Call for Special Interest Groups and Satellite Meetings - ISMB/ECCB 2013

Special Interest Groups Committee Chair: Alan Christoffels, University of Western Cape, South Africa

** Special Interest Group Submissions - Closes October 12, 2012

We invite you to submit a proposal to organize a Special Interest Group (SIG) meeting at the ISMB/ECCB 2013 conference, to be held in Berlin, Germany,  July 19 - 20, 2013.

Special Interest Group Meeting (SIGs) and Satellite Meeting submissions should be submitted via the online submission system here prior to October 12, 2012.
 
What is a SIG or SM?
 
A SIG meeting is a one- or two-day focused workshop. It should provide a broad and/or deep perspective on developments in a field of research, and is intended as a way to address a topic more extensively than can be done in the main conference.


A Satellite Meeting is similar to a SIG meeting but has logistical or financial needs that do not fit conveniently into the SIG structure. Satellite Meeting proposals will be considered along with SIG proposals. SIG delegates will not be able to attend Satellite Meeting sessions and vice versa, and handout materials will be separate as well.

Follow these links to see examples of previous SIG meetings:

ISMB 2012 (Long Beach)
ISMB/ECCB 2011 (Vienna)


In order to facilitate conference organization, these deadlines will be adhered to strictly.

Deadlines
October 12, 2012 SIG Submission Deadline
 
November 23, 2012 SIG Acceptance Notification
 
March 22, 2013 SIG Preliminary Program Due
 
April 26, 2013 SIG Program (preliminary) Available on Web
 
May 24, 2013 SIG Complete Program on Web
 
June 24, 2013 Handout Materials Due
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Logistical considerations

SIG meetings will be held during the two days prior to the main conference: Friday and Saturday, July 19 and July 20. On the first day, SIGs will be held in parallel with the Student Council Symposium; on the second day, with tutorials. SIG participants will register for a primary SIG and will be free to circulate between parallel SIGs only on the day of the meeting(s) they are registered for.

Proposals should indicate a preference for which days its meeting will be held if submitting a one-day only proposal; the organizers will try to respect these preferences but do not guarantee that all SIGs will receive their preferences.

SMs will be held during the two days prior to the main conference or during the days immediately following the conference.

Responsibilities of SIG organizers and ISCB / ISMB

SIG organizers are responsible for the scientific content of the SIG meeting. They may invite speakers, publish a call for submissions, or use a combination. They are expected to operate within the context of ISMB/ECCB procedures, including finalizing the program and providing materials by the deadlines, working within the budget, etc.

Delegates to all SIG meetings will receive a handout schedule for all SIG meetings, to facilitate movement between sessions. Delegates will receive a full SIG program in electronic form at time of registration check-in and will also be able to access the final schedules from the individual SIG websites via the conference website. Delegates may choose to print these schedules in advance for their own personal use. No onsite printing is available at the conference venue.

Organizers will collect and prepare handout materials. They are responsible for ensuring that the material that they submit may be legally used and that appropriate copyright permissions have been arranged. Speakers are expected to grant permission to ISMB to copy and distribute these materials, including making them available for sale.

SIG organizers should consider hosting and maintaining a SIG website.

Please pay particular attention to the deadlines for submitting the program of speakers and the handout materials (in electronic form). SIG participation is much more effective when delegates can view the schedules on the web ahead of the meeting and when they receive the handouts from all SIGs together.

ISCB will handle the logistics of holding the SIG meeting in conjunction with ISMB/ECCB 2013 and will take the financial risk for holding the meeting. This includes managing registration, promoting the meeting, preparing delegate handouts from the provided materials, providing a room and audio-visual services (Internet access, projector & screen, microphones, etc.), and supplying food and beverages for breaks and lunches.

 

Responsibilities of SM organizers and ISCB / ISMB

SM organizers are responsible for the scientific content of the meeting. They may invite speakers, publish a call for submissions, or use a combination. They are expected to operate within the context of ISMB procedures, including finalizing the program and providing materials by the deadlines, working within the budget, etc.


SM organizers are, in addition, responsible for the financial and contractual obligations of the meeting. They are therefore responsible for signing and accepting responsibility for all contracts regarding arrangements for their meeting, including venue, catering, printing, etc., and any deposits required for these contracts. Contracts shall be in the name of the SM or the organizer’s host institution, and signed by an authorized SM organizer. This requirement applies whether or not the SM uses ISCB’s meeting-planning services.

 

Delegates to SM meetings will receive a handout schedule for the individual meeting. Delegates will receive a full SM program in electronic form at time of registration check-in and will also be able to access the final schedule from the individual SM websites via the conference website. Delegates may choose to print these schedules in advance for their own personal use. No onsite printing is available at the conference venue.


Organizers will collect and prepare handout materials. They are responsible for ensuring that the material that they submit may be legally used and that appropriate copyright permissions have been arranged. Speakers are expected to grant permission to ISMB to copy and distribute these materials, including making them available for sale.


SM organizers should consider hosting and maintaining an SM website.


Please pay particular attention to the deadlines for submitting the program of speakers and the handout materials (in electronic form). Delegate participation is much more effective when delegates can view the schedules on the Web ahead of the meeting.


For more detailed information


The following documents contain more details about organizing SIGs and SMs. If this webpage conflicts with one of these documents, the document overrides the webpage. Please read the relevant documents carefully.


If you are unsure whether your meeting is best held as a SIG or SM, please review the document “Is my meeting a SIG or a Satellite Meeting?”.


If you are proposing to organize a SIG, please review the document “SIG details.”


If you are proposing to organize an SM, please review the document “Satellite details.”

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How to apply

 

Please prepare your proposal in accordance with the instructions from the relevant document in the “For more detailed information” section. The entire proposal should be no more than four pages long.


Proposals should be submitted in Acrobat (.pdf) format. Name the file using the family name of the first organizer (i.e., John Doe's proposal should be in a file named doe.pdf).

Submit proposals online by Friday, October 12, 2012

 

Proposal evaluation

Proposals will be evaluated by the Special Interest Group committee chaired by Alan Christoffels (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

The following criteria will be considered:

  1. Relevance and interest of the proposed program to attendees
  2. Relevant expertise and experience of the organizers
  3. Effectiveness of the proposed SIG meeting organization
  4. Clarity, quality, and completeness of the proposal

Well-established SIGs and Satellite Meetings
 
SIGs and SMs that have had a solid record for each of the previous three years may submit a letter of intent instead of a full proposal. The letter is due by the regular SIG proposal-submission deadline. It should indicate that the organizers plan to organize the meeting for the upcoming ISMB/ECCB and should include the organizing committee contact details.
 
A full proposal should be submitted if the organizers plan substantive changes to the previous year's proposal (e.g., focus, number of days, special requests) or if the organizing team has changed substantially. Furthermore, a letter of intent may be used in at most two consecutive years; every third year, at least, a full proposal is required.
 
A solid record means that the SIG has had good, consistent or increasing attendance (taking into account problems that affect overall conference attendance) and has at least broken even financially in each previous year. It also means that the organization was carried out smoothly, including timely submission of materials according to the published schedule.
 
SIG organizers should contact the chair of the proposal-review committee (see contact information below) to verify their SIG's eligibility before submitting a letter of intent instead of a full proposal.

Contact information
Please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with any questions.
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