Here is my contribution as a PLUG member to the discussion on how plug
conferences should be organised:
(James Anderson)
> 1) The quality of PLUG papers was very much higher than in previous years.
Maybe, but the number was also rather lower wasn't it? I'm not convinced
that you can expect the PLUG community to be able to produce many high
quality poplog-relevant papers per year - people's higher quality papers
just aren't relevant enough.
> Presumably authors were spurred on by the thaught of a paper that would count in
> the various UK research assessment exercises. Perhaps, also, authors benefited
> from the reviewers' comments.
This wasn't high on my list of motivations, but if it had been I'd have
been even more annoyed than I was to discover WHEN I OPENED THE
PROCEEDINGS that the paper I submitted to the technical track was to be
found in the applications volume of the proceeding - such things matter
in assessment exercises!
> 2) PLUG communicated its work to a wider audience - the Expert Sytems people.
Well a different audience certainly, so its total audience got wider.
But it also missed out on much of its traditional audience, and, of
course AISB would offer it a different audience again.
> 3) It cost too much.
Indeed, and while I think the organisers now know that, its not clear
that they can do anything about it.
> 4) There were no PLUG Tutorials.
No, and these have been very popular in the past, perhaps more popular
than conference talks. More generally, the PLUG bit was actually very
short (half a morning), which was alos a great shame.
(Aaron Sloman)
> I don't see any problem with a plug activity in parallel with the AISB
> tutorials before the main conference.
This might indeed be a sensible way to go, especially since AISB has now
started running tutorial meetings every year.
> Also if you wished plug to run
> in parallel with the main conference, sharing a site with AISB I can't
> see that AISB should object. That is not the same as having an extra
> stream for the AISB conference.
This seems a very fine distinction to me. The reason AISB is not
multi-stream is so that people don't have to make choices about what
they go to and so aren't tempted to follow the allegiences of their own
specialisations but instead are exposed to the breadth of AI work. I
don't see how running PLUG in parallel could avoid this unless the two
communities were completely distinct. (It is of course a separate
argument as to whether AISB SHOULD be multi-stream)
Enough responses, here are my own views. (NB: for people who don't know
I must declare an interest: I am AISB treasurer (and ex PLUG
treasurer!))
ES93
There were a number of things wrong with the ES93 event, but quite a lot
of them could probably be fixed with better preparation and better
support from the PLUG community (in terms of submissions etc.) The issue
of cost is slightly more complicated than comments seen so far might
suggest. It was't simply that the cost was too high for many to reach,
but that it wasn't even good value for money. For people whose primary
interest was PLUG, the PLUG component was too small to warrant even the
one-day rate. So while we might press for lower registration, we might
also aim for more PLUG-specific activity for your money.
Another point I haven't heard made is that while associating with ES
might be good for industrial links, the presentation of the PLUG
component of the conference was too marginalising to achieve this in
practice - it was very much a little specialist thing that mainstream
participants probably wouldn't want to think about.
Finally, whatever we manage to achieve in terms of making a future ES
link-up better, its always going to be an industrially-oriented,
expensive conference with relatively high quality papers, because that's
what it aims to be. So while it may be valuable for poplog/plug's
industrial profile, and good for our links with SGES its never going to
completely fulfil the needs of the PLUG community so we shouldn't try
and force it too. Nor should we assume that the PLUG community wants to
produce enough suitable papers for it - even five papers a year might
well be a struggle.
AISB
The actual situation with AISB events at the moment is that there are
(single track) conferences every two years, usually in spring. The next
one is April 1995 in Sheffield. These have a couple of days of tutorial
and workshop sessions attached to them. In addition, AISB are trying out
a set of just tutorials and workshops in alternate years, starting this
year again in April.
This means there are a number of ways PLUG might associate with AISB -
tutorials, workshops or conference sessions, or any mixture that suites
the particular climate. The conferences are aimed at academics, and so
registration etc. reflect this, but equally you don't get so much
industrial interest. Since there's a fair overlap between PLUG and AISB
interests, it would probably do well as a service to the PLUG
membership. How far it raises the profile of poplog in the academic
community is harder to judge - AWARENESS of poplog's existence is
probably still quite high in AI circles, but how many non-converts will
be tempted to come along to see what it can now do?
My conclusion is that these two options are actually so different in
what they achieve that we shouldn't be directly comparing them. If we
think the ES venture was useful then we should try and do it again only
better, but I would say not annually - bi-annually perhaps to keep the
quality of papers reasonably high. And if we think some link with AISB
will cover needs not covered by ES (more easily or effectively than
going alone) then we should do that too, maybe more workshop/tutorial
oriented, maybe every year or alternating with ES. (I think it would be
hard to alternate conference sessions between the two because of their
relastive timings in the year - Apr and Dec)
Roger
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