Research Track

1. Overview

VLDB 2020 invites submissions of original research papers to Volume 13 of the Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment (PVLDB). Papers accepted by June 15, 2020 will form the Research Track of the 2020 VLDB conference, together with any rollover papers from Volume 12. Papers accepted to Volume 13 after June 15, 2020 will be rolled over to the 2021 VLDB conference.

The annual VLDB conference is a premier annual international forum for database researchers, vendors, practitioners, application developers, and users. PVLDB, established in 2008, is a scholarly journal for short and timely research papers, with a journal-style review and quality assurance process. PVLDB is distinguished by a monthly submission process with rapid reviews. PVLDB issues are published regularly throughout the year. Your paper will appear in PVLDB soon after acceptance, and possibly in advance of the VLDB conference. All papers accepted in time will be published in PVLDB Vol. 13 and also presented at the VLDB 2020 conference. At least one author of every accepted paper is expected to attend the VLDB 2020 conference.

PVLDB is the only submission channel for research papers to appear in the VLDB 2020 conference. Please see the submission guidelines for paper submission instructions. The submission process for other VLDB 2020 tracks is different, and is described in their respective calls for papers.

2. Topics of Interest

PVLDB welcomes original research papers on a broad range of topics related to all aspects of data management. The themes and topics listed below are intended to serve primarily as indicators of the kinds of data-centric subjects that are of interest to PVLDB –they do not represent an exhaustive list.

    Access Methods, Concurrency Control, Recovery, Transactions, Indexing and Search, In-memory Data Management, Hardware Accelerators, Query Processing and Optimization, Storage Management.
    Privacy and Security in Data Management.
    Graph Data Management, Social Networks, Recommendation Systems.
    Data Mining and Analytics, Warehousing.
    Crowdsourcing, Embedded and Mobile Databases, Real-time Databases, Sensors and IoT, Stream Databases.
    Data Models and Query Languages, Schema Management and Design, Database Usability, User Interfaces and Visualization.
    Tuning, Benchmarking, Performance Measurement, Database Administration and Manageability.
    Distributed Database Systems, Cloud Data Management, NoSQL, Scalable Analytics, Distributed Transactions, Consistency, P2P and Networked Data Management, Database-as-a-Service, Content Delivery Networks.
    Provenance and Workflows, Spatial, Temporal, and Multimedia Databases, Scientific and Medical Data Management, Profile-based or Context-Aware Data Management.
    Data Cleaning, Information Filtering and Dissemination, Information Integration, Metadata Management, Data Discovery, Web Data Management, Semantic Web, Heterogeneous and Federated Database Systems.
    Fuzzy, Probabilistic and Approximate Databases, Information Retrieval, Text in Databases.

3. Major Revisions from PVLDB Vol. 12

We made the following major revisions:

    Among the types of papers, we abolished Innovative Systems and Application Papers.
    The suggested limit for vision papers is 6 pages but longer vision papers will also be accepted (up to the strict limit of 12 pages + references).
    For Regular Research Papers, we explicitly distinguish four paper flavors (Foundations Papers, Algorithms Papers, System Papers, and Information System Architecture Papers).

4. Three Categories of Papers

There are three categories of papers in the research track.

    Regular Research Papers (12 pages excluding references)
    Experiment and Analysis Papers (12 pages excluding references)
    Vision Papers (6 to 12 pages excluding references, shorter papers encouraged)

For Experiment and Analysis Papers and Vision Papers, you need to append the category tag as a suffix to the title of the paper such as “Data Management in the Year 3000 [Vision]”. The details of Experiment and Analysis Papers and Vision Papers are given below.

4.1 Experiment and Analysis Papers

These papers focus on the evaluation of existing algorithms, data structures, and systems that are of wide interest. The scientific contribution of an E&A track paper lies in providing new insights into the strengths and weaknesses of existing methods rather than providing new methods. Some examples of types of papers suitable for the Experiment and Analysis category are:

    Experimental surveys that compare existing solutions to a problem and, through extensive experiments, provide a comprehensive perspective on their strengths and weaknesses, or
    papers that verify or refute results published in the past and that, through a renewed performance evaluation, help to advance the state of the art, or
    papers that discuss the development or use of open resources (including data or metadata, benchmarks, evaluation tools, or other resources) that benefit the research community or evaluation of research ideas, or
    papers that focus on relevant problems or phenomena and through analysis and/or experimentation provide insights on the nature or characteristics of these phenomena.

We encourage authors of accepted E&A papers, at the time of the publication, to make available all the experimental data and, whenever possible, the related software. For papers that identify negative or contradictory results for published results by third parties, the Program Committee may ask the third party to comment on the submission and even request a short rebuttal/explanation to be published along with the submission in the event of acceptance. In order to be finally accepted with the E&A category of the research track, a successful participation at the reproducibility mechanism provided by PVLDB is mandatory.

4.2 Vision Papers

Vision papers outline futuristic information systems and architectures or anticipate new challenges. Submissions would describe novel projects that are in an early stage but hold out the strong promise of eventual high impact. The focus should be on the key insight behind the project (e.g., a new set of ground rules or a novel technology), as well as explaining how the key insight can be leveraged in building a system. The paper must describe what the success criteria are for the vision project. The length of a submission within the Vision Papers category is 6 to 12 pages excluding references (see submission guidelines for details).

5. Four Flavors of Regular Research Papers

PVLDB recognizes that research papers come in different flavors. These flavors impact how a paper should be evaluated. In particular, we recognize the following paper categories:

    Foundations Papers and Algorithms Papers: The primary contribution of papers that focus on foundations and algorithms lies in their formal underpinnings expressed through precise pseudocode or theoretical formalism. These papers include a prototype implementation and evaluation, including comparisons with alternate approaches, but these are typically limited to demonstrating the conceptual ideas.
    Systems Papers: The primary contribution of systems papers lies in the development of novel and practical approaches. Systems papers will typically have no proofs and no theoretical formalism, but will include a solid prototype implementation and empirical evaluation, typically in a working system.
    Information System Architectures Papers: The key contribution of those papers lies in an innovative architecture for a new type of data management system. These papers include an initial prototype implementation and evaluation, but their main contribution lies in the breadth and impact of the overall vision. The details of design goals (e.g., the class of workload to be supported), systems architecture, new abstractions, and design justifications are expected.

A paper may, of course, have qualities from more than one of the above categories. That is a plus for the paper, but not a requirement. This year, we seek to bring attention to those differences during the review process. When you submit the paper, you will have the opportunity to indicate which flavor or flavors best describe your paper. Please note that you do not need to add a suffix to the title.