Find answers to common questions that may arise during the effort to prepare and submit a poster to the SC Conference. If your question is not addressed here, please contact us.

 

• Formatting Specifications
• Submissions and Review Process
• Archiving/Publishing
• Reproducibility
• Mounting/Displaying at the Conference

 

Formatting Specifications

 

Q. What are the poster formatting requirements?

A. Each poster is assigned one display board that is four feet high and eight feet wide. The only format requirement is that your poster properly mounts on its display board.

 

Q. Is there a poster template?

A. You should produce a poster that effectively and elegantly portrays its technical content. Poster styles, layouts, fonts, and content are left to the discretion of the author(s).

 

Submissions and Review Process

 

Q. Should I submit the final version of my poster for review? Can I make changes after the review?

A. For the submission, the poster does not need to be finalized; you may update the poster after acceptance, but a representative draft of the poster must be submitted for review.

 

Q. Are posters peer-reviewed?

A. Yes, all regular and ACM Student Research Competition posters are peer-reviewed by a committee of experts.

 

Q. Is my poster blind-reviewed?

A. Poster reviews are single-blind: reviewers will see author names, but authors will not see reviewer names.

 

Q. Should I be the only author of my ACM Student Research Competition poster?

A. An ACM Student Research Competition submission reflects student research: this work may part of a larger project, but the poster should only reflect the contributions of a single graduate student or up to two undergraduate students. For graduate student submissions, the final poster must list one student as the only author; for undergraduate student submissions, the final poster must list up to two undergraduate students as the first (and second) author(s).

Students are allowed to list one or more official graduate or undergraduate advisors on their poster. Each advisor must be clearly marked by putting “(advisor)” after the advisor’s name. For example, if Alex Abel is advised by Bruno Banach and Clara Cantor at Durham University in England, then the poster and extended abstract should be authored by: Alex Abel, Bruno Banach (advisor), and Clara Cantor (advisor), Durham University, England.

 

Q. How are Best Posters selected?

A. The Posters Committee nominates Best Poster candidates during the review process. An ad-hoc committee judges posters and poster presentations during the Posters Reception. After the reception, this committee convenes and selects a single best poster.

A separate award committee handles Best Student Poster in the context of the ACM Student Research Competition.

 

Q. Can I change from one type of poster to another?

A. No. Authors are required to select the type of poster at the time of submission. Authors can select either Regular Poster or ACM Student Research Competition Poster.

 

Q. Can I submit a poster on HPC education?

A. Yes. Posters focusing on HPC education are within scope. This is one of the topics listed in the call for posters. There is no separate education track, so education posters will be evaluated as research posters and should be submitted using the same submission form as technical research posters.

 

Archiving/Publishing

 

Q. Is my poster archived? What is the process for archiving my poster?

A. Yes, all posters are archived and can be accessed after the conference on the SC18 website. Contact us for further details.

 

Reproducibility

 

Q. Is an artifact description appendix required in order to make a submission to SC Posters?

A. The appendix is not required. However, if two posters are otherwise comparable in quality, the existence and quality of appendices can be a factor in ranking one poster over another. Also, in order for your poster to be considered for the Best Poster or Best Student Poster award, you must submit an artifact description appendix.

 

Q. Is the artifact description appendix required in order to be considered a finalist in the ACM Student Research Competition?

A. No. The appendix is not required in order for a poster to be considered a finalist in the ACM Student Research Competition.

 

Q. Do I need to make my software open-source in order to complete the artifact description appendix?

A. No. It is not required that you make any changes to your computing environment in order to complete the appendix. The artifact description appendix is meant to provide information about the computing environment you used to produce your results, reducing barriers for future replication of your results. However, in order to be eligible for the ACM Artifacts Available badge (see below), your software must be downloadable by anyone without restriction.

 

Q. Who will review my appendix?

A. The artifact description appendix will be submitted at the same time as your poster and will be reviewed as part of the standard review process by the same reviewers who handle the rest of your poster.

 

Q. Does the artifact description appendix really impact scientific reproducibility?

A. The artifact description appendix is simply a description of the computing environment used to produce the results in your poster. By itself, this appendix does not directly improve scientific reproducibility. However, a well-written appendix can be used by scientists (including the authors at a later date) to more easily replicate and build upon the results in the poster. Therefore, the artifact description appendix can reduce barriers and costs of replicating published results. It is an important first step toward full scientific reproducibility.

 

Q. The Artifacts Available badge description on the ACM website states: “Personal web pages are not acceptable for this purpose.” Does the SC Conference provide a permanent repository, as I don’t have free access to any repositories beyond my personal website?

A. No. Poster authors should use one of the numerous source hosting platforms that provide free or inexpensive hosting.

 

Q. What kind of recognition do I get for submitting these appendices?

A. ACM Artifacts Available badge: An accepted poster with a fully completed artifact description appendix is eligible for the ACM Artifacts Available Badge if the artifacts listed in the appendix are accessible (downloadable) by anyone without restriction.

ACM Artifacts Evaluated badge: An accepted poster with fully completed artifact description and artifact evaluation appendices is further eligible for the ACM Artifacts Evaluated badge if its artifacts are downloadable and positively evaluated by reviewers.

ACM Replicated Computational Results badge: Accepted posters that contain one or both of these appendices will be considered for inclusion in the Student Cluster Competition (SCC), where student teams will attempt to replicate the poster’s results. Several posters will be selected, with consent from the authors, as part of the standard review process. Posters will be selected based on their suitability for the SCC. Posters selected for the SCC will receive the ACM Replicated Computational Results badge.

 

Mounting/Displaying at the Conference

 

Q. What are the options for mounting my poster to the display board?

A. Pushpins will be provided for affixing all poster materials to display boards. Mounting your poster on foam core is not recommended.

 

Q. When should I plan to mount and unmount my poster?

A. Posters must be mounted between 2pm and 5pm on Monday, and should remain mounted until 5pm on Thursday. This allows conference attendees to browse posters outside of the Posters sessions.

 

Q. Do posters have allocated space, or is space first-come-first-serve?

A. Each poster is given a designated space with a display board. Before the conference, we will send authors a poster directory that maps assigned display boards. The title of each poster will also be printed on its display board in the Posters area to help you locate your space.

 

Q. Can I print my poster on-site at the conference?

A. The conference does not provide any support for printing posters. Typically, authors print their posters ahead of the conference. The convention center’s business office may offer printing services. You can look for details at the convention center’s website.

 

Q. Can I embed content in my poster?

A. Yes, you can embed additional multimedia elements using QR codes.

 

Q. What is considered appropriate embedded content?

A. The goal of embedded multimedia elements should be to enhance the presentation of research in the poster. Such elements may include a video narration of the poster by the author, links to results, movies, graphics, datasets, codes, etc. Note that extended versions of the poster or related publications will not be considered acceptable multimedia elements in this context.

 

Q. What is a QR code?

A. A QR code (abbreviated from Quick Response Code) is a type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional barcode) providing a machine-readable optical label that contains information about the item to which it is attached. QR codes have become a popular way to access content. For example, a smartphone or tablet can be used as a QR code scanner, displaying the code and converting it to some useful form (such as a standard URL for a website, thereby obviating the need for a user to type it into a web browser).

 

Q. How do I generate a QR code?

A. There are many QR code-generating sites and apps, both paid and free, that you can use to generate and print your own QR codes.

 

Q. Where do I place the QR codes on my poster?

A. QR codes should be placed anywhere you want to link to external content on your poster; for example, to point to a video narration of the poster by the author, links to results, movies, graphics, datasets, codes, etc.