Conference Committee Meeting -- Minutes

Western New England College, Springfield, MA, September 18, 2010

Attendees

Stoney Jackson(Conference Co-chair and meeting chair) (SJ)
Mark Bailey (MB)
Aaron Cass (AC)
Lawrence D'Antonio (LD)
Heidi Ellis
Lonnie Fairchild (LF)
Frank Ford (FF)
Nadine Hanebutle (NH)
Delbert Hart (DH)
David Hemmendinger (DH)
Johathon Hill (JH)
Mark Hoffman (MH)
Amruth Kumar (AK)
Bonnie MacSellar (BS)
Leh-Sheng Tang (LT)
Jim Teresco (JT)
John Willemain (JW)
Richard Wyatt (RW)

I. Introductions

Those present stated their name, affiliation, and role, if any, as regards the conference.

II. Reports

a. Chair's report

    • Hotel: It is the City Place Inn and Suites on the outskirts of Springfield. We have the rate of $75/night plus tax. The contract is signed; we have 50 rooms for the Thursday, 70 for Friday, and 40 for Saturday. The hotel has easy access and is 10-15 minutes from WNEC. We have three complimentary rooms. A shuttle to WNEC is available, as is parking at he hotel. (However, parking on campus is not yet arranged; Stoney will talk to public safety about it.) The hotel cut-off date for booking at the above rate is March 14, 2010.

    • Rooms on Campus: Such rooms cannot be nailed down until January because of class needs. However, the main location for the conference is Rivers Auditorium; other rooms will be in the Campus Centre, and possibly also in the Law building.

    • Menu: For the breakfast at the programming contest there will be Danish pastries and a Continental breakfast. For Friday during registration (ie noon-ish) there will be a sandwich bar. The food for the lunch for the programming contest contestants should be in the same place as, or close to, the labs. For the Breaks: "standard stuff" will be supplied. For the Friday Banquet: there will be a buffet. Choices are available with a price range of $11--$18 per head. No decision has yet been made on the choice. For the social hour: the details are not yet worked out. Regarding alcohol: we could do it, possibly at the social hour. We might give registrants a coupon for one drink. We were reminded at this point that the budget for the banquet is about $30 per head. The Saturday box lunch will have to be paid for separately by those wanting it.

    • Vendors: there will be some "freebies", but they are yet to be arranged.

    • Program Booklet: The publicity chair and the conference co-chairs do it. The list of student posters is separate; however, a list of the faculty posters are in the proceeding.

    • Budget: The budget presumes the attendance of 240 persons. Last year we got 333. The WNEC food service plans on the assumption that the numbers given to them are firm within 10%. Therefore, should there be a large number of last-minute registrants, we might have some difficulty with the food.

b. Demos

    • Last Year we had three demos, which were 75 minutes each. One scheduled demo last year did not really meet the criteria for being a demo. We have time this year for five demos. The agreed criterion is that it should be a pedagogical tool, or something similar. Presenters should provide a handout.

    • We are hoping for more than three demos this year.

    • On the reviewing of demo submissions: all reviewing is partly automated, and it would be nice if it were more automated this year. Amruth has a more recent version of the scripts that handle it -- Amruth and Paul will communicate about this. Paul controls the submission site, and Amruth will give him some help if Paul decides he needs it.

c. Panels

    • No one was present to report. However, Lonnie is to act as mentor to the Panels Co-chairs.

d. Papers

    • There was "not much " to report.

e. Paul's virtual report on CMT

    • The following remarks were made (by Paul, unless otherwise stated):

        • The CMT feature "create a new paper submission" is misleading.

        • One cannot register to be just a reviewer, as one must first do a general conference registration.

        • CMT does have the advantage of being "less problematic" than our present scripts; for example, there are no race conditions.

        • Paul recommends staying with our present scripts for 2011.

        • Aaron Cass report that in 2010 we had some reviews that got truncated somehow.

        • Amruth suggested trying EasyChair, thought they might charge for the it.

    • After all the above remarks, the conclusion was reached that we will for 2011 stay with what we have been using, and that Paul will report in April on other s/w that might be able to be used for conference management. In particular, Paul will look at EasyChair and CyberChair. The Board will make a decision on the matter in April.

    • Two final remarks were made: (1) In the CFP the paper deadline is Nov. 19, so we will need to start accepting papers by Oct 19. Paul will email Amruth about using Eastern's scripts, and Paul will get the submission process up and running by Oct 19. (2) Aaron reported that we need a new set of keywords, or categories and subcategories, in the reviewing process, and that he will send Paul a draft of same when done.

f. Posters

    • The same chairs should handle both student and faculty posters.

    • We need to improve the instructions we give.

    • We should have one presenter per poster: we do not want one person doing more than one poster.

    • Faculty can submit posters done with students.

    • We need better encouragement for persons to sign up to be a poster reviewer.

    • It was agreed that a graduate student should submit a poster to the faculty posters, and that we will encourage them to do so.

g. Programming Contest

    • We are able to accommodate 40 teams this year and so we should not have to reject at least the first team from any institution. However, the teams will be in three separate locations; this was deemed to be acceptable.

    • In the past, we have had 25-30 teams.

    • We may have some difficulty accommodating second teams from all schools who want them.

    • Two student helpers will be needed to demo the contest system.

    • A judging room will be needed.

    • Some persons other than judges are needed to assign numbers, randomly, to the teams.

    • The names of the members of each contest team are not needed at registration, but they are needed before the contest.

    • All contest problems will be addressed by Frank.

    • The languages to be provided are: Java, and C or C++.

    • Laptops are not permitted in the contest.

    • Contest problems from previous Conferences can be made available, though no mechanism to do so was mentioned.

h. Publicity

    • The CFP is yet to be done.

    • Any reasonable style for the CFP is acceptable.

    • We should try to publicize the conference "often"; items for such publicity are to be sent to Paul.

i. Registration

    • Can we use PayPal? Right now, it is unknown, though the Board might decide it later today.

    • We should try to have on-line registration.

    • In the info packet for registrants we should include local info, pens, etc.

    • Student registrants do not get a proceedings.

    • Although some persons get multiply copies of the proceeding, which is of course undesirable, it was reported that at present there is no solution to this problem.

j. Speakers

    • Ingrid was not present and so we do not know whether we have speakers at present. Stony will contact Ingrid and find out about it.

k. Tutorials/Workshops

    • In 2010 the assignment of reviewers was done by hand. Larry remarked that it would nice if we could automate the procedure for this year. It was noted that the process could indeed be improved.

    • In 2010 one tutorial presenter was unprepared. The question of how we might correct this was raised. There was a moderate amount of discussion on whether we might ask for more information in the submission than a mere abstract. The following ideas were broached:

        (1) submit an abstract.
        (2) at a later date, submit sufficient material to permit a reasonable decision to be made.
        (3) ask the submitters what resources they would need.
There was no decision as to whether these ideas are to be implemented.

    • It was noted that some workshops would be better suited as tutorials, and vice versa.

    • Heidi reported that she might run a workshop on the Thursday/Friday.

    • It was agreed that chairs could solicit persons to submit either tutorials or workshops.

l. Vendors

    • There was no report, but it was noted that it is Frank who handles the matter of getting a list of conference attendees to the vendors, and that we should ask Karl Wurst if he would manage the birds-of-feather sessions as he did last year.

III. Campus Tour

The meeting informally adjourned at this point and we took a tour of the campus facilities, as follows:

    • Campus Centre, room 149
There are no machines or laptops; there is no assigned use yet for the conference.

    • Campus Centre, room 116A
The room could perhaps be used for presentations, or even for tutorials and/or workshops.

    • Herman, Room 301
The room would be OK for some presentations if we need it. There are only 36 chairs, however.

    • Herman, Room 312
This room has 40 seats and is thus OK for tutorials and/or workshops. There is also room for more tables. It could be used for presentations if needed, but is a bit small.

    • Sleith Hall, Room 100
This is the room for the plenary session, even though it is a tad small. It would appear to seat 220-225, though the official sign reports it seats only 198.

    • Rivers (Auditorium)
This space can seat 400 persons. Although there might be conflicts, it could be used for posters, the banquet, and the breaks. Stony envisions it as a central hub. One suggestion was to use it on the Friday for the Students Posters, and then on the Saturday for the Faculty Posters.

    • RE: The Reception
There is no decision as of yet on location, but the Campus Centre food court is a possibility.

Respectfully submitted,
Richard Wyatt
(CCSCNE Secretary)