PARTICIPATE

This year’s theme is Sonification // Spatialization, a blending of ICAD’s expertise in sonification with EMPAC’s expertise in spatialized audio. Spatialization offers sonification additional dimensions for conveying information. EMPAC’s state-of-the-art spatial audio systems include a 512-channel wave field synthesis array with the highest spatial aliasing frequency in the world and multiple permanently installed fourth-order ambisonic arrays. The conference will host a special session on spatialization in sonification as well as demonstrations of some of EMPAC’s systems and capabilities over the course of the week. 

Deadlines

Submission title, authors, and brief abstract are due by March 8 / 22. 
Completed submissions are due by March 31.

Completed submissions:

March 31

Title, authors, and brief abstract:

Full Papers (6 to 8 pages):

March 8

Extended Abstracts (2 to 4 pages):

March 22

Workshops / Tutorials / Demos:

March 22

Performances / Installations:

March 22

Templates

Submission Accessibility

Making conference materials accessible promotes equal access for researchers in our field. We highly encourage researchers to provide accessible submissions and require that camera-ready papers be accessible.

Checking Your PDF’s Accessibility

If you can, use the Adobe Acrobat Pro Accessibility Checker (Full Check) to verify the accessibility of your PDF. See Adobe’s detailed instructions for more information.

If you don’t have access to Adobe Acrobat Pro, there are some free accessibility checkers available online that may be able to help.

Fixing Accessibility Problems

A lot of accessibility problems can be fixed directly in Acrobat’s Accessibility Checker. However, Microsoft Word for PC can generate PDFs with many accessibility features and it’s often easier to correct issues in the Word source file. SIGACCESS provides detailed instructions. Unfortunately, Word for Mac and Latex users will need to manually add accessibility features.

At a minimum, make sure your document is tagged, tab order follows the document structure, figures and inaccessible equations have alternative text, table headers are marked, and the document language is specified. As a note, the built-in auto-tagging feature of Acrobat is not 100% reliable with our templates. Please manually check that any auto-generated tags are logical.

More Information

ACM SIGACCESS has a number of resources for making conference materials and presentations more accessible.

Please contact the accessibility chair at accessibility@icad2024.icad.org if you have any questions.

Full Papers and Extended Abstracts

Topics

Contributions for ICAD 2024 may cover one or more of the following topics, including the theme of Sonification // Spatialization.

Art & Design

  • Sonification-inspired music composition, integrative arts, and performing arts.
  • Culture-specific sonification
  • Speculative, aspirational, and prototype designs
  • Sonic information design: paradigm, theory, and taxonomy
  • Design methodology, design examples, case studies, and real-world applications
  • Users, experiences, and contexts of using sonification
  • Philosophical perspectives on sonification, particularly as it impacts upon everyday life, but also in terms of more foundational ontological, aesthetic, and epistemological issues.

Science & Research

  • Methods, processes, and tools for sonification
  • Participatory approaches
  • Auditory user interfaces
  • Design of sensors, devices, or platforms for auditory displays & sonification
  • Psychology, cognition, perception and psychoacoustics
  • Computational/algorithmic approaches of sonification
  • Accessibility, inclusive design, and assistive technologies
  • Human Factors, Ergonomics and Usability
  • Spatial/3D sound
  • Sonification in Health and Environmental Data (soniHED)
  • Sonification in the Internet of Things, Big Data, & cybersecurity
  • Sonification in automated vehicles
  • Peripheral and Ambient Sonifications
  • Sonic Interaction Design

Categories, Requirements, and Assessment Criteria

Submissions relevant to the Call for Participation are accepted in any of the following categories:

  • Scientific / Empirical study
    Empirical study submissions are intended to present the results of experimental work, whether objective or subjective, numerical or perceptual. Submissions are evaluated with regards to the novelty of the work, scholarly/scientific quality, suitability to the ICAD community domains, and importance of the results. Submissions should include a state-of-the-art review which places the work and its results in the perspective of previous studies. Enough detail should be provided concerning experimental protocols so that the study could be repeated. Modern standards for statistical analysis should be followed (e.g. mean and variances in plots, boxplot or histogram distributions of data, ANOVA with corresponding p and F values provided, adequate number of test subjects).
  • Position paper
    Position Papers are those that address generic topics; those of general concern to the ICAD community or a specific conference theme. Frequently, such papers will challenge their audience to consider new ways of doing things or new conceptual paradigms. It is expected that such papers shall contain argument and counterargument supported by substantial evidence and/or documentation such as literature reviews of related prior research. Examples of Position Papers include those that discuss sonification taxonomies; models of listening; cross-modal comparisons of conceptual or psycho-perpetual issues such as the nature of representation; philosophical and cultural issues such as the role of sonification in data analysis and the public understanding of science.
  • Informative sonification / sound design
    This submission category is intended to provide a framework for the presentation of informative sonification works. Submissions in this category require both a written element and a multimedia element in order for the review committee to judge the work.
  • Artistic sonification / music / composition
    This submission category is intended to provide a framework for the presentation of artistic works involving sonification. Submissions in this category require both a written element and a multimedia element in order for the review committee to judge the work.
  • Project architecture / presentation
    This submission category is for the presentation of a system architecture or a long term project prior to the production of any results. This type of submission is considered useful in providing both an extensive state-of-the-art review as well as a thorough overview of the goals and directions of the project including justifications for any choices made in the conception of the project. This category is well-suited to larger complex projects for which a sufficient presentation is poorly suited to the traditional length of a full-paper introduction.

Peer review and proceedings

All submissions will be fully peer-reviewed. The review process is double-blind. Please submit completely anonymized drafts. Please do not include any identifying information, and refrain from citing authors’ own prior work in anything other than third person.

Acceptance is determined solely on the merits of the submitted work. Accepted submissions will appear in the proceedings and will be archived accordingly.

Length and Format

Page limits include all figures, tables, appendices, and references. The length of the abstract should be 150-200 words. We let authors choose the more appropriate length for their contribution from two formats:

Full papers (6-8 pages)

Full papers represent the core of the ICAD conference and they are judged accordingly. Works in any content category should be self-contained, and withstand objective criticism. At least 2 external reviews, by reviewers outside of the Program Committee, will be carried out.

Extended abstracts (2-4 pages)

Extended Abstracts are used to present “works in progress” for which a discussion with the community is of interest and could be beneficial to the development of the work in question. As Extended Abstracts are not presenting completed work, they are expected to be reviewed principally for thematic pertinence to the ICAD community. At least 2 reviews are necessary and can be carried out by the Program Committee.

Extended Abstracts may be archived in a separate supplement to the conference proceedings and will not be attributed individual DOI references.

Presentation format

In the review process, there is no distinction between whether the presentation mode will be oral or a poster. Attribution of accepted submissions to either oral or poster presentation is determined by the Program Committee although authors may indicate a preferred method of presentation.

You have the possibility to hand in a paper with an accompanying demo that is presented in addition to a talk or poster. In this case, you have to submit the required supplementary data as described in the Call for Demos.

Poster format

Posters are made to A0 size, prepared by the presenter in advance, and brought to the conference.

Guidelines and recommendations for making an effective academic poster are easy to find; for example, here is an online guide from the University of York that we find useful:
https://subjectguides.york.ac.uk/posters

If your contribution is strongly auditory, please consider bringing a laptop and a pair of headphones to make your interactions with conference attendees during the poster presentation session even more rewarding. Tables for the laptops will be available in the poster area as needed.

Audio, Video, and Other Supplementary Materials

We encourage authors to attach additional supplementary materials such as audio/video examples, data sets, or measurements. For review, you can include anonymized links to cloud services or other online sites.

For the camera ready version of an accepted manuscript, any such temporary links must be replaced by persistent links with handle/DOI or equal. We recommend the free service zenodo.org which allows you to host arbitrary data with DOI.

Attendance

Please note that at least one of the paper authors has to register and attend the conference in order for the accepted paper to be presented and published in the proceedings.

Please do not hesitate to reach out to the paper chairs Tim Ziemer and Prithvi Ravi Kantan at papers@icad2024.icad.org if you have any questions.

Workshops and Tutorials

ICAD 2024 welcomes submissions for workshops and tutorials on topics in auditory display. Workshop and tutorial sessions provide in-depth opportunities for conference attendees to explore and learn about different aspects of auditory display with like-minded researchers and practitioners. Session agendas can range from applications and programming methodologies to interdisciplinary research skills, emerging research areas, and challenge problems. Submissions targeting fundamental concepts, advanced work, work in progress, and brainstorming activities are all invited. Proposals for seminar sessions and/or hands-on maker activities are also encouraged. 

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: 

  • Applications: context, usability, accessibility, and evaluation
  • Design: theory, methods, philosophy, and culture
  • Listening: psychology, cognition, perception, and psychoacoustics
  • Rendering: techniques, technologies, and tools
  • Sonification: motivations, frameworks, methodologies, and techniques

Submission Information

Proposals should be one to two pages in length and formatted using the ICAD 2024 LaTeX/Word template for inclusion in the conference proceedings if accepted. Submissions should include the following:

  • Title and abstract
  • Outline of objectives (e.g., tutorial syllabus, organized discussion, presentations, submissions, etc.)
  • Relevance for ICAD attendees
  • Proposed duration (from 1 hour to 4 hours)
  • Technical and space requirements
  • Invited speakers (if any)
  • List of organizers with contact information (address, email, and phone) and a designated contact

Workshops inviting extended abstracts and/or papers can arrange to have their contributions included in the ICAD 2024 Conference Proceedings as a supplementary section of non-referreed submissions. These materials will be accessible online via the DOI number for the 2024 proceedings volume.

Please do not hesitate to reach out to the workshop/tutorial chair at workshops@icad2024.icad.org if you have any questions.

Installations and Demonstrations

We welcome proposals for interactive installations and demonstrations that provide attendees of the ICAD 2024 conference opportunities to engage with original sound-based research, art, and design projects. Installations and demonstrations can be experienced either in-person at the conference venue, remote via digital access, or as a hybrid. We especially encourage submissions that are participatory and that engage with the conference theme, “Sonification // Spatialization”.

Submission Information

Proposals should be one to two pages in length. We encourage you to use the ICAD 2024 LaTeX/Word template, although it is not required. Submissions should include the following:

Context, motivation and intellectual contribution

Discuss the goals and aesthetics of the work and the motivations for the design choices. Place this installation/demonstration within the context of other relevant work. If appropriate, discuss listener reactions, experience, or feedback.

Technical implementation

Describe the technical implementation of the installation/demo. Include necessary details for reviewers to obtain an understanding of the logistical and contextual issues involved in its public presentation. This may include manuscript scores and an evaluation of performance difficulty, spatial layout diagrams, sound levels and ideal ambient noise and isolation conditions, power requirements, etc.

Media content

An example representing the work must be provided. This file should be either an audio or audiovisual file, limited to 2-channel audio. Review of the work will consider the coherence of the sound alongside the written explanation of what was intended. If the submission is accepted, the submitted media file(s) will be included in the proceedings archive.

Important considerations

In the proposal, please consider that it may not be practical for some aural submissions to be performed, played, or rendered at or during the conference due to complexity, length, spatial requirements, or other factors determined by the conference program committee.

To assist with the reviewing and curation process, authors must also make clear what their expectations are in terms of the kind and size of space required for the installation. Installations cannot be accepted until the exact requirements are agreed upon with the installation chair.

The peer review will consider the combination of the written and media submission. Authors should not anonymize the submission for reviews.

Attendance

Attendance at ICAD 2024 is mandatory for accepted installation and demonstration proposals (creators of remote/digital installations may attend remotely). It is up to the artist/installation author to install and set up the piece and to bring the necessary equipment.

If you have any questions about the installations/demos please contact the installations and demos chair at installations@icad2024.icad.org.

Music/Live Performance for Sonification Concert

This submission category is intended to provide a framework for the presentation of artistic works with a strong relation to data. The category is open to instrumental, electronic, live-electronic, and fixed media compositions. We especially encourage submissions that engage with the conference  theme, “Sonification // Spatialization”.

Submission Information

Submissions should include the following:

Concept / program notes (1-2 pages)

The concept submission should be written as program notes for the concert booklet providing information about the motivation, the artistic process, and the aesthetics of the composition. Details of the underlying dataset should be provided together with an outline of the sonification approach/methodology used.

Requirement sheet (1 page)

If the piece involves any live performance elements, these must be indicated in the requirement sheet. Although ICAD organizers will make efforts to support the realization of pieces by providing technical and human resources, authors should make their own arrangements to bring performers and necessary instruments or equipment. Concert pieces should last no longer than 15 minutes. (Note: this is a maximum duration, not an expectation — shorter compositions are welcome.)

Instrumental scores or media content

Submissions should contain a link to scores (pdf, musicXML), audio, and other media files stored in Dropbox, iCloud, Soundcloud, Vimeo, or other online site. Please provide a password if the link is not public. For review purposes media files should be limited to 2-channel audio. 

Concept and Requirement Sheet should be uploaded to the concert category. Authors should not anonymize their submissions. Review of the work will consider the “coherence” of the sound with the practitioner’s explanation of what was intended. Review will consider the combination of the written concept and requirements sheets as well as an instrumental score and/or representative media submission. 

Full Paper Submission (optional, 6-8 pages)

If the topic qualifies for submission as a full paper, authors are encouraged to optionally submit a full paper to the full paper category. The written component of the submission should include a discussion of the goals and aesthetics of the work and the motivations for the design/compositional choices. A review should be made of other relevant works and how the submitted work fits into these references. Details of the underlying dataset should be provided together with an outline of the sonification approach/methodology used. A technical discussion should be provided concerning computational or display issues. User reactions, experience, and feedback should be discussed. Any other forms of representation necessary for reviewers to obtain an understanding of the logistical and contextual issues involved and an evaluation of the perceptual difficulty may be included. Authors should use the ICAD 2024 templates and anonymize the submission, which will be double-blind peer-reviewed.

Attendance

To be accepted for the concert and included in the concert booklet authors agree to register for and attend ICAD 2024. No concert pieces will be played in the author’s absence.

If you have any queries about the concert please contact the Concert Committee at music@icad2024.icad.org