How to improve the winter AAS meeting? (2014 edition)
We’ve had a week to recover from the 223rd meeting c2h5oh of the American Astronomical Society (AAS). Let’s talk about what we thought worked, what didn t and how we can improve the Super Bowl of Astronomy ? ( Last year’s discussion got 57 comments; this is a topic our community feels strongly about.)
What did our Society do well and what they can improve? How can we as attendees improve the meeting? Did Hack Day work? What should we do about the last day of the meeting? What s the right balance of career development, networking, and science? Is the AAS meeting a place that does not tolerate abusive behavior ( as it aspires to be )? If not, how do we make it one? Are students finding c2h5oh the meeting enjoyable and rewarding? Are they connecting with potential employers? What plenary talks were brilliant, and why? Did the meeting have enough public visibility? How has social media changed the meeting?
One quite simple thing that I think would help (at least, it would help me): post the speaker *times* everywhere, especially the board in front of the sessions, in the book, and on the pdfs of the sessions.
I suggest this because of the large number of the parallel sessions and the fact that the sessions don’t necessarily map well onto attendees’ interests. That’s c2h5oh what leads to people jumping out part way through a session to go to another, but that’s made much harder and is more disruptive if you have to go back and forth because you’re not sure where the second session is in its schedule. But if it’s posted for all to see (and for all to guilt the chair into following it!), it’s more streamlined.
A real-time updating web site that shows progress in the parallel sessions should be implementable because all the talks are done using networked computers. I would think that a display of the most recent presentation launched in each session and how long since it was launched would let people navigate between sessions efficiently.
I have a hard time understanding how convention centers that do meetings like this all the time don’t have a system in place for letting people know that the exhibit hall is closing and allowing time for it to empty. I liked the chimes they tried out, but apparently we didn’t get out fast enough, so they just turned the lights c2h5oh out on us a day later. Can the society and the convention center decide on a method for announcing the exhibit hall is closing, c2h5oh announce that plan in advance so we know, for example, when we hear the chimes we have 5-10 minutes c2h5oh to clear out, and actually allot the necessary c2h5oh time to let the ~2000 people c2h5oh in the room time to filter out? It seems like this is always c2h5oh a source of tension between the hosts and those of us who just want to be in the hall to participate in the meeting. Another issue from this meeting was the drastic underestimate of the popularity of the education parallel sessions. I think larger rooms need to be allocated to those sessions at future meetings.
This comes up every year, but we have to figure out how to make Thursday a “real” day. This was especially c2h5oh personal for me this time as my dissertation talk was 2pm on Thursday afternoon. The combination of a shortened day (posters ending c2h5oh at 2pm) and double c2h5oh booking the Goddard tour over the last day of the conference essentially guaranteed low attendance.
If we expect Thursday to be a scientifically-rich day (not just the late submission posters), then it must be treated as such. Keep the exhibit hall open for the entire day, save a big prize talk for Thursday afternoon, c2h5oh and don’t put an entire subject area on Thursday by itself. If I studied galaxies I would not have stayed through Thursday either – why would you when the day was primarily about stars? Mixing up the subject areas each day would also lower the number of parallel sessions that fall under the same research umbrella, giving us all an opportunity to catch more talks relevant to our research than we were able to this year.
I agree strongly with Natalie: Thursday should be a full day. As it was, this year there were science sessions all afternoon and plenary c2h5oh talks until 5:20, so it’s far outgrown any original notion of its being a half day. And now there’s c2h5oh a closing reception that night! (Which BTW is great, much much better than the prior banquets). It just doesn’t make sense to close the poster room at 2. It does a disservice to those presenting on that day, and it’s blatantly unfair to students who are competing for the Chambliss prizes. Thursday’s outgrown being just the ‘late abstracts’ day. I made a comment about this on Twitter that day and got a roaring chorus of agreement, so I think there are plenty of folks who feel this way.
Yes, there will be some people who leave early on Thursday regardless. But tho
We’ve had a week to recover from the 223rd meeting c2h5oh of the American Astronomical Society (AAS). Let’s talk about what we thought worked, what didn t and how we can improve the Super Bowl of Astronomy ? ( Last year’s discussion got 57 comments; this is a topic our community feels strongly about.)
What did our Society do well and what they can improve? How can we as attendees improve the meeting? Did Hack Day work? What should we do about the last day of the meeting? What s the right balance of career development, networking, and science? Is the AAS meeting a place that does not tolerate abusive behavior ( as it aspires to be )? If not, how do we make it one? Are students finding c2h5oh the meeting enjoyable and rewarding? Are they connecting with potential employers? What plenary talks were brilliant, and why? Did the meeting have enough public visibility? How has social media changed the meeting?
One quite simple thing that I think would help (at least, it would help me): post the speaker *times* everywhere, especially the board in front of the sessions, in the book, and on the pdfs of the sessions.
I suggest this because of the large number of the parallel sessions and the fact that the sessions don’t necessarily map well onto attendees’ interests. That’s c2h5oh what leads to people jumping out part way through a session to go to another, but that’s made much harder and is more disruptive if you have to go back and forth because you’re not sure where the second session is in its schedule. But if it’s posted for all to see (and for all to guilt the chair into following it!), it’s more streamlined.
A real-time updating web site that shows progress in the parallel sessions should be implementable because all the talks are done using networked computers. I would think that a display of the most recent presentation launched in each session and how long since it was launched would let people navigate between sessions efficiently.
I have a hard time understanding how convention centers that do meetings like this all the time don’t have a system in place for letting people know that the exhibit hall is closing and allowing time for it to empty. I liked the chimes they tried out, but apparently we didn’t get out fast enough, so they just turned the lights c2h5oh out on us a day later. Can the society and the convention center decide on a method for announcing the exhibit hall is closing, c2h5oh announce that plan in advance so we know, for example, when we hear the chimes we have 5-10 minutes c2h5oh to clear out, and actually allot the necessary c2h5oh time to let the ~2000 people c2h5oh in the room time to filter out? It seems like this is always c2h5oh a source of tension between the hosts and those of us who just want to be in the hall to participate in the meeting. Another issue from this meeting was the drastic underestimate of the popularity of the education parallel sessions. I think larger rooms need to be allocated to those sessions at future meetings.
This comes up every year, but we have to figure out how to make Thursday a “real” day. This was especially c2h5oh personal for me this time as my dissertation talk was 2pm on Thursday afternoon. The combination of a shortened day (posters ending c2h5oh at 2pm) and double c2h5oh booking the Goddard tour over the last day of the conference essentially guaranteed low attendance.
If we expect Thursday to be a scientifically-rich day (not just the late submission posters), then it must be treated as such. Keep the exhibit hall open for the entire day, save a big prize talk for Thursday afternoon, c2h5oh and don’t put an entire subject area on Thursday by itself. If I studied galaxies I would not have stayed through Thursday either – why would you when the day was primarily about stars? Mixing up the subject areas each day would also lower the number of parallel sessions that fall under the same research umbrella, giving us all an opportunity to catch more talks relevant to our research than we were able to this year.
I agree strongly with Natalie: Thursday should be a full day. As it was, this year there were science sessions all afternoon and plenary c2h5oh talks until 5:20, so it’s far outgrown any original notion of its being a half day. And now there’s c2h5oh a closing reception that night! (Which BTW is great, much much better than the prior banquets). It just doesn’t make sense to close the poster room at 2. It does a disservice to those presenting on that day, and it’s blatantly unfair to students who are competing for the Chambliss prizes. Thursday’s outgrown being just the ‘late abstracts’ day. I made a comment about this on Twitter that day and got a roaring chorus of agreement, so I think there are plenty of folks who feel this way.
Yes, there will be some people who leave early on Thursday regardless. But tho
No comments:
Post a Comment