Deadline: 1 November 2007

The GECCO 2008 Program Committee invites proposals for workshops which will be held in conjunction with the 2008 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO 2008).

Each workshop is assumed to focus on a highly specialized research area or emerging research field. Workshops may also focus on interdisciplinary research between the genetic and evolutionary computation community and other research fields. The workshops provide an excellent opportunity to meet other researchers who share the same interests and to present recent research and exchange ideas in an informal setting. Researchers with a strong background in genetic and evolutionary computation are encouraged to submit proposals.

Workshop organizers are free to chose a format for their workshop. The duration of a workshop can be two hours, half day, or a full day long. Organizers are encouraged to allow for interactive sessions such as debate or discussion sessions, brainstorming or problem solving sessions which outside of a workshop may be difficult to accommodate inside a larger conference program.

Each proposal (plain text file) should be contain the following information:

1.) A description of the workshop topic. Specific issues on which the workshop will focus should be identified. (half page)

2.) A brief discussion of why the topic is of interest to the genetic and evolutionary computation community. What audience will be attending the workshop? If a previous edition of the workshop has already taken place then you should also specify how many attendants the workshop had (half page).

3.) A schedule for the workshop with a duration of either 2 hours, half day or a full day. Time slots where the workshop will encourage interaction between workshop attendants should be marked. Previous workshops usually had a combination of panel discussions, question and answer sessions, hands-on demonstrations, small group problem solving sessions, brainstorming sessions, short paper presentations, poster sessions and debates. (1 page)

4.) Names and complete contact information (Postal address, E-mail, fax and telephone numbers, WWW page) of the workshop organizers. For each organizer a brief biography should also be provided.

5.) A list of potential attendees.

6.) An estimate of the number of accepted papers and the number of submissions. If a previous edition of the workshop has already taken place then you also have to specify how many submissions and how many accepted papers the workshop had.

7.) Full CV (as PDF) of the organizers including previous experience in workshop or conference organization.

Organizers whose workshop proposals are accepted as a GECCO 2008 workshop will be responsible for coordinating the workshop. Workshop Organizers are responsible for sending out call for papers, gathering abstracts and papers to be considered for inclusion in the workshop, if applicable, and providing a list of accepted papers and their authors, if applicable.

Attendance of the workshops will be open to all GECCO attendees. Note that ALL organizers, participants and presenters must register for the GECCO 2008 conference. Organizers of a workshop do NOT qualify for a reduction in the registration or accommodation costs of GECCO 2008 conference.

Accepted workshop papers will be collected by Sheridan/ACM Press, and published in a separate workshop proceedings. Details and additional deadlines will be provided once it has been decided which workshops will be accepted for GECCO 2008. All accepted Workshop Papers must use the ACM template for papers and must follow all ACM formatting rules. Accepted workshop papers that do not use the ACM template and/or do not adhere to ACM formatting rules will not be published.

Workshop proposals can be submitted any time up until November 1, 2007. Proposals should be submitted as plain text files (no HTML) with the exception of the CVs which have to be submitted as PDFs. Workshop organizers will be notified by November 30, whether or not their workshop is accepted as a GECCO 2008 workshop.

Proposals should be sent by E-mail to:

Marc Ebner, Universität Würzburg, Germany