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Deferred Paper Presentation Policy

Introduction

This policy addresses the possibility of authors of papers accepted to SIGGRAPH/SIGGRAPH Asia to defer the presentation of their papers to a later SIGGRAPH/SIGGRAPH Asia conference. 

Authors of papers (conditionally) accepted to conference X may request deferring their in-person presentation to conference X+1 due to systemic hurdles associated with the location of conference X, such as access constraints or substantiated safety concerns. Conferences X and X+1 can be SIGGRAPH and SIGGRAPH Asia in the same year, or SIGGRAPH Asia in one year and SIGGRAPH in a consecutive year. 

Principles

  1. Quick result dissemination is beneficial to both the community at large and the authors. As such papers accepted to conference X should be published in the proceedings/journal issue associated with conference X. 
  2. Virtual or prerecorded presentations negatively impact attendee experience. 
  3. Pre-recorded presentations are viewed as sub-optimal by many presenters as they diminish exposure and visibility. 
  4. To defer a presentation, authors must demonstrate that none of the authors can attend the conference to which the paper was accepted due to systemic hurdles associated with the location of conference X, such as access constraints or substantiated safety concerns (a set of public criteria for deferral will be made available).
  5. Presentation scheduling and fast-forward video reel creation are done several months in advance of the conferences. Thus deferral requests can only be accommodated if submitted early enough to exclude the presentation from both. 
  6. Deferring the presentation should not increase the organizational expenses of either the conference to which the paper is submitted or the conference where it will be presented.  Specifically, there is tangible staff time cost to processing deferrals (adjudication, decoupling publication from presentation, material transfer across conferences) as well as costs to conferences of reviewing/publishing papers  (e.g. running the TPC meetings) that are normally recovered by requiring authors to pay for registration (full contributor). There is also a substantial cost for conferences for hosting presentations and having authors attend the conference (e.g., on-site logistics costs). Transferring funds between SIGGRAPH and SIGGRAPH Asia is challenging due to different budget models. 

Process

  1. The chairs of consecutive conferences X and X+1 will determine the cap N on the number of papers that can be deferred from X to X+1 (the cap is needed to avoid major budget turbulence at both). The cap should be determined in coordination with the technical papers committee chairs for the two conferences. The chairs need to notify CAG/SACAG by a specified date (typically 2-3 months before conference X paper deadline)  In general we expect the cap N to be in the 5%-15% range relative to the number of anticipated accepted papers for that conference.  We expect N to be lower the first year this policy is in place and gradually increase. 
  2. Authors of papers conditionally accepted to conference X may request a deferral to conference X+1.  To do this, they must submit a request with a clearly spelled out justification (this will either be done via google form or email) by a date specified by the X conference committee.
  3. An adjudication committee consisting of the Conference Chairs of the current (X) and upcoming (X+1) conferences or their representatives adjudicates deferrals.
    • The committee determines which deferral requests are justified based on a set of verifiable criteria, including:
      • They are unable to receive visas/gain entry to the country conference X is held in due to their nationality or innate characteristics.
      • They face elevated safety risk in visiting the location conference X is held in due to their nationality or innate characteristics.
      • They are forbidden from visiting the location conference X is held in by their employer, place of study, or other governing authority.
      • Or a similar systemic hurdle that makes them unable to safely visit the location of conference X. 
    • If the number of requests found justified exceeds N, the committee may use a lottery system to determine which papers are deferred to conference X+1.  Papers not selected in the lottery may choose to send a prerecorded presentation in conference X or defer to a subsequent conference (X+2).
    • In no case may a paper be deferred for presentation beyond conference X+2.
  4. If a paper presentation is deferred
    • Authors are required to register to both conference X (full virtual access/deferred virtual access) and the conference at which they will present the work (full registration with contributor discount). If they do not do so the paper can be pulled out of the journal/proceedings. 
    • The paper gets published in the journal issue or proceedings of conference X. 
    • The paper receives no presentation slot (pre-recorded video or other) and no fast forward slot at conference X.
    • The authors are required to present their paper (fast forward and in person presentation) at the conference the paper was deferred to. 

Reminders:

  1. Authors who cannot present their work in person due to systemic hurdles or personal difficulties  and wish to request to submit a pre-recording of their presentation instead of presenting in person should use existing channels to ask for such accommodation (see below for current SIGGRAPH policy, SACAG is working on a policy based on similar principles)
  2. Authors can at any time submit their work to ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG), instead of directly submitting to SIGGRAPH/SIGGRAPH Asia. Accepted TOG papers are typically given a choice of venues to present at. 

Appendix

SIGGRAPH Contributor Attendance Policies in Light of Possible Visa/Immigration/ Funding Issues (2025)

By default contributors must register and be present in person. 

For short-form presentations like Papers or Talks, having a contributor provide a video to be played in the room as part of a larger session with in-person presentations is a feasible, if not ideal, possibility. Presenting remotely is a less viable option (ie- zooming into the conference and presenting from a remote location). Allowing videos is thus an option for short-form presentation content like Talks, Technical Papers and Art Papers, where authors are unable to attend due to verified visa/immigration/funding issues. If an exception is granted contributors are required to provide a video recording to be shown in the room of the in-person conference. To have the contribution included contributors would still be required to register for the conference (full registration). Before the video is provided to Freeman to play in the room, Conf Admin would verify that the contributor was registered. 

Longer-form content like Courses are harder to present as a video in the room. We wouldn’t want in-person attendees to have to watch a 90-minute or 3-hour video if the contributor can’t be there in person. In those cases, the CAG decided to cancel the in-person presentation and only have the video available on the virtual platform. To have the contribution included contributors would still be required to register for the conference.  If the Course presenter is not willing to record the Course, the submission would be pulled from the program.

For installation-based programs, the CAG determined that dropping the content from the program is the better direction to take if an Emerging Tech, Immersive, Labs contributor can’t attend in person. Virtual presentation of their work won’t be an option for those installation-based contributors in most cases. If there isn’t a way for the contributor to staff their installation during Experience Hall hours, the content should be removed from the program. Art Gallery is handled slightly differently from the other Experience Hall programs because artists aren’t required to be there in person.