The AAMAS 2011 Organizing Committee invites proposals for the Workshop Program to be held on May 2-3, 2011 immediately prior to the main technical program of the AAMAS conference. The main goal of the AAMAS 2011 workshops is to stimulate and facilitate discussion, interaction, and comparison of approaches, methods, and ideas related to specific topics, both theoretical and applied, in the general area of Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems. The AAMAS 2011 workshops will provide an informal setting where participants will have the opportunity to discuss specific technical topics in an atmosphere that fosters the active exchange of ideas.

Members from all areas of the AAMAS community are invited to submit workshop proposals for review. Workshops on new and emerging topics, applications, and on broader topics catering to the broader community are particularly encouraged. Workshops can vary in length, but most will be one full day in duration. Workshop organizers and attendees must register for their workshop and preferably also for the main AAMAS conference. Attendance is limited to registered participants only.

Important Dates

Workshop Chair

AAMAS 2011 Workshops Requirements for Submission
Proposals for workshops should be a maximum of five pages in length (in plain ASCII text), and should contain the following information:

• Title of the workshop.
• A technical description of the workshop, specifying the workshop goals, the technical issues that it will address, and the relevance of the workshop to the main conference.
• A discussion of why and to whom the workshop is of interest.
• A list of related workshops held within the last three years, if any, and their relation to the proposed workshop. Information about previous offerings of the proposed workshop: when and where it has been offered in the past (i.e., with AAMAS or another conference?), organizers names and affiliations, number of submissions, acceptances and registered attendees, and follow-up publications, if any (e.g., journal special issue).
• A preliminary workshop agenda and a proposed schedule for organizing the workshop. This should include a brief description of how the organizers intend to encourage an atmosphere appropriate for a workshop.
• Description of paper review process and acceptance standards.
• If available, a list of tentatively confirmed attendees.
• The names, affiliations, postal addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of the proposed workshop organizing committee. This committee should consist of three or four people knowledgeable about the technical issues to be addressed. The organizing committee should include individuals from multiple institutions.
• The name of the primary contact for the organizing committee (this person must have an email address).
• A description of the qualifications of the individual committee members with respect to organizing an AAMAS workshop, including a list of workshops previously arranged by any members of the proposed organizing committee, if any.
• List of potential program committee members, including their title and affiliations.
• Expected duration of the workshop (half or full day).
• A list of places (distribution lists, web sites, journals, etc.) where the workshop is planned to be advertised.
• Intention for post-proceedings of the workshop: separate publication or part of the joint workshops proceedings volume with Springer.

All proposals should be submitted by electronic mail, in plain ASCII text, to the AAMAS 2011 Workshop Chair: Frank Dignum (dignum@cs.uu.nl) as soon as possible but no later than: October 31, 2010.

Prospective organizers will be notified of the committee’s decision no later than: November 28, 2010. The selection of the workshops to be included in the final AAMAS program will be done by the General Chairs of AAMAS 2011 based on the advice of the workshop chair. The selection is based upon multiple factors, including: the scientific/technical interest of the topics, the clarity of the proposal in addressing the requested information, the innovativeness of workshop topics, the cross-disciplinary nature of the workshop, and the capacity of the conference workshop program. Note that authors of proposals addressing similar and/or overlapping content areas and/or audiences may be requested to merge their proposals.

Responsibilities of AAMAS and Workshop Organizers
For all accepted proposals, AAMAS will be responsible for:

• Providing publicity for the workshop series as a whole.
• Providing logistic support and a meeting place for the workshop.
• Together with the organizers, determining the workshop date and time.
• Provide one free workshop registration when the workshop has more than 15 registrations.
• Organize a joint workshops post proceedings with Springer (given that the quantity and quality of submissions are high enough).

Workshop organizers will be responsible for:

• Setting up a website for the workshop.
• Advertising the workshop and issuing a call for papers (by December 12, 2010) and a call for participation (by March 13, 2011).
• Collecting and evaluating submissions, notifying authors of acceptance or rejection on a timely basis, and ensuring a transparent and fair selection process. All workshop organizers are strongly advised to adopt the same deadlines for paper submissions and notifications of acceptance, i.e., January 30, 2011: Submissions of contributions to workshops; February 27, 2010: Notifications.
• Making the PDF of the whole workshop notes available to the workshops chair by March 13, 2011, as well as a list of audio-visual requirements and any special room requirements. The AAMAS 2011 workshop notes will be included in the flash drive containing the AAMAS 2011 conference proceedings. To that end, please include the following sentence in your call for papers: ”Workshop notes including all accepted papers will be distributed to AAMAS 2010 registrants in electronic form. Printed workshop notes will NOT be made available to workshop participants.”
• Ensuring that the workshop notes or individual papers are available from the workshops websites, as appropriate. Though the workshop notes will appear on the flash drive distributed to conference attendees, the workshop notes will not be hosted on the IFAAMAS website.
• Ensuring that the workshop organizers and the participants register for the workshop and are invited to register to the main conference (at least one author must register for the workshop in order for a paper to appear in the workshop proceedings).

AAMAS reserves the right to cancel any workshop if the above responsibilities are not fulfilled.

Submissions and Inquiries
Please send proposals and inquiries to:
Frank Dignum
Universiteit Utrecht
dignum@cs.uu.nl