Call for Tutorials

Call for Tutorials

Important Dates 

Proposal Submission:  1 December 2020 (23:59 UTC-12) 
Author Notifications:  17 December 2020 (23:59 UTC-12) 
Making the tutorial site available on the web (without notes):  9 February 2021 (23:59 UTC-12) 
Submitting tutorial notes and making them available on the web:  13 April 2021 (23:59 UTC-12) 
Tutorial Forum Presentations:  3-4 May 2021  

Conference Dates 

Tutorials, Doctoral Consortium, Workshops:  3-4 May 2021 
Main Conference:  5-7 May 2021 

The AAMAS 2021 Organizing Committee invites proposals for the Tutorial Program to be held on 3-4 May 2021, immediately before the technical conference. AAMAS 2021 Tutorials should serve one or more of the following objectives: 

  • Introduce novices to major topics of AAMAS research. 
  • Provide instruction in established practices and methodologies.
  • Survey a mature area of AAMAS research or practice.
  • Motivate and explain an AAMAS topic of emerging importance. 
  • Introduce expert non-specialists to an AAMAS area. 
  • Survey an area of agent research especially relevant for people from industry. 
  • Present a novel synthesis combining distinct lines of AAMAS work. 
  • Introduce AAMAS audiences to an external topic that can motivate or use AAMAS research.  

Topic areas of interest include all of those listed in the call for the technical track (see https://aamas2021.soton.ac.uk/), including the special tracks. Tutorials will be half day long. A few full day tutorials may be accepted, but the proponents need to motivate their request when submitting their proposal. 

Submission Requirements 

Those interested in presenting a tutorial should email their proposal to both tutorial chairs (see below). Proposals should be two to four pages in length, formatted using the AAMAS paper template, and should contain the following information: 

  • A short title of the tutorial. 
  • A brief description of the tutorial, suitable for inclusion in the conference registration brochure. 
  • A detailed outline of the tutorial, including preferred length (half or full day). 
  • Characterization of the potential target audience for the tutorial, including prerequisite knowledge. 
  • A description of why the tutorial topic would be of interest to a substantial part of the AAMAS audience. 
  • Whether the tutorial is planned to be face-to-face only, entirely virtual, or hybrid, assuming that the main conference will be face-to-face and few travel restrictions.
  • A description of an alternative plan for how the workshop will be run in the event that participants cannot attend due to travel restrictions (i.e. withdraw the workshop, hybrid, or entirely virtual) 
  • A brief resume of the presenter(s), which should include name, postal address, phone numbers, email address, background in the tutorial area, any available example of work in the area (ideally, a published tutorial-level article on the subject), evidence of teaching experience (including references that address the proposer’s presentation skills as applicable), and evidence of scholarship in the area. Information about previous tutorials delivered by the presenters (if any). 
  • The name and e-mail address of the corresponding presenter. The corresponding presenter should be available for e-mail correspondence during the evaluation process, in the case clarifications and discussions on the scope and content of the proposal are needed. 
  • The evaluation of the proposal will consider the level of general interest for AAMAS attendees, the quality of the proposal, the feasibility of running it in the proposed mode, and the expertise and skills of the presenters. We emphasize that the primary criteria for evaluation will be whether a proposal is interesting, well-structured, and motivated, rather than the perceived experience/standing of the proposer. Given the uncertainty of predicting international travel conditions, weight will also be put on flexible plans for running the tutorial in all circumstances. 
  • The overall goal in the selection process is to compose a balanced program of excellent tutorials. Thus, even good proposals might be rejected. In the case of several closely related proposals the tutorial chairs might propose that they are combined. 

Responsibilities (with respect to accepted proposals) 

AAMAS will be responsible for: 

  • Providing logistic support and a meeting place for any face-to-face tutorials. 
  • Together with the organizers, determining the tutorial date and time. 
  • Advertising the availability of the tutorial material to the AAMAS 2021 participants. 

Tutorial organizers will be responsible for: 

  • Providing AAMAS with a link to a complete tutorial notes by 13 April 2021. 
  • Providing a web site for the tutorial, which will include title and abstract of the tutorial, presenters’ details, outline, tutorial notes and related reading material. The Tutorial co-chairs will ask the Tutorial organizers to follow some common format and style for their web sites, in order to make them as homogeneous as possible. More details will be provided upon acceptance. 
  • Presenting the tutorial at AAMAS 2021. 

AAMAS reserves the right to cancel any tutorial if the above responsibilities are not fulfilled, if deadlines are missed, or if too few attendees register for the tutorial to support the costs of running the tutorial face-to-face, hybrid or virtual. 

Submissions and Inquiries 

Those interested in presenting a tutorial should send the proposal file as PDF to both the AAMAS 2021 Tutorial Co-chairs (see below) by email. 

Inquiries should be sent by email to the Tutorial Co-chairs: