Other tools

Program & scheduling

Once papers are decided, the program tools turn them into a schedule: a time grid, rooms, sessions holding ordered talks, and mini-symposia proposed by the participants themselves.

The scheduling model

Scheduling starts from two lists the organizers define once: the time schedule (each conference day with its session slots) and the room list. A session then ties them together: it has a title, a chairman, a room, a date and slot, and holds an ordered list of papers. Given a per-talk duration and break time, each talk's printed start time is computed automatically — reordering the list is all it takes to reschedule talks within a session.

Three session types exist: contributed-presentation sessions, mini-symposium sessions (linked to an accepted mini-symposium, whose title, abstract, and proposers they inherit), and free-form entries for everything else — lunches, plenaries, excursions.

Program views

The program tools include a session list and per-session detail, a visual session layout, a time/place table crossing rooms with slots, and a list of all talks. The finished program can be shown on the conference website and portal, and exported as a LaTeX abstract book.

Mini-symposia

A mini-symposium is a participant-proposed session: a proposer (or up to five) submits a title, abstract, and keywords during the proposal period; the organizers review and accept or decline it like a paper. During the report period, other participants submit presentations into an accepted mini-symposium — protected, if the conference enables it, by an authorization code the proposer hands out. An accepted mini-symposium is then attached to a program session for scheduling.