Author Guidelines
Page updated (Mar. 27, 2024, 17:57 AoE): Abstract submission date updated.
These guidelines cover both the Journal Papers submitted into the Journal Paper Track and Conference Papers submitted into the Conference Paper Track.
For more information on the specific tracks and associated deadlines, please see the call for papers: https://ieeeismar.org/cfp/
- Author Guidelines: Papers submitted to the ISMAR Journal Paper Track
- Author Guidelines: Papers submitted to the ISMAR Conference Paper Track
- General Guidelines for both Journal Papers and Conference Papers
- Writing a Good ISMAR Paper
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- Document History
Author Guidelines: Papers submitted to the ISMAR Journal Paper Track
Papers ready for journal publication and submitted via the journal track only will be directly published in a special issue of IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG). Journal papers are up to 9 pages long (+2 pages of references). For survey papers, authors can request an additional page of references by emailing the program chairs. Paper quality versus length will be assessed according to a contribution-per-page judgment.
- All accepted papers will be orally presented at the ISMAR conference
- All accepted papers will have the opportunity to be presented as a demo/poster
- All accepted papers will be archived in the IEEE Xplore digital library
- Papers will be considered for best papers awards
Before Submission:
Previously published or submitted work. Journal paper submissions must not have been previously published. A manuscript is considered to have been previously published if it has appeared in a peer-reviewed or non-reviewed periodical or proceedings that is permanently available in print or electronic form to non-attendees, regardless of the language of that publication. A paper identical or substantially similar in content (in its entirety or in part) to one submitted to ISMAR should not be simultaneously under consideration for another conference or journal during any part of the ISMAR review process, from the submission deadline until notifications of decisions are emailed to authors. In some situations, a submission may be built upon prior work. To fully explain the relationship between the submitted paper and prior work, authors are asked to provide the related papers as well as an anonymous letter of explanation that highlights the significant changes or advances; these materials will only be seen by the Primary reviewer.
Completeness. The submission must include all information necessary to evaluate the paper and must not ask reviewers to go to web sites or other external information sources, since that might circumvent page and media format limits, and may jeopardize the anonymity of the reviewers. Such external sites will not be accessed during the review process.
Videos. Authors are encouraged to submit videos to aid the Program Committee in reviewing their submissions. Videos must be submitted according to the instructions at the submission website. When submitted as supporting material, videos must be free of any identifying information prior to reviewing as per the double-blind submission policy. Authors submitting a video should also include a text file describing the codec used to encode the video. Videos should be playable with standard software on PCs, Macs, and Linux machines. If the reviewers cannot play the video, it may reduce the chances of the submission being accepted.
Review Duties for Authors. Due to the increasing numbers of submissions to ISMAR, we rely on many reviewers who are willing to provide expert opinions. To expand the reviewer pool and promote community integrity, the senior author/principal investigator will be required to register to review up to three papers through PCS at the time of submission. Additionally, senior authors are encouraged to ask experienced junior authors to register in PCS to review papers and mentor them in the review process.
Ethics and Responsibility. All submissions describing research experiments with human participants must follow the appropriate ethical guidelines as imposed by your affiliation, and authors are required to secure and report their approval by the relevant ethics commission, if applicable. An approval by any ethical review board needs to be indicated via the submission system.
Submission Requirements:
- Papers must be strictly formatted according to IEEE VGTC submission guidelines and submitted electronically as PDF documents.
- ISMAR 2024 journal paper track uses a double-blind reviewing process (see Reviewing Process below). Thus, authors, affiliations, and acknowledgments must not be mentioned in the submitted paper.
- Papers must be written in English.
- Submissions must not be under review by any other conference, journal or other publication venue during ISMAR’s reviewing period, and must not be previously published or accepted for publication elsewhere. This includes publications that have previously appeared in languages other than English. ISMAR actively searches for duplicate submissions by exchanging author and title lists with other conferences and journals. Such submissions will be rejected without review, and the coordinators of the duplicate submission will be notified.
- ISMAR asks the senior author of each paper to volunteer to review three other papers submitted to ISMAR. We leave it to the authors to determine which of them is the senior author. Note that, regardless of the number of submissions on which an author appears, we only ask them to be willing to review three other ISMAR papers. The senior author should register as a reviewer with the ISMAR Precision Conference System (PCS).
- Authors may include supplementary materials with the submission. Supplemental material can include videos, proofs, code, experimental data, appendices, audio files, and other files that supplement the paper. These materials will be included on the conference thumb drive, as well as archived in the IEEE Digital Library. A pointer to the supplemental material should be included in the text of the paper. Supplemental material may not be used to extend page limits; the paper itself must completely describe the research and results.
- Videos should not be longer than five minutes, and the total size of all submitted materials (including the PDF document) must be under 50MB; but 100MB can be granted if requested by authors. Authors submitting a video should also include a text file describing the codec used to encode the video. Videos should be playable with standard software on PCs, Macs, and Linux machines. If the reviewers cannot play the video, it may reduce the chances of the submission being accepted.
- The submission must include all information necessary to evaluate the paper and must not ask reviewers to go to web sites or other external information sources, since that might circumvent page and media format limits, and may jeopardize the anonymity of the reviewers. Such external sites will not be accessed during the review process.
- For accepted papers, at least one author must register for the conference and present the work according to ISMAR registration and publication processing policy published on the website. If no author is fully registered by the camera-ready submission deadline, the accepted work will be withdrawn from publication.
Double-Blind Process and Anonymity Policy:
ISMAR uses a DOUBLE-BLIND review process. This means that both the authors and the reviewers must remain anonymous to each other. Submissions (including citations and optional videos) must not contain information that identifies the authors, their institutions, funding sources, or their places of work. Relevant previous work by the authors must be cited in the third person to preserve anonymity. Authors that have questions/issues around the double-blind submission policy should contact the conference Program Chairs.
Given the reviewers may recognize the submission authors based on information available online, the following are considered violations of the review process if they occur during the review process, i.e., from 30 days before the submission deadline till the submission is officially accepted (final version approved), or the authors are notified that the submission is rejected:
- Listing ISMAR submissions or prepublications (ArXiv, institutional tech reports, …) of these submissions on authors’ individual or institutional webpages.
- Generating any publicity for the submitted works via university or company PR teams or channels.
- Publicizing the submitted work in external talks (unless it is a job talk).
- Generating any publicity for the submitted works via authors’ individual or institutional social media channels or other forms of media. This includes publishing any types of interviews with editors/journalists/writers/interviewers of newspapers, radio, television, or magazines, as well as public relations and media arms of companies, universities, and other research institutions.
- Publicly replying or acknowledging authorship in response to any social media posts by others regarding the submitted work.
- Creating public code or data repositories corresponding to the submission that allow determining the author’s identity (e.g., by listing the author name, or through the username).
Based on the above principles, the following are NOT considered a violation of the review process rules, if the respective conditions are satisfied:
- Archiving the submission (to get a timestamp) as an institutional tech report, or a preprint on ArXiv or a similar service, before or after the submission deadline is allowed. However, the submission webpage or manuscript should not state anywhere that the submission is under review for ISMAR. It should not include the submission ID or use the IEEE VGTC conference format (this refers to conference name, copyright, etc., not to the choice of fonts, margins, or column layout).
- Unlisted YouTube videos linked to an ArXiv submission are allowed. Such videos should not include submission IDs or author information.
- Anonymous code or data repositories, i.e., ones where the author’s identity cannot be determined through username or other means, either stand-alone or linked to an ArXiv submission, are allowed.
- Authors can privately reply to submission-related queries submitted via social media. The replies should not be publicly visible.
If a potential violation of any of these guidelines is discovered, the case will be discussed by the Primary and Secondary review coordinators and Program Chairs, who will determine if a violation has occurred and if, consequently, the paper in question should be desk rejected.
Submission Process:
All materials will be submitted electronically through the Precision Conference website at: https://new.precisionconference.com/ismar24b/
If you already have an account with that system, please use that account to submit your materials. Otherwise, create a new account. As part of the submission, you will be able to choose a major topic and a list of associated keywords.
After Submission:
After your submission, the following process takes place:
- The submission will be reviewed by the program committee and external reviewers, unless it is subject to desk rejection. Each paper should receive at least four reviews.
- The reviews will be released to authors, and authors may optionally submit a rebuttal to address the reviewers’ comments.
- Reviewers will discuss the paper again after the author rebuttal. Based on the reviews, rebuttal and reviewer discussion, the program committee will come to a decision, conditionally accept to TVCG, or reject at this stage. The authors will receive notification of this decision.
- If a paper is conditionally accepted, then the authors must revise and resubmit their paper. The paper’s shepherd oversees this process. After resubmission, the program chairs and shepherd come to a final decision of accept or reject.
- After acceptance, authors prepare and submit a final, camera-ready version of their paper.
- Finally, one of the authors presents the paper at ISMAR!
Review Process:
The following items outline the review process for contributions submitted to the journal paper track. ISMAR policies and formatting requirements. In case of violation of these policies or formatting requirements, Program Chairs will decide on desk rejection of the paper.
- Each submission will be assigned to one Primary review coordinator (referred to as the Primary), who manages the review process and communicates with the authors.
- Employing a Double-Blind Process, the Primary and Secondary will review the paper initially and may suggest to desk-reject a paper that is exceptionally uncompetitive or in violation of ISMAR policies, the ISMAR Program
- ISMAR employs a two-tier reviewing process. Each submission will be reviewed by one member of the Program Committee (the Secondary, not the Primary) and two external reviewers. Each reviewer will be asked to submit a written assessment along with an initial recommendation to accept or reject the paper.
- The initial reviews will be released to the paper authors. After receiving the reviews, authors may submit a rebuttal to address the reviewers’ comments. The author rebuttal is meant to provide an opportunity to rebut factual errors or to supply additional information requested by the reviewers. It is not intended to add new contributions (theorems, algorithms, experiments) that were not included in the original submission.
- The Primary will check the rebuttal and review quality and initiate the discussion with the Secondary and the external reviewers. They will read the rebuttal, the reviews, and anonymously discuss the paper.
- Initial recommendation: The Primary will ask the reviewers to agree on one recommendation (accept, conditional accept as a paper, or reject). If there is no consensual decision between Primary, Secondary, and external reviewers, the Primary and Secondary will discuss a recommendation and if inconclusive, an additional review can be requested from another ISMAR Program Committee member.
- After the discussion phase, the Primary will write a meta-review that states the initial recommendation. The final decision of the ISMAR Program Committee will rely on this meta-review.
- The ISMAR Program Chairs will decide, based on the recommendation, if a paper is accepted, conditionally accepted, or rejected.
- In the case the paper is accepted or conditionally accepted, a shepherd will be assigned to the paper (usually the Primary) who assists the authors in preparing the final paper and who verifies that the authors comply with all conditions (if applicable).
Preparation of Camera-Ready Version:
Upload the final version to the same site where the original paper was submitted: https://new.precisionconference.com/ismar24b/ and enforce all other instructions coming from the publications chairs.
Use the “Final Submission Form” to provide your final version and any supplementary material, such as video files.
In the preparation of the final submission, follow the camera-ready instructions.
Ensure that you are using the correct formatting and submit the IEEE copyright form. Otherwise, your contribution might not be included in the proceedings.
Presentation:
All accepted papers will be presented orally at the conference. More details will be provided at the time of acceptance.
Best Paper Awards:
The program committee creates a list of the best accepted papers. There is no set size limit for this list. The program chairs then forward this list to the Best Paper Awards Committee, which is organized separately from the program committee.
Also see the Reviewing Guidelines for more information.
Papers Recommended for the Conference Paper Track:
Papers submitted to the journal track which at the initial decision stage are being recommended for rejection but are deemed to be of significant quality to warrant potential presentation at the conference, may be invited to re-submit to the conference paper track. The review process for this will follow the key stages of the conference papers however where possible, reviewer continuity from the journal track will be maintained.
Author Guidelines: Papers submitted to the ISMAR Conference Paper Track
Papers ready for conference publication and submitted via the conference track (either directly or invited submissions) will be directly published in the 2024 ISMAR proceedings.
We welcome conference paper submissions of 4-8 pages excluding references. Paper quality versus length will be assessed according to a contribution-per-page judgment. Note that references should not exceed 2 pages in length and that the minimum length is 4 full pages of text. All submissions will be accepted or rejected as conference papers or poster papers*.
- All accepted papers will be orally presented at the ISMAR conference.
- All accepted papers will have the opportunity to be presented as a demo/poster.
- All accepted papers will be archived in the IEEE Xplore digital library.
*Note that the poster submission track will run in parallel to the paper submission track and there will not be a poster submission deadline after the conference paper notifications. The conference paper track cooperates with the poster track and may accept conference paper submissions as posters based on their level of contribution; see details below.
Conference papers are also eligible for one of several best paper awards. ISMAR has an established reputation for awarding prizes to papers with future high impact (http://arnetminer.org/bestpaper).
Before Submission:
Previously published or submitted work. Conference paper submissions must not have been published previously. A manuscript is considered to have been previously published if it has appeared in a peer-reviewed or non-reviewed periodical or proceedings that is permanently available in print or electronic form to non-attendees, regardless of the language of that publication. A paper identical or substantially similar in content (in its entirety or in part) to one submitted to ISMAR should not be simultaneously under consideration for another conference or journal during any part of the ISMAR review process, from the submission deadline until notifications of decisions are emailed to authors. In some situations, a submission may be built upon prior work. To fully explain the relationship between the submitted paper and prior work, authors are asked to provide the related papers as well as an anonymous letter of explanation that highlights the significant changes or advances; these materials will only be seen by the Primary reviewer.
Completeness. The submission must include all information necessary to evaluate the paper and must not ask reviewers to go to web sites or other external information sources, since that might circumvent page and media format limits, and may jeopardize the anonymity of the reviewers. Such external sites will not be accessed during the review process.
Videos. Authors are encouraged to submit videos to aid the Program Committee in reviewing their submissions. Videos must be submitted according to the instructions at the submission website. When submitted as supporting material, videos must be free of any identifying information prior to reviewing as per the double-blind submission policy. Authors submitting a video should also include a text file describing the codec used to encode the video. Videos should be playable with standard software on PCs, Macs, and Linux machines. If the reviewers cannot play the video, it may reduce the chances of the submission being accepted.
Review Duties for Authors. Due to the increasing numbers of submissions to ISMAR, we rely on many reviewers who are willing to provide expert opinions. To expand the reviewer pool and promote community integrity, the senior author/principal investigator will be required to register to review up to three papers through PCS at the time of submission. Additionally, senior authors are encouraged to ask experienced junior authors to register in PCS to review papers and mentor them in the review process.
Ethics and Responsibility. All submissions describing research experiments with human participants must follow the appropriate ethical guidelines as imposed by your affiliation, and authors are required to secure and report their approval by the relevant ethics commission, if applicable. An approval by any ethical review board needs to be indicated via the submission system.
Double-Blind Process and Anonymity Policy:
ISMAR uses a DOUBLE-BLIND review process. This means that both the authors and the reviewers must remain anonymous to each other. Submissions (including citations and optional videos) must not contain information that identifies the authors, their institutions, funding sources, or their places of work. Relevant previous work by the authors must be cited in the third person to preserve anonymity. Authors that have questions/issues around the double-blind submission policy should contact the conference Program Chairs.
Given the reviewers may recognize the submission authors based on information available online, the following are considered violations of the review process if they occur during the review process, i.e., from 30 days before the submission deadline till the submission is officially accepted (final version approved), or the authors are notified that the submission is rejected:
- Listing ISMAR submissions or prepublications (ArXiv, institutional tech reports, …) of these submissions on authors’ individual or institutional webpages.
- Generating any publicity for the submitted works via university or company PR teams or channels.
- Publicizing the submitted work in external talks (unless it is a job talk).
- Generating any publicity for the submitted works via authors’ individual or institutional social media channels or other forms of media. This includes publishing any type of interviews with editors/journalists/writers/interviewers of newspapers, radio, television, or magazines, as well as public relations and media arms of companies, universities, and other research institutions.
- Publicly replying or acknowledging authorship in response to any social media posts by others regarding the submitted work.
- Creating public code or data repositories corresponding to the submission that allows determining the author’s identity (e.g., by listing the author name, or through the username).
Based on the above principles, the following are NOT considered a violation of the review process rules, if the respective conditions are satisfied:
- Archiving the submission (to get a timestamp) as an institutional tech report, or a preprint on ArXiv or a similar service, before or after the submission deadline is allowed. However, the submission webpage or manuscript should not state anywhere that the submission is under review for ISMAR. It should not include the submission ID or use the IEEE VGTC conference format (this refers to conference name, copyright, etc., not to the choice of fonts, margins, or column layout).
- Unlisted YouTube videos linked to an ArXiv submission are allowed. Such videos should not include submission IDs or author information.
- Anonymous code or data repositories, i.e., ones where the author’s identity cannot be determined through username or other means, either stand-alone or linked to an ArXiv submission, are allowed.
- Authors can privately reply to submission-related queries submitted via social media. The replies should not be publicly visible.
If a potential violation of any of these guidelines is discovered, the case will be discussed by the Primary and Secondary review coordinators and Program Chairs, who will determine if a violation has occurred and if, consequently, the paper in question should be desk rejected.
All materials will be submitted electronically through the Precision Conference website. https://new.precisionconference.com/ismar24b/
If you already have an account with that system, please use that account to submit your materials. Otherwise, create a new account.
Note that a paper abstract must be uploaded prior to the actual paper submission deadline and by the Abstract deadline of May 3rd, 2024 (23:59 AoE). This is alongside supporting requests for reviewer continuity if your paper has previously been submitted to the journal track. For more information, please see the submission guidelines.
After Submission:
After your submission, the ISMAR Program Committee will process the new submission and resubmitted papers from the journal track. Also, the ISMAR conference paper track works closely with the poster track and may decide to accept papers submitted to the conference track as posters depending on the merit of their contribution. Thus, the following sections explain these three tracks independently.
Review Process:
The following items outline the review process for contributions submitted to the conference paper track:
- Initially, the ISMAR Program Chairs will scan each submission to verify compliance with ISMAR policies and formatting requirements. In case of violation of these policies or formatting requirements, Program Chairs will decide on desk rejection of the paper.
- Each submission will be assigned to one Primary review coordinator (referred to as the Primary), who manages the review process and communicates with the authors.
- Employing a Double-Blind Process, the Primary and Secondary will review the paper initially and may suggest to desk-reject a paper that is exceptionally uncompetitive or in violation of ISMAR policies; the ISMAR Program Chairs will make the final decision on desk rejection of the paper.
- ISMAR employs a two-tier reviewing process. Each submission will be reviewed by one member of the Program Committee (the Secondary, not the Primary) and two external reviewers. Each reviewer will be asked to submit a written assessment along with an initial recommendation to accept or reject the paper.
- The initial reviews will be released to the paper authors. After receiving the reviews, authors may submit a rebuttal to address the reviewers’ comments. The author rebuttal is meant to provide an opportunity to rebut factual errors or to supply additional information requested by the reviewers. It is not intended to add new contributions (theorems, algorithms, experiments) that were not included in the original submission.
- The Primary will check the rebuttal and review quality and initiate the discussion with the Secondary and the external reviewers. They will read the rebuttal, the reviews, and anonymously discuss the paper.
- Initial recommendation: The Primary will ask the reviewers to agree on one recommendation (accept, conditional accept as a paper, or reject). If there is no consensual decision between Primary, Secondary, and external reviewers, the Primary and Secondary will discuss a recommendation and if inconclusive, an additional review can be requested from another ISMAR Program Committee member.
- After the discussion phase, the Primary will write a meta-review that states the initial recommendation. The final decision of the ISMAR Program Committee will rely on this meta-review.
- The ISMAR Program Chairs will decide, based on the recommendation, if a paper is accepted, conditionally accepted, or rejected.
- In the case the paper is accepted or conditionally accepted, a shepherd will be assigned to the paper (usually the Primary) who assists the authors in preparing the final paper and who verifies that the authors comply with all conditions (if applicable).
- In case the paper is rejected, continue to read the poster review details.
Handling of rejected papers and recommendations as posters:
In the case a conference paper submission is rejected, the ISMAR Program Chairs will coordinate with the poster track and its committee to conditionally accept a paper as a poster. The submissions will be handled as follows:
- The Primary will be asked to recommend the paper for the poster track or to reject it (from both conference paper and poster tracks). The Program Chairs will consider this recommendation and make the final decision.
- If the paper has a recommendation for the poster track, the Poster Chairs and committee will receive all the reviews and the meta-review generated during the conference paper review process. The Poster Chairs may also decide to discuss questions with the Primary.
- Based on this information, the poster track committee will either conditionally accept the paper as a poster or reject the contribution.
- In the case the contribution is accepted as a poster, a shepherd will be assigned to the paper, who assists the authors in preparing a poster contribution.
Invited Conference Papers from the Journal Track:
Papers submitted to the journal track which at the initial decision stage are being recommended for rejection but are deemed to be of significant quality to warrant potential presentation at the conference, may be invited to re-submit to the conference paper track. The review process for this will follow the key stages of the conference papers however where possible, reviewer continuity from the journal track will be maintained.
Best Paper Awards:
The program committee creates a list of the best accepted papers. There is no set size limit for this list. The program chairs then forward this list to the Best Paper Awards Committee, which is organized separately from the program committee.
Also see the Reviewing Guidelines for more information.
General Guidelines for both Journal Papers and Conference Papers
Plagiarism Check:
Please note that all submissions will be checked for plagiarism using IEEE Crosscheck. Detection of significant plagiarism will lead to rejection. For more information about definitions of plagiarism and IEEE policies in this area, please see IEEE Publication Services and Products Board Operations Manual.
Camera-ready and Preparing for the Conference:
Camera-ready paper. Upload the final version to: https://new.precisionconference.com/ismar24b/
Use the “Final Submission Form” to provide your final version and any supplementary material, such as video files. In the preparation of the final submission, follow the camera-ready instructions. Ensure that you are using the correct formatting and submit the IEEE copyright form. Otherwise, your contribution might not be included in the proceedings.
Registration. At least one author must register for the conference and present the work. If no author is fully registered by the camera-ready submission deadline, the accepted work will be withdrawn from publication.
Conference presentation. All accepted papers must be orally presented at the conference.
Best paper awards: The Program Chairs Will create a list of the best paper candidates based on their review score and the recommendation of the Primary reviewer. There is no set size limit for this list; all submitted papers are potentially qualified to compete for a Best Paper Award. The Program Chairs then forward this list to an awards committee, which assesses papers (along with accompanying meta-review, external reviews and discussion) separately from the Program Committee.
Writing a Good ISMAR Paper
A good ISMAR submission will result in both a respectable document for the proceedings and a good conference talk. As an author, you should ask yourself the following questions while writing your paper. Submissions that do not provide good answers to these questions are unlikely to be accepted.
What problem are you addressing?
The most common motivation for publishing a paper is to present a solution to a problem. When doing so, try to state all your constraints and assumptions. This is an area where it can be invaluable to have someone who is not intimately familiar with your work read the paper. Include a crisp description of the problem in the abstract and try to suggest it in the title. Note that the Program Chairs depend almost completely on the abstract and title when they determine which Program Committee member to assign to the paper.
ISMAR papers often focus on a certain aspect of Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, or Virtual Reality systems. The following list includes some example topics but does not represent an exhaustive list of all topics. We welcome any new idea beyond the usual range of areas.
- Interaction Methods: Does the paper propose a novel interaction method? Does it present different use cases and applications for it? Can it demonstrate that the method performs better than other known ones?
- User Interface & Human Factors: Does the paper describe how Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, or Virtual Reality is improving a user interface design, human task performance or perception?
- Tracking and Pose Estimation: Does the paper describe a novel method that is more robust in difficult conditions (lighting, outdoor, fast motion)? Is it a new, clever combination of different sensors? Does it provide more information for use in interaction and rendering?
- Rendering and Visualization: Does the paper describe a novel, improved method for realistic integration of virtual graphics into a mixed scene? Is it faster or more accurate than known methods? Does it present a novel way of presenting information about the real world?
- Displays and Input Devices: Does the paper describe a novel display (e.g., visual, or aural)? Does it describe a novel input device that provides different input modalities, is easier to use and deploy or more precise?
- Applications: Is the paper proposing a new application of Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, or Virtual Reality in a specific domain? Are you providing a new understanding of usage patterns and social behavior of a deployed application? Mind that an application has a use case in a target domain; it is not just an implementation of software.
What were the previous approaches?
What are the relevant published works in your problem area? What deficiencies in their approaches are you trying to overcome? How does the new approach differ from previously published results? Do not expect the reviewers to know this information without telling them in the paper, as they are unlikely to remember the precise details of all the relevant literature. Make specific comparisons between your work and that described in the references; do not just compile a list of vaguely related papers. What are the limitations of your work and is the future work still to be addressed?
How well did you address your stated problem?
Based on your problem statement, what did you accomplish? You are responsible for arguing that the problem is sufficiently addressed. Include pictures, statistics, or whatever is required to make your case. If you find this part of the paper difficult to write, perhaps the work is not yet finished, and the paper should be deferred until next year. (And, perhaps, submitted as a poster this year).
The following describes some typical evaluation methods for different kinds of papers. This list is not exhaustive but provides some hints as to what can help to present your contribution.
- Interaction Methods: Did you measure how usable the method or system is? What is the performance of users (e.g. completion time, error rate, learning curve) compared to a previous interface developed for a similar task?
- User Interface & Human Factors: Is the improvement or effect described well supported through evaluations? Was the experimental design appropriate to your solution? Were sample size, statistical evaluation, and presentation and conclusions appropriate? Were sample sizes diverse and representative of all intended users?
- Tracking and Pose Estimation: What opportunity does the method contribute to the Augmented/Mixed/Virtual Reality domain? How does it compare to known state-of-the-art systems? Can your system maintain competitive robustness/reliability? Can it deal with difficult input including light conditions, fast motion, occlusions? How fast is it and on which hardware? It is also a good idea to use a standard data set to make the results comparable to other publications or make your test data sets available for other authors.
- Rendering and Visualization: Is the output quality of your system superior to previous methods? Is it faster or capable of operating at real-time rates? What hardware and sensors does it require? For visualization, what use cases does it cover? What amount or complexity of data can it deal with?
- Displays and Input Devices: What are the performance specifications of the display? For example, for a visual display does it work indoor/outdoor, strong light conditions, what is the field of view, and is it multi-user capable? What is the hardware/software required to recreate it? What are the specifications of the input device? Can it be used in a mobile setting?
- Applications: How did you design the application, what constraints from the application domain are essential? Was the system tested by end users that are representative of the intended population in the application domain? Did it affect a relevant factor, i.e. performance, safety? Did it create opportunities to improve the work methods?
What does this work contribute to the field?
What are your new ideas or results? If you do not have at least one new idea, you do not have a publishable paper. Can your results be applied anywhere outside of your project? If not, the paper is probably too special purpose for ISMAR. On the other hand, beware of trying to write a paper with too large a scope.
The question that generates a large amount of discussion within the Program Committee is to determine whether a paper is complete. If the paper presents an algorithm or technique, an experienced practitioner in the field should be able to implement it using the paper and its references. If the paper claims to present a faster or more efficient way of implementing an established technique, it must contain enough detail to replicate the experiment on competing implementations. When you quote numbers, be sure that they are not misleading state clearly whether they were measured, simulated, or derived, and how you did the measurements, simulations, or derivations. For example, CPU time measurements are meaningless unless the reader is told the machine and configuration on which they were obtained.
Does the paper present too much information?
Many large, poorly written papers contain a good paper trying to get out. It is the author’s responsibility, not the reviewer’s, to discover this paper and turn it into the submission. If you have addressed a single, practical problem, do not try to generalize it for the purposes of publication. If you have a formal theory or elaborate architecture, do not include all the vagaries of the implementation unless they are critical to the utility of the theory. Do not include the contents of your user’s manual; instead, describe the model or functionality achieved. You should assume your audience has a working knowledge of user-interface development and access to the major journals in computer science, electrical engineering, and psychology. A short conference paper can only present a few concise ideas well.
Can this paper be presented well?
While ISMAR papers are judged primarily as technical papers, some consideration is given to how suitable the topic is for a conference presentation. Think of how you would present your ideas, and how big the audience is likely to be. Papers that have a small number of concisely stated new ideas and that are visually interesting tend to appeal to a large audience and be easy to present. As recent conferences clearly show, these criteria do not eliminate papers that have taxonomies or strong theoretical content, or appeal to a specialized audience, if they contain significant new ideas.
Should a video also be included?
A video can be very helpful for communicating technical results, especially when the paper discusses an interaction technique. However, do not try to save space in the paper by putting essential information into the video. The paper must stand on its own.
All information, including information in figures, charts, tables, etc., should be available to readers who consume it in different ways. For example: some of us cannot see color, some read papers as a monochrome printout, some use low-contrast displays, and some listen to the content instead of seeing it. CHI 2021 has useful information on making a paper accessible.
Is the paper using gender neutral language?
Use “he” when referring to men or boys. Use “she” when referring to women or girls. Avoid phrases such as “he/she” or “he or she” when a gender is not clearly known. Instead use “they” as a gender-neutral pronoun. When referencing a profession, use the gender-neutral form. For example, use fire fighter, police officer, or worker instead of fireman, policeman, or workman. See this excerpt of the Chicago Style for more information about gender-neutral pronouns.
You can also find the full list of papers previously published at ISMAR in the IEEE Digital Library (IEEE Xplore). Furthermore, the ismar.net website lists past best paper awards, which are good examples of great ISMAR papers. Note that the ISMAR proceedings from previous years include TVCG journal publications and conference proceedings. Since the separation of the conference track and journal track, we advise focusing on previous conference track proceedings when searching for example ISMAR conference papers.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):
- Is ISMAR a visual tracking-only conference?
No. ISMAR has and continues to help bring to the world key works on real time 3D tracking, scene mapping, pose estimation and registration. However, ISMAR welcomes submissions of all types related to Augmented, Mixed, and Virtual Reality. At ISMAR we are highlighting the interest in work that goes beyond tracking. Issues on usefulness of AR, learning, training, therapy, rehabilitation, virtual analytics, entertainment, context, behavior, and object recognition together with other wearable sensors using computer vision, sensor networks and new types of onboard and external sensing technologies become very relevant to augment our world. Note that this is list is not exclusive by any means, so if you have questions, please contact the Program Chairs via email: program_chairs@ieeeismar.org - Does the IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR) only accept submissions focusing on Mixed and Augmented Reality?
No. The ISMAR conference accepts submissions from all areas of Extended Reality, including Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, and others. See a list with example topics in the Call for Papers.
- Is it acceptable to publish my paper on ArXiv?
Please read the full “Double-Blind Process and Anonymity Policy” above. In a nutshell: Yes, you are allowed to archive your submission (as a way to get a timestamp) on ArXiv or a similar service. However, the manuscript should not state anywhere that the submission is under review for ISMAR. You should further not list this prepublication on your individual or institutional webpages or generate any publicity for it through other forms of media as this would constitute a violation of the double-blind review process. - Can I submit both a poster and a conference paper to ISMAR on the same work?
Note that the poster and conference paper review processes run in parallel. Thus, the deadlines do not afford authors the option to re-submit a rejected conference submission to the poster track. A conference paper submission can be redirected and conditionally accepted as a poster depending on the scientific/engineering level of the contribution. Thus, double-submission to both tracks (conference paper and poster track) is unnecessary and may pose a violation of the ISMAR double-submission policy.
Do not hesitate to contact us for any further information.
Document History:
This document was updated and extended by the ISMAR 2024 Program Chairs: Ulrich Eck, Misha Sra, Jeanine Stefanucci, Maki Sugimoto, Markus Tatzgern, Ian Williams. It was adopted following the work of the 2023 Conference Paper Chairs: Jens Grubert, Andrew Cunningham, Evan Y. Peng, Gerd Bruder, Anne-Hélène Olivier, and Ian Williams. Which itself evolved from the 2021 Journal Paper Chairs: Daisuke Iwai, Denis Kalkofen, Guillaume Moreau, and Tabitha Peck as well as the 2021 Conference Paper Chairs: Maud Marchal, Anne-Hélène Olivier, Rafael Radkowski, Jonathan Ventura, and Lily Wang. The document was obtained from Shimin Hu and Stefanie Zollmann, Wolfgang Broll, Holger Regenbrecht, and J. Edward Swan II, who inherited it from Wolfgang Broll, Hideo Saito, and J. Edward Swan II, based on Walterio Mayol, Christian Sandor, and Rob Lindeman, based on significant materials created by Ron Azuma on how to write a successful ISMAR paper and how to be a successful Program Chair, also based on the 2011 UIST Author Guidelines edited by Maneesh Agrawala and Scott Klemmer (using material provided by Saul Greenberg), who inherited it from François Guimbretière, who inherited it from Michel Beaudouin Lafon, who inherited it from Ravin Balakrishnan and Chia Shen, who inherited it from Ken Hinckley and Pierre Wellner, who inherited it from Dan Olsen, who inherited it from Steve Feiner, who inherited it from Joe Konstan, who inherited it from Michel Beaudouin Lafon, who inherited it from Ari Rapkin, who inherited it from Beth Mynatt, who inherited it from George Robertson, who inherited it from Marc H. Brown, who inherited it from George Robertson, who got lots of help on it from Steve Feiner, Brad Myers, Jock Mackinlay, Mark Green, Randy Pausch, Pierre Wellner, and Beth Mynatt. We also acknowledge the anonymity guidelines presented at SIGGRAPH and have shaped our policies to include these for 2024 (https://s2024.siggraph.org/anonymity-policy/).