CFP
Twelfth International and Interdisciplinary Conference on
Modeling and Using Context
Location: on the Web
June 2021
CONTEXT-21 is the twelfth conference of the CONTEXT series. CONTEXT has for more than twenty years brought together researchers in a wide range of disciplines to present work related to issues of context, contextual knowledge, and reasoning, and to discuss commonalities across and differences between their disciplines’ approaches to the study of context. It is unique in focusing on context as a subject of study in its own right, and it has become one of the premier venues for context-related research. Although there are other conferences that specialize in context in application areas and domains (e.g., context-aware systems and applications, context in language, etc.), CONTEXT differs in that it focuses on aspects of context itself and how context is modeled and used in multiple areas and domains, especially how context is similar and different across disciplines.
In a real-world illustration of how context affects everything, in the context of the current pandemic it no longer makes sense to hold this year’s conference in Dubai, UAE, as was originally planned. Instead, we are taking the conference online in a completely new format that emphasizes interaction between researchers across the world as well as expanding the context community to new participants.
We anticipate a return to a traditional, in-person conference with full papers for CONTEXT-23.
Format
The online conference will take place during the dates scheduled originally for the in-person conference. There will be several kinds of Zoom-based sessions. One will be centered around a speaker’s work with ample opportunity for interaction with other participants. The format of each speaker’s time will be up to the speaker, and it will be flexible enough to accommodate formal or informal presentations, question-and-answer sessions, discussions, demonstrations, or any combination of these that allow the speaker to best disseminate their ideas and work to the context community. Based on the number of speakers selected, there may be multiple simultaneous tracks of such video sessions. Another format will replicate the brief but intense interactions possible at traditional poster sessions by having many separate simultaneous “Zoom rooms”, each with a speaker and a set of participants who can for a short period of time discuss the speaker’s work with them and then move on to different rooms. Other formats may include plenary framing talks, tutorials, and panel discussions.
Technical details for submission and participation are also given on the FB page: https://www.facebook.com/Context-21-Online-Conference-103859411526061 – please check also there for updates
We anticipate all sessions being “live” within a single time zone, with the sessions streamed afterward in at least two others. If there is sufficient interest, some of the sessions could be live in different time zones (while still being streamed in the others later). As feasible, sessions and accompanying materials will be archived after the conference.
Publication
Because of the emphasis on interaction and the discussion of ideas, there will be no traditional conference proceedings for this year’s conference. Instead, selected presenters with the best work or work most interesting to the community (determined based on both the conference sessions and the videos submitted beforehand, as discussed below) will be invited to write a paper for publication in a special issue of the journal Modeling and Using Context. Winners will be announced at the end of the conference and on the website.
Areas of Interest:
While the general areas of interest are in the broad fields of artificial intelligence, computer science, cognitive sciences, and the social sciences, specific areas of interest include but are not limited to:
Submission Procedure
The selection of presenters will be on the basis of a one-page (based on A4 or US paper size, 11pt) abstract describing their work. Emphasis should be on the context-related aspects of the work, and we – as always – expect work to appeal to and be understandable by the broad context community, which is highly interdisciplinary. Abstracts should be uploaded on Easychair: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=context21
Acceptance as a presenter will be conditional on the co-chairs receiving by the deadline below a short video presentation of the work as well. (Format instructions will be sent with acceptance notification.) In addition to being used by us to get a better sense of the presenter’s work, the video will be available prior to the Zoom sessions for conference participants to view to help select which sessions to attend, and it can be used as well by the presenters as support for their sessions (e.g., to reinforce or demonstrate a point, etc.). Based on feasibility and permission, the videos will be archived along with the Zoom sessions for later viewing.
Important Dates 2021:
| Submission Deadline (1 page .pdf) | January, 25 |
| Notification to authors: | February, 15 |
| Video submission deadline (15 mn mp4) | April, 15 |
| Early registration (very low fee) | April 31 |
| Online Conference (with Zoom system) | June, 21-23. |
Conference co-Chairs:
Patrick Brézillon (Sorbonne Université)
Carlo Penco (University of Genoa, Italy)
Roy Turner University of Maine, USA)