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Tutorials 2024

 

Dates

  • Deadline: Jun 14, 2024 AOE
  • Final Decisions: Aug 09, 2024

We welcome proposals for in-person tutorials on either core machine learning topics or topics of emerging importance for machine learning, broadly construed. We will consider any topic, so long as the proposal makes a strong argument that the tutorial is important for the NeurIPS community. Tutorials should be of interest to a substantial portion of the community and should represent a sufficiently mature area of research or practice. Tutorials are expected to be accessible to PhD candidates working in other areas of the NeurIPS community, i.e. some part of the tutorial may need to be spent on covering necessary background material.

A NeurIPS tutorial should not focus on the results or tools of the presenters or their organizations, and should be more reflective of the research within the wider community in that field. A tutorial should provide a balanced overview of an area of research. It should also provide a balance between known results and open problems.

We discourage tutorial topics that overlap heavily with tutorials presented at NeurIPS, ICML or highly related conferences in the past two years. We also aim to select tutorial presenters who have not presented a tutorial at NeurIPS or ICML in the past five years.

This year we will require a minimum of two presenters and an optional panel discussion. We also encourage submitters to think about how their tutorial could be useful to the community after the meeting, for example providing links to code, slides and exercises or audio-only presentations. We will send out audio recordings to tutorial presenters after the conference and presenters will be free to modify the recordings or send out additional information for conversion into a podcast format (depending on topic).

We will also set up informal practice groups between presenters before the main conference.

 

Requirements:

Each accepted tutorial will be 2h30m (150 minutes) long. 

Tutorials will take place entirely in-person on a single day and avoid overlap with the rest of the program. All participants are required to participate live (for Q&A and the panel).

Each tutorial may include a discussion panel to broaden the discussion on the topic. The panel should include additional researchers from the field, and a moderator.  If a panel is planned, it should be taking place in the last 30 minutes of the tutorial. 

 

Summary of Requirements:

Main Tutorial:

  • Min 2 speakers
  • Max 3 speakers
  • Should have at least 2 hours for presentation (including 10 minutes for technical Q&A and clarifying questions)

Optional Panel/Debate:

  • 20-30 minutes at the end of the tutorial.
  • Max 6 participants (including the moderator) for the panel.
  • The panel should represent diverse perspectives. While the exact structure of the panel is up to you, we encourage a (civil/professional) debate format representing different perspectives in the community.

 

Requirements for Proposal Document:

Tutorial proposals should be no more than five pages in 12-point font submitted in PDF format. Each proposal should be clearly structured to provide the following information:

  • Title
  • Abstract (up to 250 words)
  • Description and outline: What material will the tutorial cover and in what depth? Please provide a detailed outline.
  • Goals: What are the objectives of the tutorial? What is the benefit to attendees? What are the expected learning outcomes (in terms of knowledge, skills and understanding)? 
  • Why is this tutorial important to include at this NeurIPS in particular? How will you engage a broad audience? How will the panelists (if applicable) complement your presentation?
  • Previous tutorials: What are the related or similar tutorials presented in the past 3 years at NeurIPS or at another venue? Please list the dates and venues, and describe the similarities and differences between the previous tutorials and proposed tutorial. If available, please include URLs for slides and video recordings.
  • If applicable, hands-on coding demonstrations and resource websites associated with the proposal are highly valued. For example, can attendees refer to notebooks that would help them reproduce some of the demonstrations presented in your tutorial?
  • Presenters (min 2, max 3): Who are the presenters? Please provide names, affiliations, email addresses, and short bios for each presenter. Bios should cover the presenters' expertise related to the topic of the tutorial. Please describe how the time will be divided between the presenters. All presenters listed in the proposal are expected to attend.
  • Optional Panel: Who are the additional panelists? Please provide names, affiliations, email addresses and short bios (in relation to the tutorial’s topic). Please highlight who will moderate the discussion.
  • Post-meeting materials: How will this tutorial be useful to attendees after the meeting, e.g. will you provide links to code, slides, exercises? Will this tutorial be suitable for presenting or edited into an audio-only format?
  • Diversity: please specify how the speakers and optional panelists represent the diversity in our community, considering aspects such as (non-exhaustive) gender, race, geographical location, institution, seniority, background, specialty. For debate format panels, we ask organizers to try their best to maintain balanced representation along these aspects for differing perspectives. 
  • Links to video recordings of the presenters’ previous talks (optional but strongly recommended)
  • A list of the most important references that will be covered.

 

Proposal strengths:

  • Importance, relevance and timeliness of the topic to the NeurIPS community
  • A diverse set of speakers. We encourage speakers from different institutions with a variety of perspectives to reduce knowledge bias.
  • Speakers should be experienced in the topic proposed, as demonstrated by publications and talks.
  • Quality of the presentation; clear delivery of the content. 

Please see the retrospective blog on the tutorial submissions from last year, and make an effort to embrace the positive features of accepted tutorials, and avoid the pitfalls outlined there. The best way to maximize the chances of your tutorial submission being accepted is to carefully follow instructions, and make a polished and organized submission. Are you missing parts of your submission? Is it over length? Does your proposal bring diverse perspectives? Did you research whether a closely related topic has recently been presented at NeurIPS or ICML? Are you submitting on time? Are your panellists confirmed at the time of submission? A carefully planned and crafted submission signals that care and organization will go into the presentation itself.

FAQ

  • Can the moderator be one of the speakers? Yes, the moderator can be either in addition to the speakers and panellists, or be one of the speakers. We request that moderators prepare a list of discussion topics and questions if the audience is not very active.
  • Are panellists included in the “tutorial speakers who have not presented a tutorial in the past five years?” No, this point only refers to the tutorial presenters.
  • Can I submit multiple proposals? No, each researcher can submit at most one proposal to be a Speaker. 
  • Can researchers be present at multiple panels? No, each researcher can be a part of maximum one panel.
  • Can a researcher be a Speaker at one tutorial and panellist at another? While proposals will not be disqualified for this, we will encourage researchers to select one opportunity at most.

Submit

Submit your proposal in this form.

Questions

For other questions, please contact us.

 

Tutorial Chairs, NeurIPS 2024

Andrew M. Dai, Gal Chechik, Irene Y Chen