not charged to the workshop, but regarded as internal sponsorship. Engagement of external sponsors is encouraged. These could either be local (e.g. university, industry or grant-giving agencies) or co-organisers such as EU organizations (ESPRIT/COST).

The organizers will need to establish the workshop budget, including all costs related to that workshop. Normally the large budget items are printing of proceedings, conference centre rental and social events. Other cost items are complimentary registration fees for  guest speakers and invitees, subsidized fees for student participants (based on an estimate of how many students will attend the workshop),  cost for telephone in connection with e-mail services, etc. Workshop  income comes from participant fees, sponsoring, etc. Fees and other expenses are based on an estimation of number of participants. The planned income must be larger than the expected expenses in order to cover unexpected expenses or smaller number of attendees.

A realistic budget is mandatory and has to be approved by ISCA. A  good budget can also be very important in approaching sponsors.

Fees & payments

Convenient means of payment are important. Credit card payments are often preferred, but remember that bank charges must be a budget item in this case. To encourage a good cash flow and early estimate of participation, having a reduced fee for early registration is useful.

Grants

Special grants can sometimes be secured for student participation. Inventiveness and initiative by the organizer is encouraged in this respect.

Individual participants can apply for ISCA grants. However, in order not to mislead possible applicants, the availability of grants should be discussed with the ISCA board member responsible for grants before the grant possibility is advertised. Grant applications should be sent to the ISCA secretariat and a copy of the application should be sent to the event organizer. The deadline for grants is the same as for submitted papers. The ISCA grant policy is described in more detail on "The ISCA grant fund" web page .

Revenues

Revenues are normally shared equally by the organizer and ISCA. If the event is organized in co-operation with an ISCA SIG, revenues are normally shared equally by the organizer, the SIG and ISCA.

The final financial report should be done within two months after the ITRW.

Typical schedule


 

______________________________________________________________________
Confirmation to be mailed to
ISCA. Att. Rolf Carlson
Department of Speech, Music and Hearing, KTH

Lindstedsvägen 24. 5th floor
SE-10044 Stockholm, Sweden
I have read the ITRW guidelines and am willing to organize the workshop
 
 

__________________________________________________________________
 (workshop name)
in concord with the guidelines,

Date:                                        ____________________________

Signature of the organizer:     ____________________________

Affiliation:                              ____________________________

Address:                                   ____________________________