Appendix Scientific Research and Business Proceedings

1. Academic Conference

An academic conference is a conference for researchers (not always academicians) to present and discuss their work. Together with academic or scientific journals, conferences provide an important channel for exchange of information between researchers.

Overview

Generally, work is presented in the form of short, concise presentations lasting about 10 to 30 minutes, usually including discussion. The work may be bundled in written form as academic papers and published as the conference proceedings. Often there are one or more keynote speakers (usually scholars of some standing), presenting a lecture that lasts an hour or so, and which is likely to be advertised before the conference. Panel discussions, roundtables on various issues, workshops may be part of the conference, the latter ones particularly if the conference is related to the performing arts.

Prospective presenters are usually asked to submit a short abstract of their presentation, which will be reviewed before the presentation is accepted for the meeting. Some disciplines require presenters to submit a paper of about 12-15 pages, which is peer reviewed by members of the program committee or referees chosen by them. In some disciplines, such as English and other languages, it is common for presenters to read from a prepared script. In other disciplines such as the sciences, presenters usually base their talk around a visual presen-

tation that displays key figures and research results. A large meeting will usually be called a conference, while a smaller is termed a workshop. They might be single track or multiple track, where the former has only one session at a time, while a multiple track meeting has several parallel sessions with speakers in separate rooms speaking at the same time. Depending on the theme of the conference, social or entertainment activities may also be offered; if it’s a large enough conference, academic publishing houses may set up displays offering books at a discount. At larger conferences, business meetings for learned societies or interest groups might also take place.

Academic conferences fall into three categories:

• the themed conference, small conferences organized around a particular topic;

• the general conference, a conference with a wider focus, with sessions on a wide variety of topics. These conferences are often organized by regional, national, or international learned societies, and held annually or on some other regular basis.

• the professional conference, large conferences not limited to academics, but with academically-related issues.

Organizing an academic conference

Conferences are usually organized either by a scientific society or by a group of researchers with a common interest. Larger meetings may be handled on behalf of the scientific society by a Professional Conference Organizer or PCO.

The meeting is announced by way of a “Call for Papers” or a Call for Abstracts, which lists the meeting’s topics and tells prospective presenters how to submit their abstracts or papers. Increasingly, submissions take place online using a managed service such as Community of Science or Oxford Abstracts

Call for papers

Call for papers (CFP) is a method used in academic and other contexts for collecting book or journal articles or con- ference presentations. A CFP is usually sent to interested parties,

describing the broad theme, the occasion for the CFP, formalities such as what kind of abstract (summary) has to be submitted to whom and a deadline. A CFP is usually distributed using a mailing list or on specialized online services. Papers are usually submitted using an online abstract or paper management service.

Debate

Debate (American English) or debating (British English) is a formal method of interactive and position representational argument. Debate is a broader form of argument than logical argument, which only examine the consistency from axiom, and factual argument, which only examine what is or isn’t the case. Though logical consistency, factual accuracy as well as some emotional appeal to audience are important elements of the art of persuasion, in debating, one side often prevails over the other side by presenting superior “context” and/or framework of the issue.

In formal debating contest, there are rules enabling people to discuss and decide on differences, within a framework defining how they will interact. Informal debate is a common occurrence, but the quality and depth of a debate improves with knowledge and skill of its participants as debaters. Deliberative bodies such as parliaments, legislative assemblies, and meetings of all sorts engage in debates. The outcome of a debate may be decided by audience vote, by judges, or by some combination of the two. Formal debates between candidates for elected office, such as the leaders debates and the U.S. presidential election debates, are common in democracies.

Poster session

A poster session is the juried presentation of research information by representatives of several research teams at a congress or conference with an academic or professional focus. These are particularly prominent at scientific conferences such as medical congresses. Typically a separate room or area of a tradeshow floor is reserved for the poster session where

researchers accompany a paper poster, illustrating their research methods and outcomes. Each research project is usually presented on a conference schedule for a period ranging from 10 minutes to several hours. Very large events may feature a few thousand poster presentations over a matter of a few days. Presentations usually consist of affixing the research poster to a portable wall with the researcher in attendance answering questions posed by passing colleagues. The poster itself varies in size according to conference guidelines from 2x3 feet to 4x8 feet in dimension

Proceedings

In academy, proceedings are the collection of academic papers that are published in the context of an academic conference. They are usually distributed as printed books after the conference has closed. Proceedings contain the contributions made by researchers at the conference. They are the written record of the work that is presented to fellow researchers. The collection of papers is organized by one or more persons, who form the editorial team. The quality of the papers is typically ensured by having external people read the papers before they are accepted in the proceedings. This process is called re- viewing. Depending on the level of the conference, this process including making revisions can take up to a year. The editors decide about the composition of the proceedings, the order of the papers, and produce the preface and possibly other pieces of text. Although most changes in papers occur on basis on consensus between editors and authors, editors can also single- handedly make changes in papers. Since the collection of papers comes from individual researchers, the character of proceedings is distinctly different from a textbook. Each pa- per typically is quite isolated from the other papers in the proceedings. Mostly there is no general argument leading from one contribution to the next. In some cases, the set of contributions is so coherent and high-quality, that the editors of the proceedings may decide to further develop the proceedings into a textbook (this may even be a goal at the outset

of the conference). Proceedings are published in-house, by the organizing institution of the conference, or via an academic publisher. Increasingly, proceedings are published in electronic format on CD only, or distributed on Internet. A number of academic journals also use this name in their title, for example, Proceedings of SPIE, although the scientific quality of publications in proceedings usually is not so high as that of international scientific journals.