[Sigcabinet] ASIST Technical Sessions Reorganization

[Richard Hill]

I tend to take a more fundamental look at the question.

We have, I think, Contributed Papers for theoretical research.  We rely on
the panels for practice and applied research.  We rely on SIG/panels for
timely updates and what is new.

And in fairness, I think we have not done the best job possible in letting
the SIGs know what we want.  I think panels went more academic after there
was a generalized push to make panels "better," which was not defined.
Since that charge was coming form academics, or since most of our members
are academic in part, panels became academic.

I'll bet there is little perception among the SIGs that that panels are as
described below.

I think changes are needed in how SIGs are told what we want and in how they
are reviewed (Pascal has done a great job in shepherding submissions into
order, and has not usually been the case).

Dick

_____
Richard B. Hill
Executive Director
American Society for Information Science and Technology
1320 Fenwick Lane, Suite 510
Silver Spring, MD  20910
Fax: (301) 495-0810
Voice: (301) 495-0900 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: sigcabinet-bounces at asis.org [mailto:sigcabinet-bounces at asis.org] On
> Behalf Of KT Vaughan
> Sent: Wednesday, September 23, 2009 2:28 PM
> To: Sigcabinet at mail.asis.org; Pascal V. Calarco; 'Gary Marchionini'
> Subject: [Sigcabinet] ASIST Technical Sessions Reorganization
> 
> 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.
> 
> --
> KTL Vaughan, MSLS, AHIP
> Pharmacy Librarian
> UNC-CH Health Sciences Library
> 
> Clinical Associate Professor of Pharmacy
> UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy
> 
> CB 7585
> University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
> Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7585
> Phone: 919 966 8011
> Fax: 919 966 5592
> Email: ktlv at email.unc.edu
> 
> 
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