(Latest update: June 13, 2020)
Dear Haptics Community,
We would like to update you on newly available video presentations and the upcoming Haptics Symposium 2020 livestream video event, which will be held June 25th, 2020.
We are extremely pleased to present video presentations of technical papers from 2020 IEEE Haptics Symposium proceedings. Nearly all authors contributed 3 minute videos. You can browse them via the Haptics Symposium website and via YouTube (details below). Please check them out, “like,” and share them:
https://2020.hapticssymposium.org/program/video-presentations/
Awards and honorable mentions for Best Video Presentation will be announced at the livestream event. Their selection will be driven by your votes. As such, please fill out the form at the link below. We ask that you do not vote for works produced by your own group. Votes are due by Friday, June 19th, 2020.
https://forms.gle/NvTX3q1kgjPaM8qMA
Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel! The channel will host the livestream event and conference video presentations. We will continue to publish interesting haptics content on the channel in the future. By subscribing, you will enable us to unlock additional account functionality that will help us to widely promote haptics research. We encourage you to share it.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1YjMwrg8Hk6uAtyWb62yAw/playlists
Last but not least, please save the date for the forthcoming 2.25 hour live Haptics Symposium video event! It will be held on Thursday, June 25 beginning at 12 pm (Noon) US Eastern Time (9 am US Pacific Time, 4 pm UTC). The event will be accessible to everyone, with no registration required. It will include video presentations of award candidate papers, live Q&A sessions with presenting authors, an awards ceremony, and information about upcoming haptics conferences. You can tune in via the Haptics Symposium YouTube Channel, where the recorded event will also be archived for later viewing. We will share precise final details about how to connect to the event soon.
On behalf of the Organizing Committee,
Greg Gerling and Yon Visell
2020 IEEE Haptics Symposium General Co-Chairs
Dear Haptics Community,
Please save the date for the 2020 IEEE Haptics Symposium livestreaming video event. The ~2 hour event is scheduled for Thursday, June 25 at 12 Noon Eastern Time (9 am Pacific Time, 4 pm UTC). It will be livestreamed via YouTube with connectivity details forthcoming. The event will be accessible to anyone, with no registration required.
The event will feature outstanding new research from the 2020 IEEE Haptics Symposium, including presentations of all award candidate papers and live Q&A with the paper authors. It will also include the 2020 IEEE Haptics Symposium awards ceremony and previews of future conferences.
We are also preparing a large online video program of presentations of the technical papers from the conference. The videos in this program will be available through the Haptics Symposium YouTube channel, where they will be organized in thematic sessions. Authors of all 77 accepted conference technical papers or IEEE Transactions on Haptics Short Papers (part of the new journal track) have been invited to contribute short video presentations of their papers. A best presentation award will be selected by community voting in early June.
As a reminder, authors can find video presentation instructions (due May 20th) at:
https://2020.hapticssymposium.org/presenting/video-presentation-instructions-for-authors/
Finally, we are excited to announce that all IEEE Haptics Symposium conference technical papers are now available via the IEEE Xplore digital library! They can be accessed at the following link: https://doi.org/10.1109/HAPTICS45997.2020
Best wishes,
Greg Gerling and Yon Visell
2020 IEEE Haptics Symposium General Co-Chairs
Dear Haptics Symposium Participants and Broader Community,
We are writing to update you on the revised plan for the 2020 IEEE Haptics Symposium.
We thank you for your patience over the last few weeks. This time has allowed us to evaluate alternative options for the conference, to consult with many stakeholders, and to observe the circumstances produced by the rapidly evolving COVID-19 pandemic. Given the seriousness of the situation and the uncertainty that surrounds the upcoming weeks and months, we have made the difficult decision to cancel the physical conference rather than try to reschedule.
All paid registrations will be refunded in full. We expect for refunds to appear back on your credit card within 5-7 business days. If you paid by wire transfer or check, we will be reaching out to you individually to process the refund. Through generous financial support from the IEEE Technical Committee on Haptics and our sponsors, we will be able to pay all expenses that were incurred during conference organization, including those related to the processing of conference papers and the planning of the now-cancelled physical event.
Our revised planning for IEEE Haptics Symposium 2020 was guided by our goals of balancing the community’s interest in scientific dissemination and exchange, the required organizing effort, and the uncertainties surrounding the situation, including the location and ability of participants to engage with the events amidst the personal and professional challenges being encountered by so many of us.
The main conference proceedings will be published as originally planned. The IEEE Transactions on Haptics Short Papers have already been published via IEEE Xplore. The conference technical papers are being processed for publication in IEEE Xplore and should be available online in 4-8 weeks. The conference companion proceedings, comprising accepted Work-in-Progress and Demonstration papers and videos, will be watermarked as contributions to IEEE Haptics Symposium 2020 and will be distributed via the internet to everyone who registered for the conference. As originally planned, authors will retain copyright over these works, which will not be published in IEEE Xplore.
We are proceeding with our plan to confer several awards for top contributions to the conference, including awards for Best Transactions on Haptics Short Paper and Best Technical Paper. Authors of nominated papers will be contacted by the Awards Chair via email in the next two weeks. In order to be eligible for these awards, the authors of each nominated paper must contribute a video presentation of their paper to the online Conference Video Forum, described below. Full details will be provided to authors via email.
We will provide a new online video forum for authors of accepted technical papers to present their contributions to a broad audience. All authors of accepted technical papers and IEEE ToH short papers will be invited to create short video presentations of their work (about 3 minutes, tentatively). Details and instructions will be provided in a forthcoming email. The videos will be disseminated via the Haptics Symposium YouTube Channel. The videos will be organized in playlists according to thematic sessions that were created for the original conference program. We believe that this collection of online videos from Haptics Symposium 2020 will provide a valuable resource for people around the world to learn about new trends and findings in haptics, and for the contributions from the conference to be disseminated widely via social media.
In addition, we are planning to hold a live online streaming video event that would feature elements such as videos for all of the award candidate papers, live moderated discussions with one or more authors of each paper, previews of future conferences, the awards ceremony, and a closing presentation by the Haptics Symposium 2020 Co-Chairs. It would be accessible to everyone (whether or not they registered for the physical conference). We believe that this live event would be appreciated and attended by many researchers, and may seed scientific exchanges that could grow after the event. Further details will be announced in the coming weeks. We welcome feedback about this event, or contributions from any of you who have skills relevant to streaming event production. Please send us any questions via email: chairs@hapticssymposium.org
In addition to the opportunities described above, we are also in contact with the 2020 Eurohaptics Conference Organizing Committee about potential options for IEEE Haptics Symposium authors to present their work at Eurohaptics. Please watch for further information from the Eurohaptics Conference about this.
We would like to offer our most profound gratitude to members of the Organizing Committee and Program Committee of the 2020 IEEE Haptics Symposium, who have spent the last two years planning and preparing the conference, and managing the review process. We also thank the outgoing ToH Editor-in-Chief Lynette Jones and the ToH Associate Editors and Guest Editors who contributed so much to the new ToH short paper track. We also appreciate input that we have received from the directors and staff at IEEE and the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, who helped us to best adapt our aspirations for the conference in view of the current situation.
Finally, we thank all of you for your contributions, efforts, advice, and care for our community. We hope everyone is well during this very difficult time. Please stay tuned for further information about the details mentioned above.
Best wishes,
Greg Gerling and Yon Visell 2020 IEEE Haptics Symposium General Co-Chairs