Call for Workshop, Challenge and Tutorial Proposals

We invite proposals for workshops, challenges and tutorials to be held in conjunction with the MICCAI 2015 conference in Munich, Germany. Each event may be organized as half-day (8:30am-12:30, or 1:30pm-5:30pm) or full-day (8:30am-5:30pm), and will take place either on Monday October 5, or Friday October 9, 2015, i.e. the days before and after the main conference. Due to the limited space, we encourage the proposals of half-day satellite events so that we can host a wider selection of workshops, challenges and tutorials for the MICCAI 2015 audience.

Workshops

The purpose of workshops is to provide a comprehensive forum on topics that may not be fully explored during the main conference. Workshop topics should address an open problem relevant to MICCAI. A workshop may include a combination of guest/invited speakers and submission papers. The workshop format is a single stream of oral presentations that allows significant time for questions and discussion. A workshop may also include panel and poster sessions. Papers accepted for the main conference may not be submitted to any workshop. No papers may be submitted to multiple workshops.

Challenges

Challenges have become an integral part of MICCAI conferences in the past years. Their aim is to provide a fair and direct comparison of different methodological solutions to a common problem. Challenges should address a well-defined open problem relevant to MICCAI, provide high quality data for testing/training algorithms and define a clear evaluation procedure that may include assessment and data distribution before and/or during the MICCAI conference (http://grand-challenge.org/Why_Challenges/). Challenges may also include oral and/or poster presentations, panel discussions and invited speakers. This year, we explicitly ask for submissions related to both medical image computing (MIC) and computer assisted interventions (CAI). Furthermore, we will have an open call for data to encourage the community to provide their data to upcoming challenges and thus to increase the diversity and/or amount of data used for training and testing of methods to be compared.

Tutorials

The purpose of tutorials is to provide educational material in any field relevant to the MICCAI community for training scientists and clinical researchers; including professionals seeking continued education, students, clinicians, early career scientists and established researchers planning to broaden their research horizons. Tutorials should focus on an existing sub-discipline of MICCAI with known methods, approaches and open/unsolved problems. There should be a cohesive theme to a tutorial, e.g. methodology, organ, disease, software tool, etc. Tutorials may focus on basic or advanced knowledge transfer. Tutorial organizers should specify the target audience, educational objectives, and provide a set of learning outcomes. The tutorial format is a set of formal lectures, with ample discussion time. Tutorial organizers are encouraged to share all material with the community after the event.


Important Dates

DeadlineAction
2015-01-12 Proposals are due

2015-01-26
Preliminary decisions will be reported back to the organizers
Organizers of substantially overlapping events will be asked
to resubmit their proposals
2015-02-09  Revised proposals are due where applicable
2015-03-02 Final notification of acceptance

Submission

Proposals must be submitted as a single PDF file by email to: 

The content should include:

  • Title and brief (150 words) outline of workshop / challenge / tutorial topic and scope.
  • Names and contact (email, phone, web page) of organizers.
  • The duration of the event: either half day or full day. If you have a preference for the day of the workshop / challenge / tutorial (before or after the conference) please include it in your proposal. We will try to hold most tutorials on the day before the main conference, to allow novices to the MICCAI community to familiarize better.
  • Academic objectives and justification of relevance to MICCAI.
  • Workshop / challenge / tutorial format plans.
  • Anticipated (min/max) number of participants with reasoning for the number (e.g., numbers from previous workshops / challenges / tutorials).
  • Names of guest speakers or anticipated major contributors.
  • Plans for dissemination, e.g. publication of proceedings beyond the MICCAI USB sticks, and availability of materials after the event (especially for challenges and tutorials).
  • Space requirements and special equipment or technical support needed. This is particularly important for computational challenge workshops to help us evaluate and prepare for special workshop requirements.

Selection Criteria

Due to the limited number of rooms available, and for the interest of the participants, a selection will be performed within the submitted workshops, challenges and tutorials. The selection criteria include:

  • Expected interest of the topic for MICCAI audience. Emergent subjects will be favorably considered if the link with the MICCAI community is clearly established. Some slots may be reserved for events involving clinicians in a meaningful way.
  • Quality of the organization planned for the review process in workshops, the speaker selection in tutorials, and the challenge organization in terms of data provided, interactive processing (online and/or offline) and evaluation of results.
  • Diversity of topics. Overlapping workshops, challenges and tutorials will be required to resubmit before the final decision is taken.

Organization

  • The workshop / challenge / tutorial organizers must arrange for advertising of the event, submission and reviewing of papers, notification of acceptance, compilation of the program, and print-ready layout of the proceedings.
  • The MICCAI 2015 organizers will provide a graphics kit so that the MICCAI branding is consistent. MICCAI 2015 banners and logos on all workshop, challenge and tutorial advertisements are compulsory.
  • The MICCAI 2015 organizers will advertise the workshop / challenge / tutorial on the MICCAI website in a general call for participation. A link to your website main page will be provided.
  • Workshop / challenge / tutorial organizers will be notified of the day on which their session will be held.
  • Challenge organizers are responsible for the rules of the challenge: they have to ensure a fair, unbiased assessment process, clear rules and deadlines for participants. They are encouraged to release competition materials as open source/data after the competition.
  • The MICCAI 2015 organizers will manage the registration of the participants.
  • The MICCAI 2015 organizers will provide space for presentations and AV support, poster boards will be provided within the constraints of the space available, so an agreement with the MICCAI 2015 organizers is essential for poster presentations.
  • Meetings with fewer than 20 registered attendees may be cancelled, as these are not financially viable.
  • Authors will assign to MICCAI the right to distribute the workshop / challenge / tutorial material to MICCAI members and to workshop / challenge / tutorial and MICCAI attendees, independently of the copyright ownership planned by the workshop / challenge / tutorial organizers. It is up to the workshop / challenge / tutorial organizers to collect the agreement of the authors for that and communicate this information to journals/publishers utilizing material from MICCAI workshops / challenges / tutorials.
  • The registration fee will include a USB memory device containing workshop / challenge / tutorial materials. Workshop / challenge / tutorial organizers must provide MICCAI 2015 organizers with a single PDF file containing all of the needed materials by the deadline they provide.
  • Workshop and challenge organizers may negotiate a journal special issue for the best papers in the workshop / challenge.

Venue

The workshops, challenges and tutorials will be held in the Holiday Inn Hotel across the street from the Gasteig auditorium. Onsite services and catering arrangements will be organized by the MICCAI 2015 organizers. Based on the number of accepted workshops / tutorials / challenges and number of participants, some of the events might be moved to lecture halls in Klinikum rechts der Isar (1 km walking distance).


Budget

MICCAI 2015 will not pay for travel or other arrangements for workshop / challenge / tutorial organizers or any of their invited guests. Organizers and their guest have to register to the event. One free workshop / challenge / tutorial registration will be provided to the event organizers if the number of registrants is above 40 people.