Courses

Your active involvement in SIGGRAPH 2025 is crucial for fostering collaborative creation and enhancing immersive experiences through cutting-edge computer graphics and interactive techniques. We are excited that you are submitting your work for consideration.

The Courses program has two submission stages. Stage 1 includes submitting sample course slides and course notes (example here)  for review by the jury and the completion of an online form. Stage 2 includes finalizing basic course and presenter information upon acceptance, and submitting complete (final) course slides and a formatted abstract (example here) for publication in the conference proceedings.

The following table summarizes key Courses submission items, due dates, and notification timeline. See the SUBMISSION FORM for complete information for submission requirements and timelines.

International Travel: Since the acceptance or rejection notification is scheduled for May 2025, it is advisable for submitters who are traveling internationally to Canada to inform themselves of requirements for international travel and any visa requirements or applications far in advance of the notification timeline and conference dates. Courses presentations are scheduled as in-person sessions at the conference.

To Submit to Courses
Stage 1: Submit Abbreviated Course Material Sample for Jury Review

Log into the submission portal, select the “Make a New Submission” tab, select ”General Submissions,” and then select “Courses” under “Presentation Formats.” To see the information you need to submit, view the sample submission form.

You will need the following information:

• Title. To help participants attend the right course, please accurately title your submission. Attendees and jurors should understand the basic takeaways from the title alone.
• A presentation format. Please select “Course” as your presentation format. This activates Courses-specific questions in the form.
• Unique emails per contributor are required.
• One “representative image” suitable for use on the conference website and in promotional materials. See the Representative Image Guidelines tab located on the Submission FAQ.
• A 50 word course synopsis.
• Information on the intended audience, prerequisites, and level of difficulty. Please choose the level of difficulty appropriately by indicating whether your content is introductory, intermediate, or advanced. We accept Courses at all levels, but highlight a Course’s target audience to help attendees identify content relevant to them.
• Short biographies (100 words) for each of your instructors. Typical Courses consist of one to four instructors. We recommend one or two instructors for a Short Course (1.5 hours) and two or more instructors for a Long Course (3 hours).
• A brief 300-word abstract with a clear statement of the course theme, topics, activities, and takeaways.
• Course Objectives which reflect specific topics and material that the instructor plans to cover in a particular course. For example: “The main objective of this course is to introduce students to the fundamental concepts in computer graphics including a range of computer graphics techniques and algorithms covering 2D and 3D graphics. This includes raster image formats, affine transformations, rendering algorithms, data structures for 2D and 3D curves, surfaces, and volumes, textures and texture mapping, shading and reflection models, animation and physics-based simulation.”
• Learning Outcomes which list student-centered statements that communicate what students should know and be able to do after completing the course. For example: “Upon completion of this course, students will be familiar with the fundamental algorithms and data structures used in computer graphics. Students who successfully complete this course will be able to: (1) Read, write, and manipulate digital images, (2) Apply linear transformation operations for building and manipulating 2D and 3D scenes and objects, (3) Develop interactive graphics software using the GPU rendering pipeline.”
• Sample course notes. Submit up to 10 pages of clear and concise notes that include a description of topics to be presented, a coherent organization of the topics, concepts, and learning takeaways, and a brief explanation of how you intend to use the time for your course. There is no required formatting for the Stage 1 submission, but note that if accepted, your final draft must follow ACM SIGGRAPH Conference standards. Example (unformatted) course notes are available here. A final, formatted example is provided in the description for Stage 3.
• Sample slides. Submit between 5 to 10 slides to help reviewers understand the style and quality of your proposed content. If you have your full course notes and slides available, please submit a relevant sample and not the full course.
• Quality course sample materials clearly represent your course concept, structure, and takeaways that attendees will achieve in a way that jury members from multiple professional backgrounds can easily comprehend.

When preparing your initial course notes and final extended abstract, you may wish to consult SIGGRAPH’s Publication Instructions.

• A list of potential submission categories and keywords is provided to help ensure your submission is reviewed and juried appropriately. Please select the categories and keywords carefully.
• For additional submission information or information about uploading files, see Submissions FAQ.

Optional: You also may provide examples of other materials, demonstrations, or exercises that support the Courses topics. Please be clear how this additional content supports your submission; due to limited time by our volunteer jurors, more supplementary material is not necessarily better.

Interested in submitting to the Courses program and have a question? Join the SIGGRAPH 2025 Courses Chairs for open office hours to ask any questions prior to the 18 February Courses deadline.

Register to attend the open Courses office hours on Monday, 10 February, or Wednesday, 12 February, here: https://calendly.com/siggraphconf/siggraph-2025-courses-office-hours

Courses can fulfill many objectives, such as:

• Introducing a core graphics or interactive techniques subject, targeting any level of background in that area. Such a course can cover various topics, ranging in level from introductory to advanced. The jury looks for such courses to guide attendees through the material in a coherent and comprehensible way.
• Introducing a topic related to graphics and interactive techniques but not considered “core.” The jury evaluates these proposals based on the expected benefit to the SIGGRAPH audience and the expected breadth of interest.
• Consolidating a new and emerging research trend. The jury evaluates these proposals based on their potential to spur applications and bring researchers up to speed. The jury seeks courses distilling recent research into a coherent narrative, as opposed to merely replaying a sequence of prior research talks.

Recently taught courses must justify why the course should be repeated. If refreshing an older course, please explain why revisiting the material now is timely and what new content will be added.

The success of a course proposal is not directly tied to its declared level of difficulty. The conference seeks to offer a broad spectrum of courses at all levels, including well-designed introductory courses. Please choose the most appropriate difficulty level for a course based on the complexity of the ideas presented and the depth of its prerequisites.

Multiple speakers for a course are encouraged. If you have multiple speakers, please consider whether your proposal best fits as a SIGGRAPH Course or Panel. It’s your choice, but if you plan to present different perspectives about a topic without a cohesive structure and clear learning takeaways, a SIGGRAPH Panel may be a better fit.

Some reasons courses are rejected:

• Course notes fail to communicate clearly and informatively.
• The submission fails to make the course theme sufficiently clear, detail what specific topics will be presented, or explain how the allotted time will be used.
• Content is too narrowly focused or advances an agenda. A course should comprehensively cover a topic and not just focus, for instance, on the presenter’s own techniques or methods used in one company. (Consider a co-presenter from a competing academic lab or company.)
• Previous courses have sufficiently covered the area, or the jury feels the topic is too narrow to attract sufficient attendance at SIGGRAPH.
• Too many high-quality courses were submitted, and the jury could only select a subset.

Jurors are asked to evaluate your submission using four criteria: concept, novelty, interest, and quality. The final submission score is based on a combination of these factors.

Concept
How exceptional are the ideas, problems, solutions, aesthetics, etc., presented in this submission? How coherently does the submission convey its learning objectives or takeaways? Is the course similar to existing ones, or does it stand out? This criterion is particularly applicable when combining existing technologies into a single course proposal (for example: papers, demos, animations, or art pieces); submissions of this type are often rejected if they duplicate other content without demonstrating how the proposed course will improve attendee mastery of the content.

Novelty
How new and fresh is the submission? Has this topic or interpretation been seen at SIGGRAPH before? Is it a new, groundbreaking approach to teach an old problem, or is it an existing approach applied to a new problem? A course offering a novel approach to teach a topic may be more positively regarded by the jury.

Interest
Will conference participants want to attend this course? Will it inspire them? Does it appeal to a broad audience? This measures both the breadth of the potential audience and overall proposal clarity and novelty. If proposing a repeat of a past course, evidence of past interest can be useful in evaluation.

Quality, Craft, and Completeness
This is a measure of the course’s quality of expression, clarity of thinking, and the completeness and lucidity of the course syllabus, content, and goals. The submission information must provide a clear sense that the final course materials will be well-written, well-designed, and well-presented.

Non-Disclosure Agreements
SIGGRAPH reviewers cannot sign non-disclosure agreements for submissions. For information on patents and confidentiality, see the Submissions FAQ.

You will be notified of acceptance or rejection of your presentation in early May 2025. If your Course is accepted you will receive an email from “rightsreview@acm.org” with a link to your ACM Rights Management form within 72 hours of notification of acceptance of your work to the conference.

Stage 2: Submit Final Course Materials

Complete forms and review submission information for website by Monday, 12 May 2025, which includes:

1. Complete the ACM Rights Management form – The listed contact contributor for the Course will receive the ACM Rights Form, and is responsible for completing it on behalf of ALL of the participants in the Course.
2. Provide valid ORCID identifiers for all presenters. ACM requires that all accepted contributors register and provide ACM with valid ORCID identifiers prior to publication. Corresponding contributors are responsible for collecting these ORCID identifiers from co-contributors and providing them to ACM as part of the ACM eRights selection process. You and your co-contributors must create and register your ORCID identifier at https://orcid.org/register.
3. Review your submission information through the submission portal to confirm or update the list of contributors(s), affiliation(s), and 50-word summary statement and representative image suitable for conference publicity. 12 May 2025 is the deadline to make any changes to course submission information (i.e., approved title changes, contributors names, descriptions etc.) for publication on the conference website.
4. Review your representative image: Your representative image and text may be used for promotional purposes. Several SIGGRAPH 2025 programs will prepare preview videos of accepted content for pre-conference promotion, which may include your representative image.

Submit full course materials for publication in conference proceedings by 7 June 2025

• Final materials can include source code, notes, and slides; hardware instructions and requirements; and other material that will be presented during the course session at the conference. These materials will be published in the conference proceedings and the ACM Digital Library to help participants apply their new knowledge.
• Replace your sample slides with your final complete slides and upload  these as supplementary materials using the link which will be emailed to you by 7 June 2025.
• A properly-formatted extended abstract is a requirement in order to present during SIGGRAPH 2025 and must be received by 7 June 2025. This is to be submitted through TAPS. You can see an example here.

In-Person Presentations
If your course is accepted for presentation at SIGGRAPH, the Courses contributor must:

• Prepare a Short Course (1.5 hours) or Long Course (3 hours) based on your acceptance.
• Coordinate details with your Course co-presenters.
• Attend and present your work in-person at SIGGRAPH 2025 in Vancouver.
• Contributors should plan to present from their own personal laptops. SIGGRAPH will provide adapters needed to connect personal computers to the session projector.
• In-person presentation is REQUIRED for Course presentation. In the event of presenter emergencies that prevent travel to Vancouver, identify an alternate presenter to avoid cancellation of the course and removal of materials from the ACM Digital Library.
• A reminder about international travel: It is the responsibility of each presenter to inform themselves of international travel requirements and visa deadlines sufficiently in advance of the respective deadlines (see above). Since the acceptance or rejection notification is scheduled for May 2025, it is advisable for submitters who are traveling internationally to inform themselves of requirements for international travel and any visa requirements or applications far in advance of the notification timeline and conference dates. Courses presentations are scheduled as in-person sessions at the conference.

Presenter Recognition
More information on SIGGRAPH 2025 contributor recognition if your work is accepted, coming soon.

You will receive an email by early June explaining how to access the registration discount code as well as instructions for registering. The contributor using the discount code is eligible for a discount from the early-bird registration rate regardless of when registration is completed. Any additional contributors who will be presenting the Course are required to register at the appropriate registration level for the program, and prevailing registration rates will apply.

All deadlines are 22:00 UTC/GMT unless otherwise noted.

18 February 2025, 22:00 UTC/GMT
Submission deadline.

Early May 2025
Acceptance or rejection notices are sent to all submitters.

12 May 2025
Deadline to submit ACM Rights Form and to make any changes to course submission information (i.e., approved title changes, contributors names, descriptions, representative image etc. ) for publication on the website.

7 June 2025
Final course slides and formatted extended abstract deadline. If we do not receive your materials by this date, you will not be allowed to present at SIGGRAPH 2025.

8 August 2025
Official publication date for the ACM Digital Library.

Please Note: The official publication date is the date the proceedings are made available in the ACM Digital Library. This date may be up to two weeks prior to the first day of the conference. The official publication date affects the deadline for any patent filings related to published work. (For those rare conferences whose proceedings are published in the ACM Digital Library after the conference is over, the official publication date remains the first day of the conference.)

10-14 August 2025
SIGGRAPH 2025
Vancouver Convention Centre
Vancouver, Canada

SIGGRAPH prioritizes conversations and industry contributions that spotlight how diversity, equity, and inclusion makes our communities, industries, and teams stronger. Conference programs provide a safe place to grow, discuss, and learn from one another and to bridge boundaries with the goal of making our community more inclusive and accessible to all. SIGGRAPH encourages submissions that spotlight DEI content across every SIGGRAPH program.