Courses

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

See the Timeline tab for key due dates

See “How to Submit” for the application link.

Stage 1 Submissions include 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.
• 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 Hands-On Course or Short Course (both 1.5 hours) and two or more instructors for a Long Course (3 hours).
  • Identification of all contributors to the work being submitted, with unique email addresses are required.
• A 50-word course synopsis.
• A brief 300-word abstract with a clear statement of the course theme, topics, activities, and takeaways.
• 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 Courses’ target audience to help attendees identify content relevant to them.
• Hardware & Technical Requirements: Please specify any hardware or software your Course requires, noting whether it will be provided by SIGGRAPH or used on attendees’ own laptops. If participants need to install applications, download content, or gather materials in advance, include those details in your submission. Whenever possible, use portable or cloud-based tools such as Docker, Google Colab, or Jupyter Notebooks to simplify setup and support.
• Course Objectives & Learning Outcomes
  • 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 attendee-centered statements that communicate what attendees 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.
• One “representative image” suitable for use on the conference website and in promotional materials. See the Representative Image Guidelines tab located on the Submissions FAQ.

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.

• 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.
• (Optional) Supplementary Video: A demonstration video or executable file
• (Optional) Supplementary Materials: 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.

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.

The SIGGRAPH jury evaluates how Courses fulfill their target 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.
• Facilitating hand-on learning to practice skills. The jury looks for proposals that engage participants in a meaningful, hands-on, fun, productive experience. These can be collaborative or solo lessons. A strong hands-on course is active and has a tangible or persistent digital takeaway (code, a sample project) for attendees.
• Consolidating a new and emerging research trend. The jury evaluates these proposals based on their potential to spur SIGGRAPH 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? For Hands-On Courses, are attendees left with a relevant takeaway (whether physical or digital)? 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 requirements, 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.

Note for Hands-On Courses
Your submission should not require a participant to purchase hardware (circuit boards, micro controllers, etc.) in order to participate in the class, but presentations that show what can be done with limited technology resources will be considered.

You will be notified of acceptance or rejection of your presentation in mid-April 2026. 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.

Complete Stage 2: Program Materials by Tuesday, 28 April 2026, which includes:

1. On-site Presenters: Provide the name and email of the contributor to receive and distribute the contributor registration codes.
2. For Hands-On Courses: Final requirements for required hardware and software are due. Any hardware or software requirements requested after this date cannot be guaranteed.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. Review your submission information through the submission portal to confirm 50-word summary statement and representative image suitable for conference publicity. The deadline is Tuesday, 28 April 2026 to make any changes to course submission information for publication on the conference website. Your representative image and text may be used for promotional purposes. Several SIGGRAPH 2026 programs will prepare preview videos of accepted content for pre-conference promotion, which may include your representative image. You may grant or deny us the ability to use the representative image and submitted video for these purposes in the ACM Rights Management form.

Publication Abstract: Due Friday, 15 May 2026

If your submission is accepted, you must prepare and submit an extended abstract for inclusion in the ACM Digital Library. Please prepare your abstract using these templates and instructions.

When your ACM Rights Management form has been delivered to ACM, you will then receive an email from “tapsadmin@aptaracorp.awsapps.com” with information about the preparation and delivery of your material to TAPS for publication.

Make sure that emails from “rightsreview@acm.org” and “tapsadmin@aptaracorp.awsapps.com” are part of the “allow list” in your email program so that you do not miss these email messages.

The source (Word or LaTeX) of your abstract must be delivered to TAPS, ACM’s article production system. TAPS will generate the PDF and HTML5 versions of your abstract for publication in the ACM Digital Library. The TAPS-generated PDF of your abstract should be 2-4 pages in length for a short course, and 3-5 pages in length for a long course.

You must deliver your material to TAPS, resolve any formatting issues identified by TAPS or by the proceedings production editor, and approve your material for publication by Friday, 15 May 2026. If you cannot meet that deadline, you will not be allowed to present your material at SIGGRAPH 2026.

Information about the preparation and delivery of your final material to TAPS also can be found here.

Stage 3: Submit Supplemental Materials for Publication and Presentation by Friday, 15 June 2026

Submit supplemental materials for publication in the ACM Digital Library, including:

• 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 using the submission portal by this date.

In-Person Presentations

If your course is accepted for presentation at SIGGRAPH, the Courses contributor must:

• Prepare a Hands-On Course (1.5 hours) 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 2026 in Los Angeles.
• 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 Los Angeles, identify an alternate presenter from the existing, accepted group of co-presenters to avoid cancellation of the course and removal of materials from the ACM Digital Library.

Courses Contributor Recognition Benefit:

• Hands-On Course (formerly Labs) (90 minutes): Up to two contributors per accepted Hands-On Course receive a 100% complimentary Experience registration.
• Short-Form Course (90 minutes): Up to two contributors per accepted Short Course receives a 50% discount on Full Conference registration.
• Long-Form Course (180 minutes): Up to two contributors per accepted Long Course receive a 100% complimentary Full Conference registration.

To present your Short or Long-Form Course at SIGGRAPH 2026, contributors must be registered at the Full Conference registration level. Hands-On Course contributors must be registered at the Experience and above registration level.

You will receive an email by early May 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.

10 February 2026
Stage 1: Submission deadline

• Brief abstract
• Description of topics, organization, allocation of time and takeaways
• Abbreviated sample course slides
• Course notes (see example here)
• Completed submission form

Mid-April 2026
Acceptance notification and forms

28 April 2026
Stage 2: Finalized Presentation Information

• Finalized summary, representative image
• Hands-On Courses: Final requirements for required hardware and software are due. Any hardware or software requirements requested after this date cannot be guaranteed.
• Presenter ORCIDs
• ACM Rights Form

15 May 2026
Extended abstract submitted to TAPS for inclusion in the ACM Digital Library.

15 June 2026
Supplemental materials (course notes, slide decks) delivered to ACM for publication in the ACM Digital Library.

19 July 2026
Proceedings publication in the ACM Digital Library of complete course materials.

19-23 July 2026
SIGGRAPH 2026
Los Angeles Convention Center
Los Angeles, California