Technical Program December Inputs for the IMS Insider
The web site for paper submission has closed, and the Technical Program Committee is busy reviewing the paper summaries. There were almost 900 paper submissions, so the committee has plenty to do over the holiday season. In this month’s IMS Insider we will describe changes to one of our favorite parts of the conference, the interactive forum. We have always found the interactive forum to be an excellent way to get the perfect amount of information from a paper.
For those who are new to the International Microwave Symposium, you may not have discovered the Interactive Forum. These papers are held to the same high standards as the papers selected for oral presentation; however, they are presented in a one-on-one format. In this interactive format the attendees can direct the author to present the material to fit their interests and familiarity with the subject.
Often, we will begin by asking the author to give a two minute summary of the paper. What are the main ideas? What are the major contributions achieved in this paper? Sometimes we find that this quick summary is enough because the subject or contribution is not applicable to our work. However, we often find, to our delight, that there is an aspect to the paper that was not apparent from the title. If this area is new to us, we may ask for more context or background to put the contribution in perspective. If we are familiar with the technology, we can direct the discussion to bore in on the details and go beyond what the author would present in an oral presentation. You get the point: It is possible to direct the presentation of the paper to get precisely the amount of information you want, whether this is a quick summary or an in depth discussion.
There are several changes to this year’s symposium to allow attendees to get more from the interactive forum papers.
- The interactive forum papers will be located near the oral sessions so that it is easier to attend. We will group the interactive forum papers and the oral papers from the same focus track in adjacent rooms.
- The overlap between the oral paper and the interactive forum paper presentations has been removed. The oral sessions have been shorted to permit an hour time period between the two oral sessions in the morning and the two oral sessions in the afternoon.
- The interactive forum papers will be left up all day with the authors present during both the morning and the afternoon interactive forum periods.
- In next month’s news letter, we will describe the workshops and information posted on the web site that will help you decide which workshops to attend.