{"id":1826,"date":"2013-10-14T15:11:42","date_gmt":"2013-10-14T19:11:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mat.tepper.cmu.edu\/blog\/?p=1826"},"modified":"2013-10-14T15:11:42","modified_gmt":"2013-10-14T19:11:42","slug":"in-praise-of-poster-sessions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mat.tepper.cmu.edu\/blog\/index.php\/2013\/10\/14\/in-praise-of-poster-sessions\/","title":{"rendered":"In Praise of Poster Sessions"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the recent INFORMS<\/a> (Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences) conference, I was a judge for one of the days for the poster session (or “Interactive Session”<\/a>, as INFORMS prefers). \u00a0As a judge, I first spent five minutes each with three participants. \u00a0After making recommendations for finalists, the entire judging panel (a dozen or so people) then spent five minutes each with five finalists. \u00a0We then crowned a third place, second place, and first place<\/a>\u00a0winner.<\/p>\n

A week after the conference, I can describe in detail what each of those eight researchers (all students, I believe) did. \u00a0I can give you the strengths and weaknesses of the research of the eight posters, and can use them as examples of work that goes on in our field. \u00a0If I were hiring, I know at least two or three people I would love to have at the Tepper School. \u00a0 All this with forty minutes of engagement.<\/p>\n

Contrast this with the presentations I saw in the “regular” sessions. \u00a0I attended four sessions (not including my own, nor tutorials or plenaries). \u00a0Each was ninety minutes long, so that makes six hours. \u00a0During that time, I saw about 14 presentations. \u00a0I remember about half of them. \u00a0I didn’t really get a chance to ask questions, and I tuned out of some once I really understood what they were going to inflict on me. \u00a0Again, there were at least two or three people I would love to have at the Tepper School, some of whom are already here (and I didn’t tune out of those!), but, overall, the talks I saw did not turn out to be as memorable as the interactive presentations.<\/p>\n

Worse, consider the plight of a student I know. \u00a0He was to give a talk in a “regular” session. \u00a0There were two people in the room other than the speakers. \u00a0Two speakers did not show. \u00a0The other talks were on nothing at all similar to what the student had done, so everyone in the room spent his talk reading the bulletin wondering where they would rather be. \u00a0No questions, no interaction.<\/p>\n

Or another student who ended up with just ten minutes to present because the session chair allowed the other, more senior, people to run over. \u00a0Or another student I saw who had a delightful talk curtailed by technological and other issues. \u00a0A PhD comic<\/a>\u00a0seems particularly appropriate here:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
PhD Comics take on Conference presentations<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So, I guess my question is: “Why don’t we have more poster<\/del> interactive sessions?” \u00a0Or even all poster sessions, except for the tutorials and plenary presentations. \u00a0It is good for the presenter and good for the participants!<\/p>\n

Note added: \u00a0<\/strong>This also reminds me of having a five minute video as an adjunct to a paper, as this one sent to me by Les Servi<\/a>. \u00a0It is a great way to determine if a paper is worth further study.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the recent INFORMS (Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences) conference, I was a judge for one of the days for the poster session (or “Interactive Session”, as INFORMS prefers). \u00a0As a judge, I first spent five minutes each with three participants. \u00a0After making recommendations for finalists, the entire judging panel (a dozen … Continue reading “In Praise of Poster Sessions”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conferences","category-informs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mat.tepper.cmu.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mat.tepper.cmu.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mat.tepper.cmu.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mat.tepper.cmu.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mat.tepper.cmu.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mat.tepper.cmu.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1826\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mat.tepper.cmu.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mat.tepper.cmu.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mat.tepper.cmu.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}