Overview of Scientific Programme Organization and Proceedings Production

Contact: Todd Satogata (Jefferson Lab)

Presentations

• Overview of JACoW organization and conference chronology Todd Satogata, 2013 Team Meeting, Berkeley

This introduction to the SPMS documentation describes the main activities and roles of the various parties involved in the organization of the scientific programme for a conference, production of the proceedings, and how these fit with SPMS. SPMS was designed for accelerator conferences that have a common type of organization, and the essential organizing bodies, scientific program features, and process for proceedings production are described below.

Data Integrity

Conferences using the profile and affiliation data from the central repository are asked to sign a declaration that they will maintain the integrity of the data which is entered into the JACoW repository through their conference. This is important because the data is available on-line to all conferences at the same time and the value of the central repository will decrease if the quality of the data is not maintained.

Organizing Committee (OC)

The organizing committee usually approves proposals of the Scientific Programme Committee (SPC) for the organization of the scientific programme. It may also participate in proposals for invited oral presentations, selection of contributed oral presentations, according to the requirements of each conference series.

Scientific Programme Committee (SPC)

The scientific programme is the responsibility of a Scientific Programme Committee (PC). The SPC Chair and the person responsible for the Scientific Secretariat (see below) establish guidelines concerning major activities and associated deadlines.

Scientific Secretariat (SS)

The SS works closely with the SPC to ensure that the SPMS is set up to meet all requirements for the organization of the scientific programme. It is the interface between the SPC and contributors to the scientific programme. It produces all publications, both paper and electronic (conference guide, programme booklet, proceedings). It ensures that all of the metadata required for the production of the Proceedings, titles, keywords, presentation, author index, etc., is entered and correct.

Editorial Board (EB)

Due to the complexity of electronic publication, it is wise to set up an EB to share the tasks and overall responsibility which lead to final publication on JACoW.

Members collaborate early on at the planning stage to ensure that everything comes together between the SS and the Conference setup with the relatively complex hardware, software and networking requirements for pre-conference, conference and post-conference activities.

The EB should be composed of

• the person responsible for the SS, managing the interface with contributors through the SPMS, ensuring that the meta data is correct and complete, producing the "wrappers" (ISBN, table of contents, photos, introduction, foreword, etc.)
• IT expert(s) covering hardware and software, webserver, file server, networking, setting up of all computers, etc. pre- and conference
• the person responsible for running the scripts to produce the final publication package (CD-ROM, JACoW, printed)
• the SPC and LOC Chairs (respectively SPC for scientific content and LOC for budget).

Types of Presentation

The types of presentation making up a scientific programme are most often:

• Invited Oral presentations. The SPC defines the invited programme, often on the basis of a call for proposals to various bodies (Scientific Advisory Board, OC/SPC, etc.).
• Contributed Oral presentations. The SPC, sometimes joined by the OC, selects contributed oral presentations from among the abstracts submitted in response to the call for papers.
• Poster presentations. Posters are accepted/rejected by the SPC on the basis of the abstracts submitted in response to the call for papers.

Conference Structure

The SPMS relies on the conference being structured into sessions. Sessions are events which take place on a date, at a time, in a place, in an order, with a content.

Steps in the Organization of the Scientific Programme

• Install and customize SPMS
• Appoint key personnel (authorized users/roles)
• The SPC decides the broad outline of the programme (sessions (plenary vs. parallel), Main and Sub-classifications)
• Call for proposals for invited oral presentations
• Decide invited oral presentations and schedule
• Call for abstracts and abstract submission
• Decide contributed oral presentations and schedule
• Schedule poster presentations
• Install IT infrastructure
• Paper submission
• Paper processing
• Refereeing (if appropriate)
• Quality control
• Publication

SPMS Architecture

The SPMS comprises a central repository of authors and institutes. The SPMS is freely available under a General Public License (GPL) but access to repository data is restricted to JACoW collaboration conferences. Each conference has its own database, file server and web server. These are illustrated below together with the various data flows.

All interfaces to the central repository are web-based forms and these are used by administrators, editors, contributors, registrants and so on. The connectivity is illustrated below.

Installing and Customizing SPMS

JACoW Collaboration Conference Chairs request permission to use the SPMS and associated repositories from the JACoW Chair and/or Secretary. With this approval, the persons responsible for installing and maintaining the SPMS conference instances, known as the Conference Database Administrators (Conference DBA), set up the instance (see under Setting up an SPMS Instance / Regional Support Centres).

The software packages are downloaded from the SPMS GPL site and all of the code apart from the upload/download scripts are stored in the conference database. The download contains scripts to create the database structures (tables, views etc.) and all of the packages which generate the user web pages and manipulate the data.

Once the data has been installed, the system can be customized and privileges given to the various players. At this stage administrator privileges are granted to the SS, traditionally the Conference SPMS Administrator. The Conference SPMS Administrator (person in charge of SS usually) will set up the table of Authorized Users and Roles - the individuals who will enjoy certain "privileges", for example SPC members who can propose invited oral presentations, earmark work submitted in response for the call for tenders for contributed oral presentation, etc.

The code comprises many packages for example, profile, which generate the web pages (e.g. profile.html) which the users see, so each page is generated when you ask for it. The Oracle web server makes the connection between your web form (page) and the Oracle database. The packages manipulate the data which is stored in tables in the database.

Invited Papers

The PC (and any other individuals with privileges) can submit proposals for invited oral presentations via the SPMS (titles, possible authors, a few words of abstract, Main Classification). These proposals may then be viewed online by the whole committee and earmarked (given a priority), later to be either accepted, or rejected and removed from the SPMS. The invited oral proposals selected can be used in a mail merge to prepare the invitations to invited speakers.

It is useful to set up "attributes" (see below) to track the status of responses to invitations to invited speakers.

Conference Schedule

Mapping oral presentations into time slots with identical start and end times and with presentations of the same length, allows delegates to move easily between parallel sessions. Session Chairs should be warned not to allow speakers to exceed the time allocated.

Conference Announcement

Since all profile/account holders can indicate for which JACoW events they wish to receive announcements, these are e-mailed via the SPMS to reach only those persons who have requested specific conference announcements, respecting the privacy of JACoW profile/account holders.

The SPMS can be configured such that invitations to invitation-only events can also be sent via the SPMS.

Call for Papers

Once the system parameter is set to allow abstract submission, this is made directly into the Oracle database. All contributions are attributed Main and Sub-classifications by the authors from among a list proposed by the SPC.

Approximately 30% of the abstracts which are submitted in response to the call for papers are never published - many are withdrawn by the authors themselves but a significant fraction (>10%) are programmed into the conference programme, but simply do not materialize.

Papers proposed for poster presentation are grouped together into sessions. A key element in the grouping of papers into sessions is the concept of Main and Sub-classifications.

Among the tasks of the SPC at its meeting following abstract submission are to:

• verify that all contributions are correctly classified (Main and Sub-classification)
• select contributions for contributed oral presentation
• accept/reject contributions which do not fall into the scope of the conference
• identify Session Chairmen
• identify papers which may be considered for publication in special issues of PRST-AB

Abstracts Brochure

A pdf file of the Abstracts Brochure can be prepared from an XML dump of the data in the SPMS using a set of scripts. The brochure can then be printed and distributed or simply made available via a website.

Confirmation of Acceptance

Once the SPC will have decided the contributions for contributed oral presentation, all authors are informed of the acceptance/rejection of their papers through the SPMS. They are encouraged to register (this is around 2 months prior to the deadline for “early”, “cheaper” registration) and they are encouraged to confirm to the Scientific Secretariat that they will indeed present their work.

Attribution of Programme Codes and Scheduling of Poster Presentations

The placing of poster presentations within time and space is generally decided around 2 months prior to a conference, allowing contributors who cannot present their work to withdraw.

The dates of presentation of papers in each Main and Sub-classification are decided and entered into the SPMS, creating “Sessions” composed of several different Main and Sub-classifications. The SPMS then automatically generates programme codes and this may be done according to what is known as the “village” system, i.e. sorted by affiliation and last name of submitting author across the whole venue. In this way, when a primary author is not present, a co-author from the same institute can be present to man the poster.

Alternatively the papers can be sorted by subject material and into one or several areas, but this often gives rise to an author having to present papers in two places at the same time - the SPMS will identify such authors and it is possible to manually shift posters around to ensure coverage by authors with papers in different Main plus Sub-classifications

Once the programme codes are generated, it is necessary to check that they fit into the floor plan. The SPMS provides the possibility to finely tune the place of posters, manually moving individual papers around to solve the above problem or any other individual problems.

SPMS can automatically assign unique structured identification codes (know as programme code or programme_ID).

Instructions for the Preparation of Papers / Transparencies

The web interface for the submission of papers, upload scripts and the file server for the contributions should have been tested and be running in advance of notification to authors that the instructions for the preparation of contributions are published, and that paper upload is enabled.

Authors can upload contributions until the moment the paper has been assigned to an editor for processing.

Instructions for speakers (invited and contributed orals) concerning the submission of the electronic files of their presentations should also be available around this time.

Registration

Web pages for registration are constructed using the SPMS. Participants, staff and exhibitors all use the interface and register using their JACoW profile.

Electronic Files of Oral Presentations

Speakers are invited to provide the electronic files of their presentations (PowerPoint, Word, PDF, etc.) via the SPMS in advance of the presentation in order for them to be installed on the conference venue platform for testing prior to the session, thus avoiding time-consuming laptop installations and font problems.

Processing Papers

The SPMS has an interface for editors which manages the processing of papers, previously uploaded to a dedicated server.

Papers are assigned to editors in the order stipulated by the Conference SPMS Administrator. Once a paper has been assigned to an editor, the author is no longer able to upload further versions.

The files are downloaded by the editors for processing, and the resulting .pdf file is uploaded to the server with a coloured dot to show the result of the processing, together with the editor's comments.

Successfully processed papers are attributed a 'green dot' and the papers become eligible for refereeing or for final quality assurance. The author is no longer able to upload to the server.

Papers which have undergone some editing are attributed a 'yellow dot'. The authors are required to proofread the editor's paper to ensure that the editor did not introduce any new error. The author is no longer able to upload to the server.

A paper receiving a red dot from the editor signifies that there was a problem with the paper and the author is required to take some action.

Yellow dots are often used to indicate that the editor has fixed a problem with a paper but there is a risk that the paper has been inadvertently changed without the editor's knowledge and therefore the author is requested to proof read the result. Other coloured dots can also be defined and managed in the SPMS.

Editors are able to record their comments in two fields, one which the authors can see when they connect to the conference database and the other for comments which can only be seen by other editors and authorized users.

E-mails can be generated automatically by the SPMS each time that an editor changes the processing status of a paper. The administrator tailors the texts of the mails according to the dots.

Quality Assurance

All 'green dot' papers are QA'd by a different author to ensure a "fresh" view of papers.

If this quality check is failed, then the paper may not be accepted for publication.

Refereeing

In a system analogous to the editors interface, papers may be assigned to referees for review. The referees enter their comments and assign 'dots' to indicate the status of the paper.

Final Quality Assurance

Processed files need to be checked that they conform to the required standards and the SPMS has an interface for registering QA approval. Once all of the processing, refereeing and quality checks have been successfully passed, the paper is declared as 'OK_for_Publication'.

Publication of the Proceedings

At this time the front matter is also collected: things such as Conference Organization data, Preface, ISBN/ISSN Numbers/Copyright Page, List of Participants, Industrial Exhibitors, Photos, etc. As soon as the Editorial Board is ready to number the pages, no further modifications or submissions are accepted and the final phase is started. A complete set of files for publication of the proceedings is produced from an XML dump from the SPMS After the Conference using scripts which are available from the SPMS GPL site.