[Sigcabinet] ASIST Technical Sessions Reorganization

[KT Vaughan]

Thank you, everyone, for your help on this topic.  I have now turned 
over our discussion to the conference chairs for AM10 (Elaine Toms and 
Cathy Marshall).  They agree with and appreciate our work and send many 
thanks!  KT

KT Vaughan wrote:
> Hi all -
> Thanks for a brief and lively discussion on this topic!  I think we're 
> all in agreement that something can and should be done about how SIG 
> sessions are arranged at the Annual Meeting.  Condensing all discussion:
>
> - We want a balance between research and practice.
> - We want interactivity, innovation, and interest, but we need to give 
> guidance on how to accomplish this.
> - Other examples of interesting, innovative, and interactive formats 
> exist, especially in the "unconference" model.
> - I love the "vision, strategy, tactics" idea.  Is this something we 
> can run with?  Perhaps instead of focusing on the format we focus on 
> the content - with an understanding that certain formats will be 
> expected in the different content areas... just a thought (and 
> probably not a good one).
> - There is a concern that if we make a hard and fast limit to the 
> number of each type of session that we'll hurt the overall quality of 
> the sessions.
>
> So here's my proposal: We have three types of session - "traditional" 
> panel, interactive workshop, and some "other" category that could be 
> better explained by someone else but that I'm envisioning will be 
> along the unconference/pecha kucha idea.  If there are 18 sessions, 
> each of these three types are guaranteed to have 5 slots each, with 
> the remaining 3 slots to go to the strongest leftover submissions (but 
> NOT all 3 to the same type? the tech sessions cochairs will have to 
> negotiate this).  Examples of interesting formats for panels will be 
> provided for the SIGs via the wiki, hopefully with several examples 
> available before Nov. 6th.  I think we want to make it clear that it's 
> not the content that's the problem - necessarily - but that it's the 
> presentation of that content that needs attention.
>
> Thoughts?
> KT
>
> KT Vaughan wrote:
>> Hi SIG Cabinet Steering Cte, Gary, and Pascal!
>>
>> As promised in the teleconference from way back, I'm starting off our 
>> discussion via email of how to revamp the technical sessions aspect 
>> of the ASIS&T Annual Meeting.  Pascal, I'm involving you in this 
>> because you're co-chair this year, and because you have lots of 
>> experience on the topic.  Gary is invited in his role as AM gadfly 
>> and President-Elect.  Feel free to ignore if you would like to (the 
>> rest of you don't have permission to ignore!).
>>
>> The Board has asked us to propose new ways of organizing SIG-driven 
>> content at the Annual Meeting.  Currently these show up as the 
>> Technical Sessions.  Those, in turn, tend to be a standard model of a 
>> loosely organized set of 3-5 presenters giving talks with question 
>> time at the end.  There are some perceived problems with this model:
>> 1: It's boring. (in general) Very little interaction happens with the 
>> audience, and if the talks aren't interesting people don't get much 
>> out of them.
>> 2: It weights heavily toward academic rather than practical work, 
>> towards research rather than practice, and towards older research and 
>> completed research.  Not that any of these are bad/good - just that 
>> more variation would be desired (speaking as a practitioner who does 
>> very little research).
>> 3: Reviewers are used to this model, so they tend to rate different 
>> kinds of panels less highly b/c they aren't used to other models.
>> 4: Certain SIGs are good at organizing this kind of session, so they 
>> tend to overwhelm other SIGs in quantity of panels proposed and 
>> presented.
>>
>> We've been asked to brainstorm and then propose to the Board a 
>> different way of running SIG "panels" (for lack of a better word).  
>> One thing the Board has tentatively agreed to is to shorten the 
>> overall length of the conference from fourish days (Sunday through 
>> Wednesday) to threeish days (Sunday through Tuesday).  The SIG RUSH 
>> reception will become a welcome reception, and SIG CON will probably 
>> get folded into another reception (likely the President's?).  This 
>> means we'll probably go from having 30ish panels to having at most 
>> 20.  A current proposal on the table would reduce panels down to 12; 
>> I'm lobbying hard to get it up to 18 at least. Given that we have 21 
>> SIGs, that would by necessity mean that unless SIGs cosponsor, some 
>> won't have any programming at the AM at all.
>>
>> Ok, so that's the current status.  What we need to do is to think 
>> hard about what a good SIG session COULD look like in the ideal 
>> world, and then how we can make sure those sessions are the ones that 
>> are proposed and presented.  Suggestions at the Board meeting 
>> included promoting industry/tech demo sessions, mini-workshops, 
>> interactive discussions, pecha kucha sessions, etc.  From a 
>> structural perspective, I think it would be interesting to subdivide 
>> the panels proposals by type - and declare up front that we'll only 
>> be accepting 6 traditional model sessions, 6 of some other type, and 
>> 6 of a third type.  Then SIGs can choose which type to submit to, 
>> recognizing that it could be a lot harder to get into one type than 
>> another.
>>
>> Discussion!?
>>
>> KT
>>
>> PS: So sorry I've been out of touch.  As I think I noted before, I've 
>> been sick for weeks, and am finally feeling better.
>>
>>   
>

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