Courses

Building a desirable future through computer graphics and interactive techniques starts with you and your contributions to and participation in SIGGRAPH 2024. We are excited that you are submitting your work for consideration.

The Courses program has two submission stages. Stage 1 includes submitting sample course material for review by the jury, acceptance notifications, and forms completion. Stage 2 includes submitting complete (final) course notes and (penultimate) slides for publication in the conference proceedings, in-person presentation of the course during the conference, and updating the course slides to be the final version as presented for publication in the ACM Digital Library.

The following table summarizes key Courses submission items, due dates, and notification timeline. See the SUBMISSION FORM for complete information for submission requirements and timelines.

International travel: Since the acceptance or rejection notification is scheduled for May 2024, it is advisable for submitters who are traveling internationally to inform themselves of requirements for international travel and any visa requirements or applications far in advance of the notification timeline and conference dates. Courses presentations are scheduled as in-person sessions at the conference.

To Submit to Courses

Stage 1: Submit Abbreviated Course Material Sample for Jury Review

Log into the submission portal, select the “Make a New Submission” tab, select ”General Submissions,” and then select “Courses” under “Presentation Formats.” To see the information you need to submit, view the sample submission form.

You will need the following information:

• Title. To help participants attend the right course, please accurately title your submission. Attendees and jurors should understand the basic takeaways from the title alone.
• A presentation format. Please select “Course” as your presentation format. This activates Courses-specific questions in the form. If proposing a course in both short (1.5 hours) and long (3 hours) formats, please clarify the differences to help jurors select between them.
• Unique emails per contributor are required.
• One “representative image” suitable for use on the conference website and in promotional materials. See the Representative Image Guidelines tab located on the Submission FAQ page.
• A 50 word course synopsis.
• Information on the intended audience, prerequisites, and level of difficulty. Please choose the level of difficulty appropriately by indicating whether your content is introductory, intermediate, or advanced. We accept Courses at all levels, but highlight a Courses’ target audience to help attendees identify content relevant to them.
• Short biographies (100 words) for each of your instructors. Typical Courses consist of one to four instructors. We recommend one or two instructors for a Short Course (1.5 hours) and two or more instructors for a Long Course (3 hours).
• A 300-word abstract with a clear statement of the course theme, topics, activities, and takeaways.
• Course Content Sample – abbreviated course notes and slides. Submit 5 to 10 pages of clear and concise notes that include a description of topics to be presented, a coherent organization of the topics, concepts, and learning takeaways, and a brief explanation of how you intend to use the time for your course. Submit between 5 to 10 slides, to help reviewers understand the style and quality of your proposed content. If you have your full course notes and slides available please submit a relevant sample and not the full course.

Quality course sample materials clearly represent your course concept, structure, and takeaways that attendees will achieve in a way that jury members from multiple professional backgrounds can easily comprehend.

When preparing your course notes, you may wish to consult SIGGRAPH’s Publication Instructions.

• A list of potential submission categories and keywords is provided to help ensure your submission is reviewed and juried appropriately. Please select the categories and keywords carefully.
• For additional submission information or information about uploading files, see Submissions FAQ.

Optional: You also may provide examples of other materials, demonstrations, or exercises that support the Courses topics. Please be clear how this additional content supports your submission; due to limited time by our volunteer jurors, more supplementary material is not necessarily better.

Interested in submitting to the Courses program and have a question? Join the SIGGRAPH 2024 and 2025 Courses Chairs for open office hours to ask any questions prior to the 21 February Courses deadline.

Register to attend the open Courses office hours on Tuesday, 13 February anytime from 2-3:30 pm, central time, here: https://calendly.com/siggraphconf/courses

Courses can fulfill many objectives, such as:

• Introducing a core graphics or interactive techniques subject, targeting any level of background in that area. Such a course can cover various topics, ranging in level from introductory to advanced. The jury looks for such courses to guide attendees through the material in a coherent and comprehensible way.
• Introducing a topic related to graphics and interactive techniques but not considered “core.” The jury evaluates these proposals based on the expected benefit to the SIGGRAPH audience and the expected breadth of interest.
• Consolidating a new and emerging research trend. The jury evaluates these proposals based on their potential to spur applications and bring researchers up to speed. The jury seeks courses distilling recent research into a coherent narrative, as opposed to merely replaying a sequence of prior research talks.

Recently taught courses must justify why the course should be repeated. If refreshing an older course, please explain why revisiting the material now is timely and what new content will be added.

The success of a course proposal is not directly tied to its declared level of difficulty. The conference seeks to offer a broad spectrum of courses at all levels, including well-designed introductory courses. Please choose the most appropriate difficulty level for a course based on the complexity of the ideas presented and the depth of its prerequisites.

Multiple speakers for a course are encouraged. If you have multiple speakers, please consider whether your proposal best fits as a SIGGRAPH Course or Panel. It’s your choice, but if you plan to present different perspectives about a topic without a cohesive structure and clear learning takeaways, a SIGGRAPH Panel may be a better fit.

Some reasons courses are rejected:

• Sample course notes fail to communicate clearly and informatively.
• The submission fails to make the course theme sufficiently clear, detail what specific topics will be presented, or explain how the allotted time will be used.
• Content is too narrowly focused or advances an agenda. A course should comprehensively cover a topic and not just focus, for instance, on the presenter’s own techniques or methods used in one company. (Consider a co-presenter from a competing academic lab or company.)
• Previous courses have sufficiently covered the area, or the jury feels the topic is too narrow to attract sufficient attendance at SIGGRAPH.
• Too many high-quality courses were submitted, and the jury could only select a subset.

Jurors are asked to evaluate your submission using four criteria: concept, novelty, interest, and quality. The final submission score is based on a combination of these factors.

• Concept
  How exceptional are the ideas, problems, solutions, aesthetics, etc., presented in this submission? How coherently does the submission convey its learning objectives or takeaways? Is the course similar to existing ones, or does it stand out? This criterion is particularly applicable when combining existing technologies into a single course proposal (for example: papers, demos, animations, or art pieces); submissions of this type are often rejected if they duplicate other content without demonstrating how the proposed course will improve attendee mastery of the content.
• Novelty
  How new and fresh is the submission? Is it a new, groundbreaking approach to teach an old problem, or is it an existing approach with a slightly new twist? A course offering a novel approach to teach a topic may be more positively regarded by the jury.
• Interest
  Will conference participants want to attend this course? Will it inspire them? Does it appeal to a broad audience? This measures both the breadth of the potential audience and overall proposal clarity and novelty. If proposing a repeat of a past course, evidence of past interest can be useful in evaluation.
• Quality, Craft, and Completeness
  This is a measure of the course’s quality of expression, clarity of thinking, and the completeness and lucidity of the course syllabus, content, and goals. The submission information, sample course notes, and slides must provide a clear sense that the final course materials will be well-written, well-designed, and well-presented.

Non-Disclosure Agreements SIGGRAPH reviewers cannot sign non-disclosure agreements for submissions. For information on patents and confidentiality, see the Submissions FAQ.

You will be notified of acceptance or rejection of your presentation in early May 2024. If your Course is accepted you will receive an email from “rightsreview@acm.org” with a link to your ACM Rights Management form within 72 hours of notification of acceptance of your work to the conference.

Stage 2: Submit Course Materials and Forms for Accepted Courses Publication and Presentation

1. Complete forms and review submission information for website by Friday, 10 May 2024, which includes:
   1. Complete the ACM Rights Management form which will be sent to ALL course participants. Each course presenter MUST complete their own form.
   2. Review your submission information through the submission portal to confirm or update the list of contributors(s), affiliation(s), and 50-word summary statement and representative image suitable for conference publicity. May 10, 2024 is the deadline to make any changes to course submission information (i.e., approved title changes, contributors names, descriptions etc.) for publication on the conference website.
   3. Review your representative image: Your representative image and text may be used for promotional purposes. Several SIGGRAPH 2024 programs will prepare preview videos of accepted content for pre-conference promotion, which may include your representative image.
   4. Provide a valid ORCID identifier (ACM now requires that all accepted contributors register and provide ACM with valid ORCID identifiers prior to publication. Corresponding contributors are responsible for collecting these ORCID identifiers from co-contributors and providing them to ACM as part of the ACM eRights selection process. You and your co-contributors can create and register your ORCID identifier at https://orcid.org/register. ACM only requires you to complete the initial ORCID registration process. However, ACM encourages you to take the additional step to claim ownership of all of your published works via the ORCID site.
2. Submit full course materials for publication in conference proceedings by 7 June 2024
   • Final materials can include source code, notes, and slides; hardware instructions and requirements; and other material that will be presented during the course session at the conference. These materials will be published in the conference proceedings and the ACM Digital Library to help participants apply their new knowledge.
   • Replace your sample course notes and slides with your final complete notes and (penultimate or final) slides using the submission portal by 7 June 2024.
   • Course notes (final version) are a requirement in order to present during SIGGRAPH 2024 and must be received by 7 June 2024.
   • Submit final course slides (only) using the submission portal by 8 August 2024 for inclusion in the ACM Digital Library. This deadline gives you the opportunity to update your course slides to the final version as presented during the conference. If the slides you submitted at the 7 June 2024 deadline are unchanged, then there is no need to make this additional submission. Please note that only the updated course slides and not the course notes can be submitted at this time. If your slides are your course notes, you must deliver them and submit by 7 June 2024.

3. In-Person Presentations

   If your course is accepted for presentation at SIGGRAPH, the Courses contributor must:

   • Prepare a Short Course (1.5 hours) or Long Course (3 hours) based on your acceptance.
   • Coordinate details with your Course co-presenters.
   • Attend and present your work in-person at SIGGRAPH 2024 in Denver.
   • Contributors should plan to present from their own personal laptops. SIGGRAPH will provide adapters needed to connect personal computers to the session projector.
   • In-person presentation IS REQUIRED for Course presentation. In the event of presenter emergencies that prevent travel to Denver, identify an alternate presenter from the existing, accepted group of co-presenters to avoid cancellation of the course and removal of materials from the ACM Digital Library.
   • A reminder about international travel: It is the responsibility of each presenter to inform themselves of international travel requirements and visa deadlines sufficiently in advance of the respective deadlines (see above). Since the acceptance or rejection notification is scheduled for May 2024, it is advisable for submitters who are traveling internationally to inform themselves of requirements for international travel and any visa requirements or applications far in advance of the notification timeline and conference dates. Courses presentations are scheduled as in-person sessions at the conference.

4. Presenter Recognition

   Long Courses (3 hours):

   Contributor Registration Benefit: Up to two contributors per accepted Long Course receives a 100% complimentary Full Conference registration.

   Short Courses (1.5 hours):

   Contributor Registration Benefit: Up to two contributors per accepted Short Course receives a 50% discount on Full Conference registration.

   To present your Course at SIGGRAPH 2024, contributors must be registered at the Full Conference registration level.You will receive an email by early June explaining how to access the registration discount code as well as instructions for registering. The contributor using the discount code is eligible for the early-bird registration rate regardless of when registration is completed.

   Any additional contributors who will be presenting the Course are required to register at the appropriate registration level for the program, and prevailing registration rates will apply.

21 February 2024, 22:00 UTC/GMT
Submission deadline.

Early May 2024
Acceptance or rejection notices are sent to all submitters.

10 May 2024
Deadline to make any changes to course submission information (i.e., approved title changes, contributors names, descriptions, representative image etc. ) for publication on the website.

7 June 2024
Course notes are due.

Please note: Course notes are a requirement in order for you to present during SIGGRAPH 2024. Do not submit a proposal if you cannot commit to providing complete, high-quality course notes by this date.

26 July 2024
Official publication date for the ACM Digital Library.

Please Note: The official publication date is the date the proceedings are made available in the ACM Digital Library. This date may be up to two weeks prior to the first day of your conference. The official publication date affects the deadline for any patent filings related to published work. (For those rare conferences whose proceedings are published in the ACM Digital Library after the conference is over, the official publication date remains the first day of the conference.)

28 July–1 August 2024
SIGGRAPH 2024
Colorado Convention Center
Denver, Colorado