3rd Workshop on
NLP for Positive Impact

Call for Papers

Submission Channel 1: ARR

We align our paper acceptance with ARR cycles:

• Submission deadline: June ARR, i.e., June 15, 2024, 11:59pm AoE

• Commitment deadline to the Workshop: August 20, 2024 (We accept both archival and non-archival submissions. You can commit any submissions from Aug 2023 ARR to Jun 2024 ARR (inclusive) to our workshop.)

Submission Channel 2: Direct Submission

• Submission deadline: Aug 15 (To our workshop-specific Open Review link, to be available soon)

• Review period: Aug 15 - Sept 7

• Meta-review period: Sept 7 - 9

Shared Timeline for Both Channels

• Notification of Acceptance: September 10, 2024

• Camera-Ready Papers Due: September 27, 2024

• Workshop Date: co-located with EMNLP 2024 in November, Miami (exact date to be announced)

All deadlines are 11:59 PM (Anywhere on Earth)

Invitation for Paper Submissions

The widespread and indispensable use of language-oriented AI systems presents new opportunities to have a positive social impact. NLP technologies are starting to mature to the point where they could have an even broader impact, supporting the UN sustainability goals by helping to address big problems such as poverty, hunger, healthcare, education, inequality, COVID-19 and climate change. 

Our workshop aims to promote innovative NLP research that will positively impact society, focusing on responsible methods and new applications. We will encourage submissions from areas including (but not limited to): 

• Work that grounds the impact of NLP: Beyond developing a better-performing NLP model, can we make a step further to connect the model to actual social impact? Example directions include: case studies of real-world deployments; or improving the deployment and maintenance of NLP models in practice.
  
  

• In addition to commonly recognized NLP for social good areas such as NLP for healthcare, mental well-being, and many others, we also call for work on neglected areas such as NLP for poverty, hunger, energy, climate change, among others.
    

• We also highly value work that builds on interdisciplinary expertise, and encourages submissions of case studies or worked examples that seek to expand the social impact of NLP through collaboration with other fields (e.g., philanthropy, social science, political science, economics, HCI). 

• Special theme: This year, we would like to encourage submission providing solutions or concepts to address digital violence. Digital violence encompasses various forms of violence that utilize digital tools and media, such as cell phones, apps, internet applications, and emails, and occurs within digital spaces like online portals and social platforms. We aim to explore how modern NLP and AI technologies can contribute to enhancing safety in digital environments. At the workshop, you will have an opportunity to connect and share your results with NGO representatives from this field!

Submission types:

We would appreciate to see various types of works on this (but not only) topic like:

• automatic identification of various social needs, their corresponding sizes and demographics of people affected;

• position papers to propose promising new tasks or directions that the field should pursue;

• literature review of a subfield; 

• philosophical discussions of what how positive impact can be achieved with NLP methods; 

• approaches to interdisciplinary collaboration; 

• user study designs, user surveys; 

• ethical considerations, and other related topics.
  
  

Our author guidelines follow exactly the ARR requirement, as submitted articles need to first be reviewed by ARR, and then commit to our workshop with a short explanation in the commitment page of why the work fits the theme of NLP for Positive Impact. We welcome both short papers (up to 4 pages) and long papers (up to 8 pages). Note that we want submissions to our workshop to have some distinctive features of social good implications, beyond a general paper on NLP. We will require each submission to discuss the ethical and societal implications of their work, and encourage a discussion of what "positive impact" means in the work.