Seminar format, participation, outcomes

  Hi all,

Exciting that you're close to the first RDWG event!

In reviewing the draft call and working on announcements, I have some questions and thoughts about how the seminars will be run, who will participate, outcomes, and such.

Seminar format:
* Will the actual seminar be more like conference sessions where people present papers and there is only a little question and answer time? If so, how will the reports/"consolidated findings"/WG Notes be developed? Just by RDWG afterward?
* Or, will the seminars be more like workshops where people discuss issues and attempt to come to some conclusions (which might be specific recommendations, &/or defining additional research needs)? This seems much more useful. For this, would participants be expected to read the papers before the seminar so that they have some shared background knowledge? Then there be no need to spend time on paper presentations -- maybe just a 2 minute summary of each to set the stage for the discussions. I imagine once the papers were selected then the chairs would refine the agenda of discussion topics around the information and questions provided and raised in them. Thoughts on this?
* Will it be teleconference (voice only) with IRC? Or video conference? Or ways to share "slides"? Or other collaborative tools? (of course, logistical load increases exponentially with anything beyond voice and IRC.)
* Will it be recorded and available afterward?
* Will it be 2 hours or more?

Participants:
* What are the submission requirements?
In many cases I think there will be people who you would like to have in the discussion, but who do not have the research completed to submit a formal paper - or the time or inclination to do a formal paper. I think you'll want an option for people to submit a formal paper for publication *or* a short position paper that is more a proposal to participate (e.g., like many CHI workshops).
* What will be the criteria for allowing people to participate? For example, anyone who submits a reasonable formal or position paper *and* commits to reading all of the formal papers before the seminar? Only people active in the specific topic area will be invited based on their paper? Only people whose formal papers are accepted? (btw, I think not the latter!) I can imagine a scenario where someone submits a paper, but it is deemed not publishable - yet you think they would be good contributors to the seminar discussion.
* Will there be different levels of participation, e.g., presenters and observers? If so, who can observe?

Some of the details might be more internal issues, yet some of it I think needs to be reflected in the Call and announcements. Based on decisions around these questions, I will have suggestions for revising the Call, including the terminology.

Best,
~Shawn


-----
Shawn Lawton Henry
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
e-mail: shawn@w3.org
phone: +1.617.395.7664
about: http://www.w3.org/People/Shawn/

Received on Wednesday, 31 August 2011 00:14:15 UTC