*** Contents ***

(1) Aims and Scope
(2) Topics
(3) Symposium Format
(4) Submission Types and Criteria
(5) General Expectations (Ethics Guidelines)
(6) Review Process
(7) Important Dates
(8) Supplemental Material and Formatting Guidelines
(9) Publications
(10) Submission
(11) Paper and Abstract Awards
(12) Organizing Committee


*** 1. Aims and Scope ***

The rapidly expanding field of biology creates enormous challenges for computational visualization techniques that enable researchers to gain insight from their large and highly complex data sets.

The goal of the first IEEE Symposium on Biological Data Visualization (BioVis 2011) is to create the premier international and interdisciplinary event for all aspects of visualization in biology. This symposium will bring together researchers from the visualization, bioinformatics, and biology communities with the purpose of educating, inspiring, and engaging visualization researchers in biological data visualization, as well as bioinformatics and biology researchers in state-of-the-art visualization research. As the first annual BioVis Symposium, this event seeks to emphasize inclusion and interaction between these communities as its primary impact.

The symposium will serve as a platform for researchers from these fields to increase the impact of visualization approaches in biology. The breadth and diversity of biological research areas will enable researchers from all parts of the visualization community to contribute to this effort, and the symposium will provide an excellent opportunity to initiate interdisciplinary collaborations. Finally, it will provide an outlet and training ground for young and freshly minted visualization researchers with a keen interest in problems of biology and provide a venue for researchers in biology and bioinformatics to share pressing visualization challenges and potential solutions in their fields.


*** 2. Topics ***

We are looking for contributions on all aspects of visualization in biology. Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:

- Genome and sequence data, including genomic variation data
- Multivariate omics data (transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, etc.)
- Phylogenetic data
- Ecological and taxonomic data
- Biological networks and pathways
- Biological ontologies
- Molecular structures (protein structures, RNA structures, etc.)
- Subcellular, cellular, tissue- and organ-level structures
- Visualization of image data, such as microscopic or radiological data
- Integration of image and omics data for systems biology
- Modeling, simulation and visualization of biological systems
- Visualization in neurobiology and developmental biology
- Systems and software frameworks for biological visualization
- Integration of visualization in biological workflows or collaborative processes
- Visualization and visual analytics of integrated data sets
- Evaluation of biological visualization systems including interfaces, usability, laboratory experiments, and field studies
- Creation and visualization of biological atlases and metadata
- Processes for interdisciplinary collaboration between biology and visualization


*** 3. Symposium Format ***

The symposium will be a two-day single-track event with keynote and invited talks, papers sessions, panels, and abstracts presented through posters, demos, or videos. Tutorial sessions on visualization in bioinformatics/biology will be organized.


*** 4. Submission Types and Criteria ***

Given the goal of bringing together members of both the biology and visualization communities for discussion, the symposium solicitation is purposefully broad and open-minded to diverse types and lengths of submissions. Authors are encouraged to identify the intent of their submission. Each paper will be reviewed by the Program Committee and given appropriate time and venue at the symposium in accordance with its stated intent and length. Types of submissions include, but are not limited to:

- Detailed reports of original research
- Experience reports, highlighting lessons learned from the deployment of relevant previously published work
- Descriptions of work in progress and preliminary results
- Demonstrations of new or recent systems, both open source and proprietary
- Descriptions of analysis challenges where current tools fall short for specific datasets and goals, to inform the visualization community in producing better future solutions

Authors should indicate the intended publication type of their submissions, as one of two categories:

*Papers*: Up to 8 page papers describing high-quality research that is not necessarily fully completed but offers new insight. (Additional figures, etc. can be included as supplemental materials.) Selected papers will have an opportunity for an extended and refined invited follow-up submission (see Section 9). Authors will have an oral presentation in a session with an emphasis on questions and discussion with the audience.

*Abstracts*: Up to 2 page abstracts that either describe early-stage research or highlight previously published work that has been extended since the original publication. Accepted abstracts will be presented as posters, interactive demos or videos at the symposium and all presenters will have the opportunity to give a brief overview of their work in a plenary "fast-forward session". Additionally, presenters of selected abstracts will be given the opportunity for longer oral presentation at the symposium.


*** 5. General Expectations (Ethics Guidelines) ***

At least one author of an accepted submission must attend the symposium to present the work. When submitting your paper you will be asked to provide a complete list of authors even when submitting an anonymized version of the manuscript. This is required to avoid potential conflicts of interest when assigning reviewers. In the event that the authorship changes after submission, one of the initially specified authors must attend the symposium.

Submissions will be treated as confidential communications during the review process, so submission does not constitute public disclosure of any ideas therein. Submissions should contain no information or materials that will be proprietary or confidential at the time of publication (at the symposium), and should cite no publications that are proprietary or confidential at the time of publication. Our symposium will adhere to the VGTC ethics guidelines for reviewers that can be found at http://vgtc.org/wpmu/techcom/conferences/ethics-guidelines/.


*** 6. Review Process ***

The Program Committee will involve reviewers from both the visualization and bioinformatics communities. Papers will be reviewed for novelty and contribution. Abstracts will be reviewed for quality and value to the symposium audience as well as format.


*** 7. Important Dates ***

Paper submission*: Saturday, April 30, 2011
Notification of acceptance of papers: Thursday, June 30, 2011

Abstract submission: Friday, July 8, 2011
Notification of acceptance of abstracts: August 15, 2011

Camera ready copy: Wednesday, August 31, 2011

All deadlines are at 5:00 pm Pacific Time (PDT).


*** 8. Supplemental Material and Formatting Guidelines ***

Papers can include full-color figures throughout. We encourage the use of digital video to enhance the submission, particularly if part or all of the work addresses interactive techniques. Submission of working code and other supplemental material in order to increase the reproducibility of the work is also encouraged.

The review process will be optionally double-blind for those who want to submit their work anonymously. When submitting for double-blind reviewing you are asked NOT to include any identifying information in the submission. Alternatively, the review process will be single-blind, i.e., the reviewers know the identity of the authors, but the authors do not know the identity of the reviewers.

Links to detailed guidelines for preparing a proper submission and supplementary data can be found on http://www.biovis.net. Authors must follow the style guidelines specified therein.


*** 9. Publications ***

The symposium proceedings will consist of all accepted papers and will appear in the IEEE Digital Library. Accepted abstracts will be made available on the symposium website.

To increase the visibility of visualization within the bioinformatics and biology communities, a selection of the best accepted papers will be invited to be published in expanded form in an open-access, peer-reviewed bioinformatics journal.


*** 10. Submission ***

Details on how to submit papers and abstracts will be provided on http://www.biovis.net closer to the submission deadline.


*** 11. Paper and Abstract Awards ***

Best paper and abstract prizes will be awarded. Submissions that resulted from a successful collaboration between researchers from both the visualization and biology communities will be especially regarded. Reviewers will be queried on the review form with a question "Should we consider this paper/abstract for the best paper/abstract award? (yes/no/maybe)".


*** 12. Organizing Committee ***

Email: contact@biovis.net

General Chairs:
- Nils Gehlenborg, Harvard University, USA
- Raghu Machiraju, The Ohio State University, USA
- Torsten Moeller, Simon Fraser University, Canada

Paper Chairs:
- Chris North, Virginia Tech, USA
- Jos Roerdink, University of Groningen, The Netherlands

Abstract Chairs:
- Miriah Meyer, Harvard University, USA
- Cydney Nielsen, British Columbia Genome Sciences Center, Canada

Invited Session Chairs:
- Matt Hibbs, The Jackson Laboratory, USA
- Sean O'Donoghue, European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Germany

Tutorial Chairs:
- Lars Linsen, Jacobs University, Germany
- William Ray, The Ohio State University, USA

Exhibit Chairs and Industry Liaisons:
- Michael McGuffin, Ecole de Technologie Superieure, Canada
- Robert Kincaid, Agilent Laboratories, USA

Website and Publicity Chairs:
- Robert Kosara, UNC at Charlotte, USA
- Brian Staats, MITRE, USA