M2K (Music-to-Knowledge) North American Workshop

Dates:

Friday, 3 June 2005 - Saturday, 4 June 2005

Location:

Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS)
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)

For instructions on getting to UIUC:
http://www.uiuc.edu/usergroups/visitors.html
http://www.uiuc.edu/overview/visitors/directions.html

Workshop Goals:

This two-day workshop is designed to bring together the International Music Information Retrieval Systems Evaluation Laboratory (IMIRSEL) M2K (Music-to-Knowledge) development team with select Music Information Retrieval (MIR)/Music Digital Library (MDL) researchers/students from North American countries (though all others are welcomed to join us) with three major goals in mind:
  1. to demonstrate and train participants in the use of M2K as a rapid prototyping system and to provide instruction on how to use M2K as both a general development environment and as the submission mechanism for the upcoming MIREX contests;
  2. to allow key researchers and their students to provide feedback to the IMIRSEL M2K developers to correct and enhance the M2K system; and,
  3. to allow the assembled participants to draw up an M2K module/functionality “wishlist” with the outcome that participants take on specific development responsibilities of new modules/functionalities (i.e., distribute development and assistance across the community in the open-source tradition). NOTA BENE: M2K, in its current Alpha configuration, is predominantly an audio-based toolset: I would like to STRONGLY encourage the participation of researchers and students who have expertise in symbol-based and metadata-based approaches to MIR/MDL research.

Workshop Size:

Due to space limitations, we expect the workshop size will be limited to 45 participants.

Accommodations:

Watch this space for information on potentially low-cost, local accommodations (i.e., student residence and campus-affiliated hotels).

Registration Costs:

This workshop has NO registration fee.

Computing Resources

Participants should bring there own laptops, ideally with M2K installed. We should have wireless access guest accounts set up for participants, so please bring a wireless card if want to have access to the Internet, swap files, etc. We might have some limited ethernet (hardwire) access too but no guarantees at this point.

Application Procedure:

Please fill out the online application form at: http://webtools.uiuc.edu/formBuilder/NonSecureForm?id=3524734

Possible Participant Subsidies:

There is a small pot of support money available for helping those North American participants with limited resources. Prof. J. Stephen Downie will be administering support funds from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and a special National Science Foundation M2K workshop grant. Subsidies will be re-imbursed after the workshop to the agreed-upon amount after submission of receipts to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. NOTA BENE: For larger labs, I would appreciate it very much if participants from larger labs attempt to do a bit of pre-co-ordination of applications, especially if subsidies are being requested (see below). A brief email to J. Stephen Downie from the lab leader would be greatly appreciated as I try to distribute my funds in the best manner possible. Select participants will be subsidized to attend according the following heuristic:
  1. Demonstration of need (i.e., unavailability of/limitations to funds from local sources)
  2. Participation of home lab in active development and evaluation work (e.g., plan to participate in MIREX 2005; have been active in M2K discussions and development, etc.)
  3. Broadening the representation of the research labs (i.e., distributing funds in such a way as to maximize the number of labs represented (this is done in the spirit that at as many labs as possible can have at least one member who can in turn pass on their M2K knowledge to their lab))
J. Stephen Downie
29 April 2005