[Sigcabinet] ASIST Technical Sessions Reorganization

[Phillip M Edwards]

I'm glad to see this discussion getting underway. I am all for the idea of
having particular "types" of sessions for the Technical Sessions: a
"traditional" panel type, a "workshop" type (like they are starting to do
at 4S: http://www.4sonline.org/meeting.htm ), and a "demos" type might work
well. If there are multiple types of Technical Sessions in the new
structure, I think it's important to let the SIGs specify one or more
acceptable format for their session, and the Program Committee can broker
some of deals with SIGs' sessions which would be better as one type or
another. I don't know if 6 and 6 and 6 is the "right" distribution, but
doing *something* is worth a shot.

I still wonder--I've wondered this for years, sometimes out loud--if there
wouldn't be some benefit to having a Minute Madness session at the AM where
all attendees can get some sense of which sessions might be most relevant
to them.

Just some thoughts... -Phil

On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:28:08 -0400, KT Vaughan <ktlv at email.unc.edu> 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.