Inspired by broad student interest and successful events at past IEEE VR conferences, we are holding a Doctoral Consortium (DC) event associated with IEEE Virtual Reality 2015. The purpose of the DC is to provide a unique, interactive, supportive, and prestigious mentoring opportunity for select graduate students in VR at any level, offering them a valuable opportunity to get the independent perspectives of senior individuals with a collective breadth and depth of knowledge, at a time in their studies when it can make a significant difference. 

The DC is a multi-day event, starting with a social dinner a concentrated half-day main event on March 23rd of focused presentations and discussions. There will also be multiple networking events and opportunities throughout the conference week. Accepted students will be expected to give in-depth presentations of their position paper and receive constructive critiques from mentors. Information on format and length of presentations will be provided at a later time to accepted students. Accepted students will be expected to create a poster about their work, to allow attendees to quickly familiarize themselves with each other’s work, and to be shown during the conference poster session. Accepted students will also be expected to finalize the position paper, which should be revised based on feedback from the reviewers, into a two-page extended abstract (references included) to be included in the online IEEE VR indexed proceedings. 

The main event is the half-day private workshop where each student presents (10-15 minutes) [a]their research interests/plans/results to a panel of senior VR researchers and receive specific constructive feedback. 
 

DC Fellowships
Students are encouraged to seek funding from their intitutions to participate in the DC, that way more students may benefit from this exciting event. However, in addition to the honor of being chosen, and the benefits of the mentoring, students who are selected can request complimentary full-conference registration (entire VR2015 conference), Lodging, and Travel funds. Depending on availability and constraints of funding, we will select some students who will receive this financial support based on the submitted application and on financial need. 

Topics
The DC welcomes applicants from a broad range of disciplines including VR, AR, wearable computing, HCI, social informatics, information technology, cognitive science, and related fields.
Submissions/Format
Students interested in participating in the Doctoral Consortium are required submit a 1-2 page position paper, a curriculum vitae, and complete the following Doctoral Consortium Online Application form [http://goo.gl/forms/4lc92obM2e]. Accepted students may be at any stage in their Ph.D. studies, however the submitted DC paper should reflect progress that has been made so far towards a Ph.D. dissertation. The length of the position paper should reflect the progress that has been made. The DC position paper must clearly motivate, discuss, and summarize the proposed PhD research, describe how the research fits into and advances research in VR and/or related fields, and report on the work done so far. The maximum length is two pages and formatting guidelines are described at http://www.cs.sfu.ca/~vis/Track/vr-menu.html. References should be included but are not counted towards the two-page maximum. 
Examples of DC position paper content: Newer Ph.D. students should discuss more about their research interests, research questions, and potential ideas that they have for narrowing down their dissertation topic. More advanced Ph.D. students should discuss their dissertation topic in more depth which may include but not limited to: data collected, results, shortfalls, proposed next steps, etc. Ph.D. students closer to graduation should discuss their dissertation topic in depth and proposed research for their career which may include but not limited to focused research interests, proposed work they would include in a research statement, etc. 
Review
All papers submitted to the DC will undergo a thorough reviewing process with a view to providing constructive feedback. The best submissions will be selected for presentation both at the DC and poster session. The students will have a chance to meet and discuss their work with each other and with a group of senior researchers and practitioners called mentors. Please contact the program chairs if any assistance is needed in preparing an application. 

Submission

• Submission Deadline:
  • January 21, 2015 11:59 PST Wednesday
• Notification of accepetence
  • February 3, 2015 Tuesday
• Camera-Ready:
  • February 18, 2015 11:59 PST Wednesday
• ​Date of the event:
  • ​March 23rd-24th, 2015

All submissions will be acknowledged by email; submissions received after this date will not be considered. Participants will be chosen with an emphasis on diversity of topics, participants, approaches, and institutions.
 

For more information, please contact the Program Chairs:

• Amy Banic, Department of Computer Science, University of Wyoming
• Kiyoshi Kiyokawa, Cybermedia Center, Osaka University
• Betty J. Mohler, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Germany
• Robert van Liere, Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica, Netherlands

Materials and questions should be e-mailed to the DC co-chairs