Industry Track Chair Handbook
Current Chairs:
| Name | Affiliation | Contact |
|---|---|---|
| Yunyao Li | Adobe | Website |
| Georg Rehm | DFKI (German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence) | georg.rehm@dfki.de |
Overview of Responsibilities
The Industry Track Chairs at *CL conferences are responsible for handling submissions to the industry track at conferences, which concerns submissions from companies that have a particular focus on the challenges presented by the real-world applications focussed on by the private sector.
The following are the main responsibilities of the Industry Track Chairs:
1. Preparation & Cross-Committee Cooperation\ 2. Call for Papers & Publicity\ 3. Program Committee Arrangement\ 4. Industry Panels & Invited Speakers\ 5. Industry Track Reviewing\ 6. Industry Track Timetabling & Proceedings Management
Breakdown of Responsibilities
1. Preparation & Cross-Committee Cooperation
This responsibility concerns collecting information from previous chairs to aid in the performance of your duties, in addition to general preparation for creating the proceedings.
| Task | Start | Deadline | Dependency | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contact Previous Year’s Chairs | ASAP | ASAP | - | Lessons learned and other useful information for the new Industry Track chairs. |
| Create Google Group & Drive | Sep 2024 | Sep 2024 | - | Used to share relevant documents, spreadsheets etc., to ensure a centralised location. |
| Review Previous Conference Industry Track | May 2025 | July 2025 | - | Gain access to the following: Number of industry track submissions, list of Publication Chairs, and Industry Track submission website for the last major conference (e.g., for ACL 2025, this would be EMNLP 2024) to inform current judgements. |
| Set up Industry Track Submission Site | Oct 2024 | Nov 2024 | Access to previous submission site for easier creation | - |
2. Call for Papers & Publicity
This responsibility concerns collecting information from previous chairs to aid in the performance of your duties, in addition to general preparation for creating the proceedings.
| Task | Start | Deadline | Dependency | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First Draft of Call for Papers | Sep 2024 | Sep 2024 | - | ACL 2025 Industry Track CfP available here. |
| Final Draft of Call for Papers | Oct 2024 | Oct 2024 | - | - |
| Publish Call for Papers | Oct 2024 | Oct 2024 | Incorporate feedback on final draft from the General Chair. | - |
| Post to ACL Mailing List and Social Media | Dec 2024 | Dec 2024 | Primary platform is X (Twitter). | - |
| Contact Social Media/Publicity Chair | Jan 2025 | Jan 2025 | Request assistant with publicity, inc. alternative platforms, frequency of posts, etc. | - |
| Post to LinkedIn Groups | Feb 2025 | Feb 2025 | - | - |
3. Program Committee Arrangement
This responsibility concerns inviting potential Area Chairs and reviewers for the Industry track.
| Task | Start | Deadline | Dependency | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Draft List of Potential Area Chairs | Jan 2025 | Jan 2025 | - | - |
| Send Area Chair Initiation Letters | Feb 2025 | Feb 2025 | - | Perform continuously until a sufficient number of Area Chairs have accepted. |
| Draft List of Potential Program Committee (PC) Members | Feb 2025 | Feb 2025 | - | - |
| Create and Send PC & Reviewer Invitation Letters | Feb 2025 | Feb 2025 | - | Send repeated reminders for recruitment. |
4. Industry Panels & Invited Speakers
This responsibility concerns arranging other Industry track related conference events, such as discussion panels and invited talks.
| Task | Start | Deadline | Dependency | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Publish Survey of Interests | Jan 2025 | Jan 2025 | - | Use Google Forms to collect questions and topics from the community (particularly from outside of industry, inc. students) |
| Shortlist Panelists & Speakers | Jan 2025 | Feb 2025 | - | Send invitations to the selected speakers/panelists. |
| Request Panelist & Speaker Information | May 2025 | May 2025 | - | Information should include aspects such as the proposed topic of invited talks and speaker biographies. |
5. Industry Track Reviewing
This responsibility concerns the process of reviewing submissions to the Industry track (inc., desk rejection, emergency reviews and award decisions).
| Task | Start | Deadline | Dependency | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Create Review Guidelines | Jan 2025 | Jan 2025 | - | se Google Forms to collect questions and topics from the community (particularly from outside of industry, inc. students) |
| Draft Review Form | Jan 2025 | Feb 2025 | - | Invitations to the selected speakers/panelists should then be sent. |
| Verify Desk Rejections | March 2025 | March 2025 | - | Send notifications to true positive desk rejections. |
| Perform Paper/Reviewer Matching | March 2025 | March 2025 | - | - |
| Recruit & Complete Emergency Reviews | April 2025 | April 2025 | - | - |
| Initiate Meta Review | April 2025 | April 2025 | - | Nudge chairs to finalise decisions and nudge reviewers to engage in discussion with authors. |
| Determine Best/Outstanding Industry Track Paper Awardees | May 2025 | May 2025 | Acceptance decisions finalized | - |
6. Industry Track Timetabling & Proceedings Management
This responsibility concerns arranging the logistics of conference events relating to the Industry track (i.e., oral/poster presentations, panels, and invited talks) in addition to compiling the proceedings.
| Task | Start | Deadline | Dependency | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Notify Authors of Presentation Format | May 2025 | May 2025 | - | Use Google Forms to collect questions and topics from the community (particularly from outside of industry, inc. students) |
| Finalize Schedule | May 2025 | Feb 2025 | - | Including oral/poster presentations, panels, and invited speakers. |
| Request Panelist & Speaker Information | May 2025 | May 2025 | - | Including proposed topic of invited talks and speake biographies. |
| Create Camera-Ready Instructions & Upload Portal | May 2025 | May 2025 | - | Send to all authors of accepted papers. |
| Integrate Industry Track Papers into Proceedings | June 2025 | June 2025 | - | Liaise with Publication Chairs. |