Call for Papers
Joint EDBT/ICDT Ph.D. Workshop 2012
Berlin, Germany, March 30, 2012

in cooperation with

EDBT/ICDT 2012 Joint Conference

15th International Conference on Extending Database Technology (EDBT, March 27-29)
15th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT, March 26-29)
Berlin, Germany, March 26-30, 2012
Promoted by the EDBT Association and the ICDT Council

News and Important Updates

• The Best Submission award 2012 goes to George Konstantinidis and his submission titled "Towards Scalable Data Integration under Constraints". Congratulations, George!
• Sadly Prof. Freytag got ill and will not be able to visit the workshop. Thus, we have a little change in our plans. Instead of Prof. Freytags keynote you may visit the DanaC Workshop Keynote entitled "Cloud Data Analytics: Challenges and Opportunities" given by Roger Barga (Microsoft Research) at 9am at "Kinosaal" (Ground Floor). Updated schedule: PDF
• Submission deadline extended! New deadline: December 7, 2011
• Submission site open (link)
• Travel grants available: Some travel awards funded by the National Science Foundation will be available for students, in particular student authors, to participate in EDBT/ICDT'2012. Details on the application process for students to apply for these funds will be made available on the EDBT/ICDT'2012 website.
• We are currently looking for a sponsor, as we plan to have a prize for the best submission! If you are interested please contact Bernhard Volz

Important Dates

Submission process

Before Submitting please read the following:

• Only submissions including abstract, advisor and paper will be accepted for the review process!
• Please put the name of your advisor directly below the abstract of you paper (i.e. as last line of your abstract), when submitting your abstract to the submission system. Please also put the name of your advisor on the first page of your submission, right below your name following this scheme: "Advisor: *name of your advisor*".
• Submissions may be updated/completed until the deadline for submission (2011-11-20 2011-12-07, 24.00 CET).
• You can submit you paper using the workshops conference management system (http://submissions.confious.com/index.php?conf=152-NSKL-e51492ec)
• Please select the Joint EDB/ICDT PhD Workshop as track when being asked for during the submission process.
• In case you are encountering any problems during the submission process, please do not hesitate to contact the workshop chairs.

Introduction

In 2000 the EDBT conference series hosted its first Ph.D. Workshop. Since then the EDBT Ph.D. Workshop became famous for its high quality program, attracting more and more attention over the years. Having a world class program committee, well known keynote speakers, and publishing the proceedings in the ACM Digital Library and LNCS (by Springer) attracted 86 submissions in 2004 - as we believe the highest number of submissions to a Ph.D. Workshop ever.

Keynote

Johann-Christoph Freytag (Humboldt-University, Berlin, Germany)
"10 Rules for becoming a successful researcher, really?!"

Past keynote speakers

Tore Risch (Uppsala University, Sweden)
"Data challenges that produce database research"

Moira C. Norrie (ETHZ, Switzerland)
"Beyond a PhD: Applying for Research Funding"

Joachim W. Schmidt
"Research by Extension - Some Success Stories"

Sophie Cluet and Serge Abiteboul
"The several lives in academia and after"

Rudolf Bayer (Technical University Munich, Germany)
"Life Cycle of Data and Storage Strategies for File-Services"

Michael Stonebraker (MIT, USA)
"How to develop good research taste"

Stefano Ceri (Polytechnic University of Milan, Italy)
"What students should know about their PhD - and never dared to ask"

The Ph.D. Workshop is intended to bring together Ph.D. students working on topics related to the EDBT and the ICDT conference series. The workshop will offer Ph.D. students the opportunity to present, discuss, and receive feedback on their research in a constructive and international atmosphere. The workshop will be accompanied by prominent professors and researchers in the field of database technology. These accompanying professors will participate actively and contribute to the discussions. The workshop is co-located with and will take place immediately after the EDBT/ICDT 2012 joint conference. The workshop language is English.

Topics of Interest

As for the EDBT/ICDT conferences series, all topics from the field of database technology and theory are of interest for the Ph.D. Workshop including the transfer of database technologies, algorithms and theories to new problem domains (e.g. life sciences). These topics include (but are not limited to):

Submission

Submissions describing doctoral work should be submitted in PDF (preferred) or PostScript format until November, 20th 2011 (24.00 CET - Central European Time). The paper length must not exceed 6 pages (including all parts!). The paper has to be formatted according to the ACM SIG Proceedings Template (please use A4 as paper size NOT letter). The amount of pages is limited to 6 pages for the Ph.D. workshop! Workshop and paper language is English.

In contrast to regular conference papers, submissions should address specifically doctoral work! Therefore, the following elements are recommended:

• A clear formulation of the research question.
• An identification of the significant problems in the field of research.
• An outline of the current knowledge of the problem domain, as well as the state of existing solutions.
• A presentation of any preliminary ideas, the proposed approach and the results achieved so far.
• A sketch of the applied research methodology.
• A description of the Ph.D. project's contribution to the problem solution.
• A discussion of how the suggested solution is different, new, or better as compared to existing approaches to the problem.

Please note, that similar to a Ph.D. thesis, only a single author is allowed per submission to the joint EDBT/ICDT Ph.D. workshop. If several Ph.D. students, usually working together as a team, want to submit, every team member has to submit individually. The Ph.D. advisor is not stated as co-author.

The intention of this workshop is to support and inspire Ph.D. students during their ongoing research efforts. Therefore, it is necessary that authors will have neither achieved their Ph.D. degree nor submitted their thesis before the Ph.D. workshop (March 30, 2012). To enforce this rule we require authors to disclose their expected graduation date and their advisor's name when submitting.

Accepted submissions will be published in the workshop proceedings. Selected and revised papers accepted at the last four Ph.D. workshops were published by the ACM Digital Library. We hope to be able to do so this time again.

Participants should register for the EDBT/ICDT conference itself at student rate.

Program Committee

Contact Addresses

Bernhard Volz, Chair
University of Bayreuth (Germany)
<bernhard.volz.at.uni-bayreuth.de>

Sascha Müller-Feuerstein, Co-Chair
Ansbach University of Applied Sciences (Germany)
<sascha.mueller.at.fh-ansbach.de>

Organizational Details

The Ph.D. workshop is supported by:

• Ansbach University of Applied Sciences, Germany
• University of Bayreuth, Germany

Past EDBT Ph.D. Workshops

• 2011: Joint EDBT/ICDT Ph.D. Workshop in Uppsala, Sweden
• 2010: Joint EDBT/ICDT Ph.D. Workshop in Lausanne, Switzerland
• 2009: Joint EDBT/ICDT Ph.D. Workshop in St.-Petersburg, Russia
• 2008: EDBT Ph.D. Workshop in Nantes, France
• 2006: EDBT Ph.D. Workshop in Munich, Germany
• 2004: Joint ICDE/EDBT Ph.D. Workshop in Boston, USA and Heraklion, Greece
• 2002: EDBT Ph.D. Workshop in Prague, Czech Republic (meanwhile offline)
• 2000: EDBT Ph.D. Workshop in Konstanz, Germany