[Foss4g2010] Presentations and posters
Marco Ciolli
Marco.Ciolli at ing.unitn.it
Sun Jan 31 18:12:35 EST 2010
Dear all,
I think the best thing is not answer but a question:
What do we want from FOSS4G in terms of participation?
In my opinion, if we want to involve new people, new forces and to have
many people at the conference, we must risk something and have more
presentations, both Academic and non Academic.
A CD with proceedings (South African style), I agree with Venka, can be
the best product not only for academics but also for professionals who
want to leave a trace of their work. A selection of Academic works can
be published later in peer reviewed journal for those who are interested.
It is not necessary to have 30 minutes to present adequately a work, in
big conferences both commercial and academic all over the world, 15+5 is
the time that is often given to speakers and only some "special" topics
are allowed to occupy 30 minutes.
Naturally to accept this fact (15+5) implies that we will have a bigger
conference with many people involved.
I think that for FOSS4G conference is important to give the image that
we want people to join the group, to participate and that we are not an
elite.
To expand the time to 30 minutes will necessarily reduce the number of
presentation and the number of participants.
Moreover, personally I find that 25+5 minutes presentation are, in many
cases, too long and dispersive. In 15 minutes speakers are forced to
resume their work and their results.
However, this is my opinion, naturally everyone has a different
perception of the problem.
All the best,
Marco Ciolli
> The best answer to this email was already given previously in the
> discussion by Paul, therefore I'll quote him:
> Paul Ramsey wrote:
>> Warning: Don't balkanize the academic track by choosing a different
>> presentation format from the other content. If everything is
>> consistent, the talks can be mixed and matched into rooms depending on
>> expected *demand and interest* rather than artificial categories
>> ("it's academic").
>
> Even if we have a special room for the academic track, people might
> still want to switch between sessions. This is not possible (or rather
> really annoying) when they have a different length of talks.
>
> Additionally, what would be the benefit of shortening the talks? Having
> more room for non-academic talks? In 2009 there were way less academic
> talks than non-academic ones (IRCC ~20 vs. ~180). Accepting almost all
> academic submissions doesn't make sense either. And especially for the
> academic track I'd prefer quality over quantity.
>
> Cheers,
> Volker
>
>
> Venka wrote:
>> What I (and, guess many others on this list too) mean
>> by "academic" is the "session" (or "track") that will
>> have the presenters submit full paper (no just abstracts)
>> which may be compiled and distribued on CD (or any
>> media) during the conference. This was done in Cape Town.
>> I do not know why this was not done in Australia. Maybe
>> they put the papers on the conference website, I havent
>> checked.
>>
>> Participants working in universities, research institutes need
>> their "papers" publish somewhere to justify their travel
>> at their respective universities or labs. The "proceedings"
>> of the full papers submitted will be peer-reviewed by the
>> scientific committee. call for papers and getting the papers
>> reviewed would be the job of the academic "session" (or "track")
>> chairs. There were two "chairs" at FOSS4G2009 and 46 members in
>> the "Scientific Committee"
>>
>> Each "session" would run for 2 hours, I guess. I do not see any
>> problem whatsoever in some sessions have 4 presenters with longer
>> presentation and other (for example "academic sessions") have
>> 6 presenter in a 2 hour "session"
>>
>> More presentation, more diversity and more resgitrations!!
>> Quality control would be the responsibility of the "track"
>> chairs and the "Scientific Committee"
>>
>> Best
>>
>> Venka
>>
>>
>> Paul Ramsey wrote:
>>> Let me reiterate that treating academic as a "track" (with its own
>>> room and own schedule) impoverishes both the academic and non-academic
>>> conference participants. You're going to want to track popular topics
>>> into big rooms and niche topics into small rooms, and whether the
>>> topic is "academic" or not in origin is not necessarily going to
>>> correlate with how popular it is. You might have a session consisting
>>> of three talks, two that were vetted by the scientific committee and
>>> another than came in the general presentation door.
>>>
>>> Don't make "track" be your unit of oganization, make "session". That
>>> way (for example) the "postgis" session could include a general talk
>>> by me, an professional user talk by simon and a numbers-heavy
>>> benchmarking talk from someone in academe. There's two much variety in
>>> our ecosystem to fit everything into 5 meaningful tracks, but there's
>>> enough homogeneity to fit them into 25 meaningful sessions.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>>
>>> Paul
>>>
>>> On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 4:04 PM, Lorenzo Becchi
>>> <lorenzo at ominiverdi.com> wrote:
>>>> wow, Cameron, interesting idea: 2 academic presentation in 30 mins,
>>>> is it
>>>> possible?
>>>> what's the opinion of the director of the academic track?
>>>> please remember what Cameron highlight about moving from one room to the
>>>> other. The venue in Barcelona is big, it's all for us but we cannot
>>>> grant
>>>> that all your favorite presentations can stay in the same floor (AFAIK).
>>>> lorenzo
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 10:26 PM, Cameron Shorter
>>>> <cameron.shorter at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> Lorenzo is right to try to match the academic and non-academic
>>>>> tracks in
>>>>> the program.
>>>>> Attendees spend a lot of time moving between rooms to try and catch all
>>>>> the presentations they want to see.
>>>>>
>>>>> We got feedback at foss4g 2009 along the lines of "it would have been
>>>>> better if the rooms were closer".
>>>>> So I suggest either keep the all presentations the same length, or
>>>>> match 2
>>>>> academic to 1 standard presentation.
>>>>>
>>>>> Lorenzo Becchi wrote:
>>>>>> Paul, others,
>>>>>> does it make sense to have three session per hour for both academic
>>>>>> and
>>>>>> not?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The program is still flexible and this is the time to decide about it.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> we will decide inside the LOC about the 15+5 for academic, I don't see
>>>>>> any major problem for the moment to approve it.
>>>>>> It would be easier, IMO, if the program can be synchronized between
>>>>>> academic and not to let people easily choose their own scheduling of
>>>>>> presentations.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> lorenzo
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 3:22 AM, Paul Ramsey
>>>>>> <pramsey at cleverelephant.ca
>>>>>> <mailto:pramsey at cleverelephant.ca>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Warning: Don't balkanize the academic track by choosing a different
>>>>>> presentation format from the other content. If everything is
>>>>>> consistent, the talks can be mixed and matched into rooms
>>>>>> depending on
>>>>>> expected *demand and interest* rather than artificial categories
>>>>>> ("it's academic").
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Best,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> P.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 6:14 PM, Venka <venka.osgeo at gmail.com
>>>>>> <mailto:venka.osgeo at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>>>> > Helena Mitasova wrote:
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> others may have different suggestion but how about making the
>>>>>> >> presentations 20min + 5 min for discussion which would allow
>>>>>> for more
>>>>>> >> presentations?
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > +1 for academic track. I would even suggest 15min+5 as in most
>>>>>> academic
>>>>>> > conferences where
>>>>>> > full paper proceedings are published.
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > _______________________________________________
>>>>>> > Foss4g2010 mailing list
>>>>>> > Foss4g2010 at lists.osgeo.org <mailto:Foss4g2010 at lists.osgeo.org>
>>>>>> > http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/foss4g2010
>>>>>> >
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
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>>>>>>
>>>>>>
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>>>>> --
>>>>> Cameron Shorter
>>>>> Geospatial Systems Architect
>>>>> Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
>>>>> Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254
>>>>>
>>>>> Think Globally, Fix Locally
>>>>> Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
>>>>> http://www.lisasoft.com
>>>>>
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