Call for Papers

Widening NLP Workshop 2020

The fourth WiNLP (Widening NLP) Workshop will be held in conjunction with ACL 2020 and will now be held entirely online. 

For the regular call for papers, we invite every interested author from an underrepresented group to submit to WiNLP while minimizing conflicts between other ACL-related submission deadlines.

Workshop description

The WiNLP workshop is open to all to foster an inclusive and welcoming ACL environment.  It aims to promote diversity and highlight the work of underrepresented groups in NLP: anyone who self-identifies within an underrepresented demographic [gender, ethnicity, nationality, etc]. The 2020 iteration of the workshop will, in particular, seek to highlight diversity in scientific background, discipline, training, obtained degrees, seniority, and communities from underrepresented languages. The full-day event includes invited talks, oral presentations, and poster sessions. The workshop provides an excellent opportunity for junior members in the community to showcase their work and connect with senior mentors for feedback and career advice.  It also offers recruitment opportunities with leading industrial labs. Most importantly,  the workshop will provide an inclusive and accepting space, and work to lower structural barriers to joining and collaborating with the NLP community at large.

While everyone is encouraged to attend, the opportunity to present a talk or poster is intended for members of underrepresented groups at all career levels: students, post-docs, professors, and other researchers. We invite submissions in the form of an extended 2-page abstract on topics in computational linguistics and natural language processing, including but not limited to:

Submission guidelines

Submissions must be anonymized and follow the standard one-column format. Each submission should be a two-page extended abstract PDF, with any number of additional pages allowed for references (WiNLP/COLING proceedings format). No appendices will be accepted.

Submissions should follow the same style and format guidelines (LaTeX style files, Word template) and be submitted electronically in PDF format via the WiNLP 2020 online submission system: https://www.softconf.com/acl2020/WiNLP/

Peer Workshopping and Reviewing Procedure

  1. One week prior to the submission deadline, authors will have the option to peer-review each others’ abstracts in a non-anonymous format, in groups of two or three authors. Authors taking this option commit to help their peers edit and format their submissions, or revise for clarity, or provide general feedback before the submission is reviewed. Authors may use the feedback provided during this peer-editing period to update their submissions in time for the submission deadline. As in WiNLP 2019, the program committee may still provide reviews, feedback, and direct writing mentorship for applicants, but the intent of peer-editing is to share this responsibility with the participants so that it can scale with the size of the workshop. Whether or not authors take advantage of this peer-review option in advance of submission, all submissions are due on the deadline.
  2. After the submission deadline, abstracts will be reviewed in the traditional double-blind format. Abstracts will be evaluated on relevance to the community; the presentation format (talk or poster) will be decided based on scientific merit and potential interest to a broad audience.
  3. To sign up and take advantage of peer workshopping, please visit the following sign-up link: https://winlp.ling.washington.edu/survey/index.php/293366?lang=en

Multiple-Submission Policy

As we aim for improved and increased representation of underrepresented minorities, we will consider anonymized two pages abstracts of papers that have been submitted to other venues or have already been published elsewhere since January 1, 2019. However, authors must clearly indicate this at submission time.

Authors may not submit to both the regular and visa-friendly deadlines.

 

Important Dates

Regular deadlines

Submission: April 10, 2020 April 24, 2020.

Acceptance notification date:  May 8, 2020 May 29, 2020

All deadlines are 11:59 PM GMT -12

Workshop Date: July 5, 2020 (Sunday) (100% virtual)

 

Contact information

Website: http://www.winlp.org/winlp-2020-workshop/

Twitter: @winlpworkshop

Facebook: Widening NLP

LinkedIn: Widening NLP

E-mail: winlp-chairs@googlegroups.com

 

WiNLP 2020 Organizers:

Rossana Cunha, Federal University of Minas Gerais.

Samira Shaikh, University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Erika Varis, Walt Disney Studios.

Ryan Georgi, University of Washington.

Antonios Anastasopoulos, Carnegie Mellon University.

Khyathi Raghavi Chandu, Carnegie Mellon University.

Alicia Tsai, UC Berkeley.

Advisory Board

Isabelle Augenstein, University of Copenhagen

Amittai Axelrod, University of Maryland

Libby Barak, Rutgers University

Daniel Beck, University of Melbourne

Chloe Braud, CNRS - LORIA

Hal Daumé, University of Maryland

Mourad Gridach, University of Colorado

Valia Kordoni, Humboldt University Berlin

Cisca Odalipo, Kampala International University

Martha Palmer, University of Colorado

Natalie Schluter, University of Copenhagen

Tiago Torrent, Federal University of Juiz de Fora, 

Aline Villavicencio, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, University of Essex

Hanna Wallach, Microsoft Research

Zeerak Waseem, University of Sheffield