The EACL 2021 (http://2021.eacl.org/) Program Committee invites proposals for the Demonstrations Program. This program is primarily to encourage the early exhibition of research prototypes, but interesting mature systems are also eligible.
Note: Commercial sales and marketing activities are not appropriate in the Demonstration program and should be directed to the EACL2021 sponsoring program.

Area of interest

We would like to encourage the submission of proposals for demonstrations of software related to any areas of computational linguistics and natural language processing. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • Natural language processing systems, including:
    • Dialog systems and interfaces;
    • Machine translation systems and translation aids;
    • Message and narrative understanding systems;
  • Language-oriented information retrieval and information extraction systems;
  • Application systems using embedded language technology components;
  • Reusable components (parsers, generators, taggers, speech recognizers, etc.);
  • Software tools for facilitating linguistic research;
  • Software for demonstrating or evaluating computational linguistics research;
  • Aids for teaching computational linguistics concepts;
  • Visualization and modelling tools that help understanding and developing statistical NLP systems (e.g. based on neural networks, representation learning, etc.)

Demo Details

Developers should outline the design of their system and provide sufficient details to allow the evaluation of its validity, quality, and relevance to computational linguistics.

To ensure accessibility for deaf or hard-of-hearing viewers, we encourage authors to caption videos prior to submission. Pointers to web sites running a demo preview will also be helpful. For non web-based demos, it is possible to submit a short (2-5 minutes) screencast video demonstrating the system. This screencast will be used to evaluate the paper, but won’t be published unless requested. We encourage the authors to include visual aids (e.g., screenshots, snapshots, or diagrams) in the paper. Authors will also be able to upload and submit additional material, if needed. If you choose to submit a screencast, please upload the video to some hosting site (YouTube, Vimeo, etc.) and include the link in your paper submission.

Format For Submission

Demo Proposals consist of the following parts, which should all be sent using the EACL 2021 sub-conference submission procedure at https://www.softconf.com/eacl2021/demos.

  • Submission is electronic, using the Softconf START conference management system at https://www.softconf.com/eacl2021/demos.
  • Submissions may consist of up to 6 pages, plus unlimited references. Authors are strongly encouraged to include in their paper (e.g 1st footnote) a link to a video highlighting their system. Submissions must conform to the EACL 2021 official style guidelines (https://2021.eacl.org/calls/papers/) and they must be in PDF format. The submissions have to be original work (unpublished), as the publication in EACL will be archival.
  • At least one author of each accepted demo paper must register for and attend the conference, and demonstrate the system during the demo sessions.

Best Demo Award

As in previous years, EACL 2021’s demo track will feature a Best Demo Award. We hope to encourage researchers to make their code publicly available and in the form of an easy-to-use, runnable system.

Submissions Procedure

Proposals should be submitted by January 15, 2021 using the EACL 2021 START web page for Demos: https://www.softconf.com/eacl2021/demos/.

Submissions will be evaluated on the basis of their relevance to computational linguistics, innovation, scientific contribution, presentation, and user friendliness, as well as potential logistical constraints.

Rewiewing Policy

Reviewing will be single-blind, so authors do not need to conceal their identity. The paper should include the authors’ names and affiliations. Self-references are also allowed. No embargo period is required.

Other Details

Further details on the demonstrations sessions will be determined and provided at a later date.

Important Dates

  • Demo proposal submissions due: January 15, 2021
  • Notification to authors: February 20, 2021
  • Camera-ready due: March 10, 2021
  • EACL conference dates: April 20–22 , 2021

Demonstrations Co-Chairs

Djamé Seddah (Inria Paris, djame.seddah@inria.fr)
Dimitra Gkatzia (Edinburgh Napier University, d.gkatzia@napier.ac.uk)