Welcome to the First Day of EACL 2021!

Welcome to the 16th Conference of the European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics, EACL 2021! This newsletter will highlight key events for you. For more information and full program details, please visit our virtual conference webpage. The general guideline to navigate the virtual conference is available here and for the GatherTown is here.

Today is the first day of the EACL consisting of 7 workshops and 3 tutorials. Please find the detailed schedule here. Tutorials consist of pre-recorded talks and live Q&A sessions at a specific time. Each workshop consists of invited talks, panel discussions, and both oral and poster sessions. Visit the tutorial page to find more details about the tutorials and respective workshop pages for the same.

Multiple D&I and Social Events are also planned for the day; details available here. Some of these events are:

There will be multiple mentoring and sessions that will be announced on the fly; keep an eye on RocketChat’s social event channel.

In order to make the most out of your EACL conference experience, here are some tips:

  • At your leisure before or during the conference, scan through the schedule, read the papers, and/or watch the videos. Decide which ones you want to talk to the authors about.
  • There are multiple facilities like Add to Favorites, Visualization, Keyword browsing, etc to make paper search more accessible.
  • Pick a calendar link for the ones you want to discuss and if the time works for you, and add it to your calendar.
  • Now that chat is open, feel free to ask questions to the authors at any time that’s convenient for you.
  • During the presentation slot, you select, join the corresponding Zoom session and discuss the work with the authors.
  • Make use of socials & mentoring throughout the week! These are opportunities to try to recreate some of the “hallway conversations” that happen at an in-person conference.
  • Use the Directory to find the different RocketChat channels. Some of useful ones are #general, #helpdesk, #social-events, #announcements and #live.

Timezone: To view the schedule and presentation times in your local time zone, please be sure to set the time zone on the schedule page. Please note that the live event starts at 9:00 CEST and ends at 22:00 CEST, however one could watch the pre-recorded talk at any time.

Social Media: If you are using social media, please use the official hashtag #eacl2021.

Technical Issue: If you face any technical issues, please check the help page, contact the virtual chair, and use the #helpdesk channel on the Rocket Chat.

Reminder on the EACL Code of Conduct: The EACL code of conduct has been updated to allow for the virtual platforms. The code of conduct now includes a broadened scope that covers interactions in virtual spaces and online platforms during the course of EACL.

Also, keep in mind that coming up tomorrow will also be workshops and tutorials all day.

Happy EACLing.
On behalf of EACL 2021 General Chair and Program Chairs.