acm sigcomm

PhD training is evolving. We are moving from traditional instructor-lead classes to new ways of disseminating scientific training. Summerschools are one of these new training activities. A summerschool is a training activity that gathers PhD students from different universities at one location for a duration of usually one week. Some funding bodies and groups of universities organise summerschools on a regular basis. 

The main objective of a summerschool is to train PhD students on topics within or outside their scientific discipline. A summerschool may contain half-day or one-day long tutorials, but it may also contain panels, handson sessions, poster presentations, ... Besides the dissemination of scientific knowledge, the main benefit of a summerschool is that it contributes to building up the community by enabling researchers to work together during one week. The social dimension of a summerschool should not be ignored when planning it.

In order to build up the next generation of networking researchers, but also to contribute to the dissemination of scientific results to the community, SIGCOMM has decided to provide funding for summerschools. 

In 2014, SIGCOMM has supported the 4th PhD School on Traffic Monitoring and Analysis (TMA)

Call for proposals

The SIGCOMM Executive Committee will evaluate all proposals for SIGCOMM-supported summerschools. The current list of SIGCOMM officers may be found on the SIGCOMM web site : http://www.sigcomm.org/about/people/

We encourage project proposers to discuss their ideas with Olivier Bonaventure or Yashar Ganjali in advance, but this is not required. Proposals should be sent as a PDF file of no more than three pages (11 point font or larger) by email to sigcomm-community-projects@acm.org

The next submission deadline is October 20th, 2014 .

The submitted proposals will be evaluated by the SIGCOMM EC. The total budget requested from SIGCOMM cannot exceed 25,000 US$. SIGCOMM expects any overhead charged by universities or other organizations to be very low and hopes to be able to support two summerschools within this call.

Proposals

A summerschool proposal should answer the following questions :

• Organisers: Who are the organisers of the summerschool ? 
• Scientific programme : What is the scientific programme for the sumerschool ? The presentations must be recorded in high quality video. The presenters must agree to disseminate all the recordings and the written material under a permissive license. This license should enable SIGCOMM to post the recordings on video streaming servers, but should also enable universities in developing regions to store copies in their library.
• Student participation : How many PhD students are expected ? Which activities do you plan to foster interaction among students ? The programme should enable students to both learn new skills by listening to presentations, but also receive feedback on their ongoing PhD work.
• Budget: What are the major costs for this summerschool ? The registration fee for PhD students must be minimized. Provide in the budget the registration cost for the students, including housing and at least one meal per day.  The SIGCOMM sponsoring should mainly cover the video recordings and travel grants for the PhD students. The ACM conference manual provides useful hints that can also apply for summerschool organisers.
• Schedule: When will the summerschool be held ?
• Location : Where will the summerschool be held ? We encourage locations that can be easily reached by public transportation to minimize the travel costs for the participating students.
• Additional funding: Have you considered other sources of funding? Will someone match SIGCOMM funding?
• Previous events: Is this a recurring event ? If so, provide information about previous editions of the summerschool.