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Call for Special Sessions Track

10th IEEE International Conference on Data Science and Advanced Analytics (DSAA 2023)
October 9-13, 2023
Thessaloniki, Greece
https://conferences.sigappfr.org/dsaa2023/

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** ABOUT DSAA SPECIAL SESSIONS TRACK **
DSAA Special Sessions are an important part of the main conference program. They bring together researchers, industry experts, practitioners, and potential users who are interested in cultivating specialized and important aspects of data science and analytics.

DSAA Special Sessions are intended to promote emerging data science research areas that are not well established and covered in the main conference tracks, while featuring high quality papers, which would normally appear in the main track. The same evaluation criteria and quality level apply as for the main conference, but the papers must adhere to the area of the special session they are submitted to, and the reviewers are experts in that area.

We welcome proposals that promote a more intensive interaction between different communities and proposals that promote cooperation to solve interdisciplinary problems. Thus, special sessions might focus on:

1- Topics on the border of data science research area
2- Advanced topics within the data science research area
3- Specific application areas for data science

** IMPORTANT DATES **
-Special Session Proposal Due: February 27, 2023
-Special Session Proposal Notification: March 6, 2023
-Special Session Paper Submission Deadline: June 1, 2023 (tentative)
-Special Session Paper Notification: August 20, 2023 (tentative)
-Camera ready: submission September 6, 2023 (tentative)

** SPECIAL SESSION PROPOSAL SUBMISSION AND REVIEW **
Proposals for hosting special sessions at DSAA 2023 are welcome. The proposals must address:

1- Title: Propose a title of the special session.
2- Abstract: Introduce a brief abstract of no more than approximately 100 words that allows conference attendees to understand the topic and the focus of the special session.
3- Aims and Scope
4- Rationale: Please explain why the topic of the special session is novel and timely, why it is relevant to the DSAA community.
5- Related special sessions previously organized (with number of papers received/accepted)
6- Organizers: Provide a list of organizers with their affiliations, short bio, and contacts and confirm you agree that this information will appear on the conference website.
7- Potential Committee Members
8- Expected number of submissions

For each organizer in (6), provide name, affiliation, country, email, and a short biographical sketch, describing relevant qualifications and experience; identify at least one organizer as the contact person.
For (5), list any special session or relevant events (e.g., workshops) the organizers have organized in recent years in DSAA or other major conferences; for each, list the year, the conference, number of submissions, number of papers accepted, number of participants, etc.
For (7), give a list of qualified committee members who would be invited.
Special session proposals will be reviewed based on the above criteria and quality of the proposals as well as their relationship to the main conference topics. Preference may be given to timely topics that are critical for data science and analytics, inspire highly interactive discussions, and showcase the impact of data science and analytics.
Proposers are encouraged to give an estimation of the number of submissions they expect.

** SUBMISSION OF A SPECIAL SESSION **
All proposals should be submitted electronically via EasyChair: https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=dsaa2023 (under the “Special Sessions” Track)

** SPECIAL SESSION ORGANIZATION, PAPER SUBMISSION AND REVIEW **
Once a special session proposal has been accepted, its organizers should create a website with the Special Session information and should widely publicize the session’s call for papers on different mailing lists and social media.
Special session papers strictly follow the same specifications, requirements, and policies as the main conference submissions in terms of the paper submission deadline, notification deadline, paper formatting and length, and important policies. Special session paper submissions will be done via EasyChair.
Reviewing the submissions in each special session is coordinated by the special session organizers and is fully aligned to the main conference evaluation process. In particular:

-All papers submitted to special sessions will be double-blind reviewed.
-Organizers of each special session will select the program committee members (PCMs).
-PCMs will be invited by the Special Session Chairs into the submission system for each Special Session; a reviewer can serve as PCM in more than one Special Session.
-Papers will then be assigned to appropriate PCMs by the Special Session organizers for review.
-Special Session organizers will make recommendations of acceptance/rejection for papers in their sessions, which must be validated by the Special Session Chairs.

To guarantee uniform quality control for all special sessions and to be consistent with the main conference, the final decisions of special session paper acceptance/rejection are made by the DSAA Program Chairs.

** PROCEEDINGS, INDEXING AND SPECIAL ISSUES **
All accepted full-length special session papers will be published by IEEE in the DSAA main conference proceedings under its Special Session scheme. All papers will be submitted for inclusion in the IEEEXplore Digital Library.
Organizers of Special Sessions may additionally, arrange for special issues to further publish the extended journal versions of the papers. Several past special sessions have published special issues with the International Journal of Data Science and Analytics (JDSA, Springer).

** GENERAL INQUIRIES **
Inquiries about special session proposals should be sent directly to the Special Session Chairs (please see contact information below).
Specific inquiries about a Special Session should be submitted to the session organizers, who are advised to set up a joint email address, once their proposal is accepted.

** SPECIAL SESSIONS CHAIRS **
-Vagelis Papalexakis, University of California Riverside (epapalex at cs dot ucr dot edu)
-Grant Scott, University of Missouri (scottgs at missouri dot edu)