Call for Submission of Papers, Extended Abstracts, Workshops/Tutorials, Demos/Installations, and Music/Live Performance
After decades of research dedicated to sonification in terms of audio signal processing, aesthetics, art and design, perception, awareness and human factors, accessibility, auditory augmentation and mixed reality, auditory displays have reached a state with tools and principles that work. It is about time for the breakthrough of sonification in terms of implementation in mass media and consumer markets: Sonification for the masses! The ICAD 2023 committee is seeking full papers, abstracts, concert pieces, demos, installations, workshops, and tutorials from across the full spectrum of auditory display research and practice. This year, we are particularly interested in use cases from everyday life, implementations in mass media, sonification evaluation by wider populations, concepts of sonification in education, learnability and pleasantness of sonifications, and other ways to tackle the theme of sonification for the general public. How informative, aesthetic, universally applicable or specified do sonifications need to be in order to be beneficial for users outside the audio community? During the student think tank, students and young researchers get the chance to exchange ideas and learn from established members of the auditory display community. As a satellite event, we are organizing the Sonic-Tilt competition, where researchers, students and artists submit their own sound design for Tiltification, a bullseye spirit level available in the Google Play Store and Apple App Store.
Submission Deadlines
Camera ready version to be submitted to EasyChair – two weeks after letter of acceptance, 3 of May 2023
Deadlines with links to submission details:
Full Papers (6 to 8 pages) – March 15, 23:59 Pacific Standard Time (PST), 2023
Extended Abstracts (2 to 4 pages) – March 15, 23:59 Pacific Standard Time (PST), 2023
Workshops / Tutorials – March 15, 23:59 Pacific Standard Time (PST), 2023
Installations / Demos – March 15, 23:59 Pacific Standard Time (PST), 2023
Music/Live Performances – March 15, 23:59 Pacific Standard Time (PST), 2023
Doctoral Consortium / Think Tank – March 15, 23:59 Pacific Standard Time (PST), 2023
Astronomical Data Sonification (special track) – March 15, 23:59 Pacific Standard Time (PST), 2023
Sonic Tilt Competition – May 12, 23:59 Pacific Standard Time (PST), 2023
Submission Templates
For Full Papers, Extended Abstracts, Workshops/Demos, and Music/Installations:
The safest way to obtain the correct format is to paste your text, etc. into a copy of the template. For those using the Word Template, please ensure that your submission is formatted correctly, with the headers and footers included in the template. For reference, please consult the PDF of the .doc template.
Where to submit
EasyChair Link – https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=icad2023
Submission Accessibility
Making conference materials accessible promotes equal access for researchers in our field. We highly encourage researchers to provide accessible submissions and require that camera-ready papers be accessible.
Checking Your PDF is Accessible
If you can, use the Adobe Acrobat Pro Accessibility Checker (Full Check) to verify the accessibility of your PDF. See Adobe’s detailed instructions for more information.
If you don’t have access to Adobe Acrobat Pro, there are some free accessibility checkers available online that may be able to help.
Fixing Accessibility Problems
A lot of accessibility problems can be fixed directly in Acrobat’s Accessibility Checker. However, Microsoft Word for PC can generate PDFs with many accessibility features and it’s often easier to correct issues in the Word source file. SIGACCESS provides detailed instructions. Unfortunately, Word for Mac and Latex users will need to manually add accessibility features.
At a minimum, make sure your document is tagged, tab order follows the document structure, figures and inaccessible equations have alternative text, table headers are marked, and the document language is specified. As a note, the built-in auto-tagging feature of Acrobat is not 100% reliable with our templates. Please manually check that any auto-generated tags are logical.
More Information
ACM SIGACCESS has a number of resources http://www.sigaccess.org/welcome-to-sigaccess/resources/ for making conference materials and presentations more accessible.
Please contact ICAD2023’s Accessibility Chair Katie Wolf at accessibility@icad2023.icad.org if you have any questions.
Poster Format
Posters are made to A1 portrait size (width 594 mm, height 841 mm), prepared by the presenter in advance, and brought to the conference.
Guidelines and recommendations for making an effective academic poster are easy to find; for example, here is an online guide from the University of York that we find useful: https://subjectguides.york.ac.uk/posters
If your contribution is strongly auditory, please consider bringing a laptop and a pair of headphones to make your interactions with conference attendees during the poster presentation session even more rewarding. Tables for the laptops will be available in the poster area as needed.
Full Papers and Extended Abstracts
Topics
Contributions for ICAD2023 may cover one or more of the following topics.
Art & Design
- Sonification-inspired music composition, integrative arts, and performing arts.
- Culture-specific sonification
- Speculative, aspirational, and prototype designs
- Sonic information design: paradigm, theory, and taxonomy
- Design methodology, design examples, case studies, and real-world applications
- Users, experiences, and contexts of using sonification
- Philosophical perspectives on sonification, particularly as it impacts upon everyday life, but also in terms of more foundational ontological, aesthetic, and epistemological issues.
Science & Research
- Methods, processes, and tools for sonification
- Participatory approaches
- Auditory user interfaces
- Design of sensors, devices, or platforms for auditory displays & sonification
- Psychology, cognition, perception and psychoacoustics
- Computational/algorithmic approaches of sonification
- Accessibility, inclusive design, and assistive technologies
- Human Factors, Ergonomics and Usability
- Spatial/3D sound
- Sonification in Health and Environmental Data (soniHED)
- Sonification in the Internet of things, big data, & cybersecurity
- Sonification in automated vehicles
- Peripheral and Ambient Sonifications
- Sonic Interaction Design
Submission Content: Categories and Requirements
Submissions relevant to the Call for Participation are accepted in any of the following categories:
- Scientific / Empirical Study
Empirical study submissions are intended to present the results of experimental work, whether objective or subjective, numerical or perceptual. Submissions are evaluated with regards to the novelty of the work, scholarly/scientific quality, suitability to the ICAD community domains, and importance of the results. Submissions should include a state-of-the-art review which places the work and its results in the perspective of previous studies. Enough detail should be provided concerning experimental protocols so that the study could be repeated. Modern standards for statistical analysis should be followed (e.g. mean and variances in plots, boxplot or histogram distributions of data, ANOVA with corresponding p and F values provided, adequate number of test subjects). - Position paper
Position Papers are those that address generic topics; those of general concern to the ICAD community or a specific conference theme. Frequently, such papers will challenge their audience to consider new ways of doing things or new conceptual paradigms. It is expected that such papers shall contain argument and counterargument supported by substantial evidence and/or documentation such as literature reviews of related prior research. Examples of Position Papers include those that discuss sonification taxonomies; models of listening; cross-modal comparisons of conceptual or psycho-perpetual issues such as the nature of representation; philosophical and cultural issues such as the role of sonification in data analysis and the public understanding of science. - Informative Sonification / Sound design
This submission category is intended to provide a framework for the presentation of informative sonification works. Submissions in this category require both a written element and a multimedia element in order for the review committee to judge the work. - Artistic sonification / Music / Composition
This submission category is intended to provide a framework for the presentation of artistic works involving sonification. Submissions in this category require both a written element and a multimedia element in order for the review committee to judge the work. - Project architecture / Project presentation
This submission category is for the presentation of a system architecture or a long term project prior to the production of any results. This type of submission is considered useful in providing both an extensive state-of-the-art review as well as a thorough overview of the goals and directions of the project including justifications for any choices made in the conception of the project. This category is well-suited to larger complex projects for which a sufficient presentation is poorly suited to the traditional length of a full-paper introduction.
Form of Submission and Assessment Criteria
Peer review & Anonymization
- All submissions will be fully peer-reviewed. The review process is double blind. Please submit completely anonymized drafts. Please do not include any identifying information, and refrain from citing authors’ own prior work in anything other than third person.
- Acceptance is determined solely on the merits of the submitted work.
Presentation format
- In the review process, there is no distinction between whether the presentation mode will be oral or a poster.
- Attribution of accepted submissions to either oral or poster presentation is determined by the Program Committee although authors may indicate a preferred method of presentation.
- You have the possibility to hand in a paper with an accompanying demo that is presented in addition to a talk or poster. In this case, you have to submit the required supplementary data as described in the Call for Demos.
Proceedings and Publishing
- Accepted submissions will appear in the proceedings and will be archived accordingly.
Length and Submission Format
- Page limits include all figures, tables, appendices, and references.
- The length of the abstract should be 150-200 words.
We let authors choose the most appropriate length for their contribution amongst two formats:
Full Papers (5-8 pages)
- Full papers represent the core of the ICAD conference and they are judged accordingly. Works in any content category should be self-contained, and withstand objective criticism.
- At least 2 external reviews, by reviewers outside of the Program Committee, will be carried out.
Extended Abstracts (2-4 pages)
- Extended Abstracts are used to present “works in progress” for which a discussion with the community is of interest and could be beneficial to the development of the work in question.
- As Extended Abstracts are not presenting completed work, they are expected to be reviewed principally for thematic pertinence to the ICAD community.
- At least 2 reviews are necessary and can be carried out by the Program Committee.
- Extended Abstracts may be archived in a separate supplement to the conference proceedings, so as to clearly indicating that they have not been peer reviewed. They will not be attributed DOI references.
Audio, Videos, and other Supplementary Materials
We encourage authors to attach additional supplementary materials such as audio/video examples, data sets, or measurements. For review, you can include anonymized links to cloud services or other online sites.
For the camera ready version of an accepted manuscript, any such temporary links must be replaced by persistent links with handle/DOI or equal. We recommend the free service zenodo.org which allows you to host arbitrary data with DOI.
Attendance
Please note that at least one of the paper authors has to register and attend the conference in order for the accepted paper to be presented and published in the proceedings.
Please do not hesitate to reach out to the paper chairs Tim Ziemer and Marian Weger papers@icad2023.icad.org if you have any questions.
Workshops and Tutorials
ICAD 2023 welcomes the submission of workshops and tutorials on topics related to auditory display and sonification. The proposals may take the form of tutorials on specific ICAD topics or forums for discussion and development. Workshops and Tutorials provide in-depth opportunities for conference attendees to discuss and explore important aspects of the field of auditory display with like-minded researchers and practitioners. The sessions can range from applications and programming methodologies to interdisciplinary research skills, emerging research areas, and challenging problems.
Please note that the call for Workshops and tutorials is not limited to fully finished work; submissions may be work in progress, projects that you would like to brainstorm on, as well as fully developed work.
We welcome Workshop and Tutorial proposals focused on, but not limited to, the following topics:
- Sonification/Compositional Maker sessions
- Applications, usability, accessibility, and evaluation
- Auditory rendering techniques, technologies, and tools
- Design theory, methods, philosophy, and culture
- Psychology, Cognition, Perception, and Psychoacoustics
- Sonification of data:
- Context, range of scale, and utility
- Motivations, frameworks, methodologies, and techniques
Workshop and Tutorial organizers are, upon acceptance, expected to collaborate with the conference committee, issue calls for participation, gather and review contributed materials (if appropriate), and decide upon the final programme for their session.
Submission information
Proposals should be one to two pages in length. We encourage you to use the ICAD2023 LaTeX/Word template, although it is not required. Your submission should include the following:
- Title, abstract, outline of objectives (e.g., tutorial syllabus, organized discussion, presentations, submissions, etc.), relevance for ICAD attendees
- Proposed duration (from 1 hour to 4 hours)
- Invited speakers (if any)
- List of organizers, a designated contact person, and contact information for all organizers (address, email, and ‘phone)
- Technical and space requirements
Please note that workshops inviting extended abstracts and/or papers can arrange to have their contributions included in the ICAD 2023 Conference Proceedings as a supplementary section of non-referreed submissions. These materials will be accessible online via the DOI number for the 2023 proceedings volume.
Workshop and tutorial proposals should be submitted via the submission platform (EasyChair) by 15 March 2023.
Space, facilities, technical support, and the number of sessions that can be accepted are limited, so early submission of proposals is encouraged.
Please do not hesitate to reach out to the workshop chair Emma Frid workshops@icad2023.icad.org if you have any questions.
Installations and Demonstrations
We welcome proposals for interactive installations and demonstrations that provide attendees of the ICAD2023 conference opportunities to engage with original sound-based research, art, and design projects. Installations and demonstrations can be experienced either in-person at the conference venue, remote via digital access, or as a hybrid. We especially encourage submissions that are participatory and that engage with the conference theme, Sonification for the Masses.
Submission information
Proposals should be one to two pages in length. We encourage you to use the ICAD2023 LaTeX/Word template, although it is not required. Your submission should include the following:
Context, motivation and intellectual contribution
The context statement should include a discussion of the goals and aesthetics of the work and the motivations for the design choices. It should also place this installation/demonstration within the context of other relevant work. The statement should also, if appropriate, discuss listener reactions, experience, or feedback.
Technical implementation
Describe the technical implementation of the installation/demo, including necessary details for reviewers to obtain an understanding of the logistical and contextual issues involved in the public presentation of the work: manuscript scores and an evaluation of the performance difficulty, spatial layout diagrams, sound levels and ideal ambient noise and isolation conditions, power requirements, etc., may be included.
Media content
An example representing the work must be provided. This file should be either an audio or audiovisual file, limited to 2-channel audio. Review of the work will consider the coherence of the sound alongside the written explanation of what was intended. If the submission is accepted, the submitted media file(s) will be included in the proceedings archive.
Important considerations
- In the proposal, please consider that it may not be practical for some aural submissions to be performed, played, or rendered at or during the conference due to complexity, length, spatial requirements, or other factors determined by the conference program committee.
- To assist with the reviewing and curation process, authors must also make clear what their expectations are in terms of the kind and size of space required for the installation. Installations cannot be accepted until the exact requirements are agreed upon with the installation chair.
- It is up to the artist/installation author to install and set up the piece and to bring the necessary equipment.
- Attendance at ICAD 2023 is mandatory for accepted installation and demonstration proposals (creators of remote/digital installations can attend remotely).
The peer review will consider the combination of the written and media submission.
Authors should not anonymize the submission for reviews.
Please submit your proposal to the submission platform (EasyChair) by 15 March 2023
If you have any questions about the installations/demos please contact the installations and demos chair, Jordan Wirfs-Brock, at installations@icad2023.icad.org
Music/Live Performance for Sonification Concert
This submission category is intended to provide a framework for the presentation of artistic works with a strong relation to data. The category is open to instrumental, electronic, live-electronic, and fixed media compositions.
Concert theme: In view of the global ecologic situation, we strongly encourage the submission of works relating to the classical elements earth, water, air, and fire (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_element).
The Sonification concert will be held on 27th of June 2023.
The peer review is of the combination of the written concept (min 1, max 2 pages), the requirements sheet (1 page) as well an instrumental score and/or a representative media submission. If the topic qualifies for a submission as a full paper, authors are encouraged to optionally submit a full paper to the full paper category. To be accepted for the concert and to be included in the concert booklet or (if applicable) the ICAD proceedings, authors agree to register for and attend ICAD 2023. No concert pieces will be played in the author’s absence.
Concept / Program notes
The concept submission should be written as program notes for the concert booklet providing information about the motivation, the artistic process, and the aesthetics of the composition. Details of the underlying dataset should be provided together with an outline of the sonification approach/methodology used.
Requirement Sheet
If the concert piece involves any live performance elements, these must be indicated in the requirement sheet. Although ICAD organizers will try to support the realization of pieces as much as possible by providing technical and human resources , and authors should be prepared make their own arrangements to bring performers and any necessary instruments or required equipment themselves. Concert pieces should last no longer than 15 minutes; note, this is a maximum duration and not an expectation — short compositions are as welcome as longer ones.
Concept and Requirement Sheet should be uploaded to the concert category. Authors should not anonymize their submissions.
Instrumental Scores or Media content
Submissions should contain a link to scores (pdf, musicXML) audio and other media files in Dropbox, iCloud Soundcloud, Vimeo or other online site, and provide a password if the link is not public. For review purposes media files should be limited to 2-channel audio. Review of the work will consider the “coherence” of the sound with the practitioner’s explanation of what was intended.
Full Paper Submission (optional, 6-8 pages)
The written component of the submission should include a discussion of the goals and aesthetics of the work and the motivations for the design/compositional choices. A review should be made of other relevant works and how the submitted work fits into these references. Details of the underlying dataset should be provided together with an outline of the sonification approach/methodology used. A technical discussion should be provided concerning computational or display issues. User reactions, experience, and feedback should be discussed. Any other forms of representation necessary for reviewers to obtain an understanding of the logistical and contextual issues involved and an evaluation of the perception difficulty may be included. You should use the ICAD 2023 papers format and upload to the full paper category. Authors should anonymize their submissions, which will be double-blind peer-reviewed.
Please submit your proposal by March 15 2023.
If you have any queries about the concert please contact the Concert Committee at music@icad2023.icad.org