M2K (Music-to-Knowledge) European/United Kingdom Workshop

Dates:

Friday, 15 April 2005 - Saturday, 16 April 2005

Location:

Goldsmiths College, University of London, London, UK

For instructions on getting to Goldsmiths: http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/find-us/

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/Music Digital Library researchers/students from the UK and other European countries with three major goals in mind:
  1. to demonstrate and train participants in the use of M2K as a rapid prototyping system and how to use it 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 encourage the particpation of researchers and students who have expertise in symbol-based and meta-data-based approaches to MIR/MDL research.

Workshop Size:

Due to space limitations, we expect the workshop size will be limited to 30 participants.

Accommodations:

Watch this space for information on potentially low-cost, local accommodations.

Registration Costs:

This workshop has NO registration fee.

Application Procedure:

Send email to J. Stephen Downie (jdownie AT uiuc.edu):

Subject line: EUROPEAN/UK M2K WORKSHOP
Message body:
  1. Name:
  2. Email:
  3. Institution:
  4. Home Location: (Indicate UK or EURO)(see below for reason)
  5. Supervisor/Lab Leader Name: (if applicable)
  6. Supervisor/Lab Leader Email: (if applicable)
  7. Plans to participate in MIREX 2005: (Yes/No/Possible (with BRIEF comment))
  8. Participation in past/upcoming ISMIRs: (Be BRIEF)
  9. Subsidy Need: (Give BRIEF comment about your NEED for subsidy. Please give a best estimate of mininum subsidy required (for example, transportation cost estimates)).
  10. Need for Accommodations: (Please let us know if you will need access to Goldsmiths residence accomodations)
  11. Willingness to share accommodation: (Yes/No and gender info if YES)

Possible Participant Subsidies:

For UK-based Young Researchers (PhD students and similar): You can apply for travel & accommodation funding from the Digital Music Research Network (http://www.dmrn.org). For application forms and information on how to apply, see http://www.elec.qmul.ac.uk/dmrn/funding/. Please send the DMRN Travel Support forms to Theresa Willis at the address given on the form: DO NOT send to J. Stephen Downie or to Goldsmiths.
For Non-UK, European-based (and Senior UK-based) participants: Prof. J. Stephen Downie will be administering funds from 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 Non-UK European 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 representation of the research labs (i.e., distributing funds in such a way as to maximize the number of labs represented (this 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))
Special Thanks:
Prof. Geraint Wiggins, Goldsmiths College
Tim Crawford, Goldsmiths College
Prof. Mark Plumbley, Queen Mary College

J. Stephen Downie
23 March 2005