[FOSS4G2016] Tracks/Workshops/Sessions

[Gert-Jan van der Weijden - Stichting OSGeo.nl]

Hoi LOC, 

In my opinion such a "session" should start with a few previously defined questions around a certain topic.
The questions can be technical, but can also be related to an societal problem, or about an organisational aspect.

The presentations in such a track should be pieces of the puzzle to answer the question, and the role of the moderator and the discussion should be to put the pieces together.

Not easy, but if it works out well its very satisfying!


Regards,

GJ

-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: FOSS4G2016 [mailto:foss4g2016-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] Namens Christian Willmes
Verzonden: vrijdag 6 november 2015 13:54
Aan: foss4g2016 at lists.osgeo.org
Onderwerp: Re: [FOSS4G2016] Tracks/Workshops/Sessions

Hi,

Am 06.11.2015 um 13:13 schrieb till.adams at fossgis.de:
> What is a special "track"? Is it a conglomerat of talks within one 
> session? Is it a "topic dedicated day" ? How do we organize this?
> ... and here comes my idea:
> I've just been in Berlin on a two day symposium on "Copernicus" (an 
> european remote sensing programme delivering Open Data ;-)). Their 
> sessions, lasting 90 minutes, were called "workshops" and moderated by 
> a chair. Inside the worksohps, they had 3-4 (short) talks and tried to 
> generate a discussion afterwards. All these workshops were dedicated 
> to a speciific topic, such as "Copernicus and Business" or "Copernicus 
> and Desaster Management" and so on. The chair was obviously 
> responsible for the presenters  in his/her workshop and did more a 
> session chair in our sessions did. S/he really moderated the whole 
> workshop with their own words.
> To be honest: I really liked that format, although this would mean, 
> that there are talks, which are not selected by community and 
> ProgComm. Maybe such "sessions/tracks" should be selected by 
> community/ProgComm before?
> We might dedicate one of our session rooms for one/two/three days to 
> these specialized "topic driven workshops" or however we name it.....
I think this thematic grouping of talks is a good idea, and in Nottingham 2013 we already had something like this, they were called "Sessions", having a Session Chair each (see http://2013.foss4g.org/conf/programme/index.html). I think in Portland the talks were also grouped thematically, but it was not that clear from the program and they had no session chairs (at least for most sessions I attended).

This "Session-ing" makes sense and has several advantages:
- It combines related talks into a Session (reducing the inter-session room switching from the audience),
- A session chair introduces each talk/speaker, which is always nice and also helpful for audience and speakers alike,
- The session chair has an eye on the time the speaker takes, and also the responsibility for staying in time,
- The session chair moderates the Q&A, and maybe starts with a question if there are at first no questions from the audience

Something also taken into account here, is that we would need a lot of session chair volunteers, but in Nottingham that worked out, so why not in Bonn.

Cheers,
Christian

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