Special Session

SIGdial 2015 hosts one “special session” that highlights papers on one specific topic. This year, the special session is MultiLing 2015: Multilingual Summarization of Multiple Documents, Online Fora and Call Centre Conversations. Check the MultiLing website for the Tentative Program.

Open Space Session

Furthermore, SIGdial 2015 sets aside one afternoon for an Open Space workshop (aka “unconference”). The goal of this event is to allow participants to discuss any topic related to discourse and dialogue that they are passionate about, in small groups of people who care about the same topic. Open Space events are self-organized: topics are proposed by participants, sessions are run by participants, and all the conference organizers do is facilitate the process.

The Open Space event will be structured as follows:

The event starts on Thursday at 13:30. After a brief introduction to the Open Space format, anyone can get up and propose a topic for a session that they would like to happen that afternoon. This topic can be anything you like. The only requirement is that you would enjoy talking about this topic.
Multiple sessions can then take place at each time slot (14:30, 15:30, 16:30). We have plenty of rooms available, so feel free to suggest as many sessions as you’d like.
During each time slot, everyone who is interested in a topic is welcome to join the session. The crucial rule we will follow is the “Law of Two Feet”: If you find that you are not learning anything and not contributing anything, you are encouraged to get up and leave the room. In this particular context, this is not a sign of impoliteness; it is a way of maximizing the time you’re spending in a place that you enjoy, and of ensuring that everyone who remains in the session can be certain that everyone who is there is having a good time.
Throughout the afternoon, we will keep a coffee break area open. If there is no session going on that you find interesting, you are welcome to hang out in the coffee corner. If you left your session, you can go there to refresh yourself, and perhaps join some other session. The key goal is that you enjoy yourself and feel that you’re participating in discussions that you care about. Whether these happen in your original session, or some other session that you join, or just while you’re hanging out having coffee – that’s all good.
We reconvene at 17:30 for a closing session, which will be followed by informal announcements.

You can find more information on Open Space in general in its Wikipedia page and in the Open Space user’s guide. A brief video introduction is here.