Two weeks before WikiSym 2008 is the right time for you to start “cooking” your own conference program. Following are some of the “ingredients” for you to use on your own “recipe”.

OpenSpace: 21 hours of conference space for you to lead!

All the WikiSym 2008 conference program is wrapped by an OpenSpace track: starting from the conference opening, morning news, four sessions per day (6 hours/day), evening news, and ending with the conference closing. A total of 18 hours for you to organize your own sessions, on your topics of interest and meet others sharing the same interests. The OpenSpace program will always be open until the end of the conference, but you can start thinking on this space to use it for your own needs.

Keynotes and Talks: George P. Landow, Steward Nickolas, and Dan Ingalls

Three inspiring talks from our invited speakers will be strong points of the conference aiming to provide us three different perspectives and insights to challenge our thinking and how we decide, our interests, and our passions.

Tutorials: 4 short tutorials for you to attend them all in a row!

If you are always uncertain about which tutorials to choose to attend, WikiSym 2008 Tutorials will help you. No need to choose! A set of short four tutorials (90 min/each), all scheduled in a row, on the first day, will offer you the chance to learn classic and cutting edge topics, from the most experienced presenters worldwide on the topic!

After the tutorials end, you will be able to go deeper on the topic in the OpenSpace.

Easy, just take the initiative and propose a session with the presenter!

Workshops: 3 different ones to choose from…

Workshops are always very fun and highly interactive events, where
groups of researchers and practitioners meet to bring, discuss, and try to
solve challenging problems.

If you didn’t submitted a position paper or any other contribution, you are welcome anyway. Your opinion is always valuable for the workshop! Each workshop has each its own schedule, but they will happen on Monday, all day.

Research Track: 20 papers organized in 6 different sessions

A rigorous selection of research papers describing substantiated new research or
novel technical results, will help advance the state of the art, or report on
significant experience.

Panel

The schedule panel will offer a unique forum to spotlight emerging issues on end-user programming with wikis. It is expected to tackle controversial topics head-on in a relaxed and highly interactive way, where each one has a voice.

Posters and Demos: a very rich set this year!

A rich set of selected posters will provide an excellent forum for authors to present their work in an informal and interactive setting. Demonstrations will complement posters or not and will provide you an opportunity to show your latest work to an experienced audience.

If you didn’t submitted your work, don’t worry, we will try to find a place for you in the rooms!

WikiFest: come learn how to grow a successful wiki!

WikiFest is a new conference session, starting this year’s edition, devoted to helping you start and grow a successful wiki. Come and learn with those that succeeded on the wikis they deployed.

DoctoralSpace: pursuing a PhD on wikis? This is for you!

The DoctoralSpace is an interactive forum for doctoral students to provide guidance on their doctoral work. Students close to their dissertation completion submitted their work and will discuss it in the forum. Students beginning their research are especially invited to attend.

Social and Special Events

Between all the conference sessions, WikiSym 2008 will provide you many opportunities for you to gather with your peers, meet your friends, make new ones, socialize and find common interests in an informal way. The Special Event will provide you an intensive visit to some of the most important points of interest of Porto and its riverfront. Unforgettable!!!

WikiWalk: know more of Porto and be challenged by Wiki practitioners!

If you are still in Porto in the morning of Thursday, September 11, you need to participate in the WikiWalk.

We’ll take the wiki way into the historic streets of Porto, joining with Porto’s vibrant intellectual and Web communities to explore the city and its networked art and media.

At the start of the day, we’ll discuss topics of particular interest — including new topics raised at WikiSym — over cups of strong Portuguese coffee. And then we’ll walk through interesting parts of Porto, perhaps visiting some notable Web studios, bookstores, cafés, notable buildings, and other venues of new and old media.

Inspired by the very successful BlogWalk meetings, WikiWalk extends the international symposium to the community and brings conferees out of the lecture hall for more casual and spontaneous discussion.

What else? Lots…

Yes, you will add lots to WikiSym 2008 program! Get ready!

Or as you will hear many times on Sunday, 7th September, in the riverfront:

“Smoke on!”

🙂

Ademar Aguiar

In answer to a Research Fellow in a Department of Sociology at a UK university:

[I received a letter from Wikisym] re: submitting a paper:

In a number of cases, the most interesting aspects of your paper might be submitted as a poster or demonstration proposal. I would very much like you to consider this as well.

The conference website gives a deadline for poster submissions on June 30.

How should we proceed? Should we still aim for a poster or prepare a more informal presentation to be given during one of the open sessions of WikiSym?

We would love to have as much feedback as possible from the wiki developer/researcher community on this service proposal.

What is in your opinion the best way to present this?

We responded:

The June 30th deadline for posters was for those that wanted to be considered for inclusion in the ACM abstracts.

We are happy to continue to receive and consider posters on an informal basis.

Regards and thanks,
Martin.

I hope this clears up any confusion.

Hi all,

Thank you for bearing with us!

So, after many hours of deliberation, the posters and demo team have completed their evaluations. I have just finished sending out the notifications. If you have submitted something and have not received an answer it is important that you contact me (demosandposters@wikisym.org) before Monday 21 July.

Similar to papers, posters were subjected to peer review. Each poster proposal was reviewed by at least three committee members and some, especially those we couldn’t take, were read by five or six separate reviewers.

Unlike papers, however, posters didn’t need to show depth of research rigour. Instead, posters were selected on the basis of clarity and relevance to the wiki community, coupled with originality, utility and degree of innovation. Nevertheless, some posters did show such rigour and those now have the option to be included into the ACM Proceedings as an ACM-DL abstract. ACM inclusion may not be appropriate or matter in every case but should the author choose inclusion in the ACM proceedings, the final copy needs to be submitted for July 26, 2008. Of the 26 demo/poster proposals submitted, we accepted 11 candidates for the ACM.

Some posters or demo submitters received letters asking them to clarify what they intend to show. An example of this is where the topic looks really interesting but there was no obvious pathway as to how they met their goal. Those people are welcome to reformulate their poster, and, we will help you evolve your submission. Due to the Jul 26 ACM deadline, posters reworked this way are unlikely to be ready for the ACM proceedings. We will continue to be keen to bring all late-breaking news as last-minute posters, so you still get to share and discuss your findings with your peers in the industry.

Finally, we have OpenSpace/UnConference track for the conference. This means that even ideas that haven’t been written may well be fantastic ingredients to these dynamic conversations. Everyone has the opportunity to present and you may find that you are able convey verbally your ideas to engage your fellow participants at WikiSym2008.

Regards,

Martin

Martin Cleaver M.Sc. MBA
WikiSym 2008 Demos and Posters Chair
http://www.BlendedPerspectives.com/