INSTRUCTIONS FOR PARTICIPATION

Dear QUATIC 2021 Participant,


Thanks again for your interest in QUATIC’2020 and are looking forward to your participation and involvement in the virtual conference (8-11, September 2020). The overall conference program can be found at https://2021.quatic.org/program.


The virtual conference will be supported by Zoom (https://zoom.us/). Using Zoom is very easy. If you still haven’t used it, please install it in advance. You can find installation instructions here for all types of platforms.

The conference will run in some virtual rooms, whose links will appear in the program itself. Access will be protected by a password that will be emailed to you separately before the beginning of the conference. See this 1 minute tutorial on joining a Zoom meeting.


The conference rooms will be the following:

  • Main Room will be used for the Opening and Closing Sessions, Keynotes, and Panels (available during corresponding sessions, as described in the Program)

  • Parallel Session Rooms A and B will be used for technical sessions, SEDES and the Business Day (available during corresponding sessions, as described in the Program)

  • Meeting Room will be used for informal discussions and chats by participants, in an ad-hoc way, namely during session breaks (available from Day-0 to Day-3, from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM)

  • Registration Room will be used for any issue related the conference registration (available from Day-0 to Day-3, from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM)

  • TechSupport Room will be used for technical support related to Zoom use, etc. (available from Day-0 to Day-3, from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM); before the conference, the support team can be accessed through quatic2020-tech@ualg.pt; during the conference, this team can be contacted by Skype (id to be disclosed before the conference starts), for those having problems in setting up their Zoom client.


Each session will have a Host, a Session Chair, several Speakers (one at a time), and Participants. The Host will be a member of the technical staff that facilitates the use of the technology and can be the same person as the Session Chair in some sessions. The Session Chair will coordinate the session and manage the questions and answers (Q&A) periods. Each Speaker must be one of the authors of the paper to be presented online. Since on average we have three authors per each QUATIC’2020 paper, we haven’t considered the possibility of broadcasting pre-recorded presentations. Furthermore, we believe it will be more interesting, both for authors and for the audience, to have alive (synchronous) presentations by the original authors. Participants are all those attending the session. Anybody who has registered for the conference can attend any session (or change to a parallel one) at any time.


Notice that the conference schedule is expressed in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) hours. UTC is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. With QUATIC'2020 authors ranging from Brazil (mostly UTC-3) to New Zealand (UTC+12), it is impossible to run the conference in “convenient” hours for everybody, but we did our best effort. For instance, our colleagues from the University of Otago in New Zealand will hopefully make their presentation at 10:45 AM UTC (10:45 PM in Dunedin, New Zealand). As for our colleagues in Latin America, we hope that the quality of our invited keynote speakers in the morning will be worth waking up a little bit earlier than usual. We will understand if they will still be wearing a pajama 😉. To check the time zone difference from your location to UTC, we suggest you use The Time Zone Converter. Just write UTC on the left side and your country or capital on the right side.


Because virtual conferences are still a new(ish) experience for most of us, we have detailed instructions, organised by role.


PARTICIPANT

  1. Please mute your microphone unless you wish to speak.

  2. If possible, keep your camera on as it's nice to see people!

  3. If you have a question or need clarification during a talk please "raise your hand" or, if you prefer, use the comment/chat facility (consider seeing this 2 minutes tutorial on what a Zoom participant can do).

  4. However, for complex questions, these are usually better handled after the author's presentation. A time slot will be allocated for that purpose.


SPEAKER

  1. Please join your session 15 minutes before it is scheduled to start, so that any technical problems can be ironed out and you can 'meet' with the Session Chair.

  2. Previously share your short bio (i.e., send him/her an email) so the Session Chair can introduce your talk. The contact of your Session Chair can be found in https://2020.quatic.org/committees.

  3. Check the audio levels and screen sharing.

  4. We will use screen sharing so have your slides e.g., Powerpoint (or other alternatives, such as Beamer, if you use LaTeX) ready. We recommend you hide other redundant windows to make the presentation more seamless. See this 1 minute tutorial on sharing content in a Zoom meeting.

  5. There is no specific formating rules for slides, so use what suits you. We imagine many people will use PowerPoint but there are alternatives eg beamer (if you use LaTeX).

  6. Please stick strictly to the times (Full papers 20+10mins; Short papers 10+5mins). The Session Chair will give a reminder 3 minutes before the end of your allotted time. However, we don't want to erode discussion time or jeopardise the overall schedule.

  7. You might wish to previously rehearse in order to get the timing accurate and since, for many of us, virtual conference speaking is an unfamiliar experience.

  8. If you want to test your Zoom experience, you can use the Meeting Room, that will be opened on Tuesday 8th (0900-1800 UTC) for testing and social interactions.

  9. If you wish, you can send a link to your slides to the Website Chair (Jose_Vicente_Reis@iscte-iul.pt) and we will update the detailed program. This may be more effective if you do it in advance.


SESSION CHAIR

  1. Participate in the ZOOM Trial Party on day 0 where, together with the organizing team, you will become up to date, or clarify any doubts, on managing technical sessions on the Zoom platform.

  2. For each session you will chair, meet with your speakers in the assigned room 15 minutes before the session is due to start. Check the screen sharing. Remind them of the timings.

  3. Time for presentation and discussion: Full papers are 20 mins (max) presentation including your introduction and questions/interruptions followed by 10 mins discussion. Short papers are 10 mins (max) presentation followed by 5 mins discussion.

  4. Determine how each speaker wishes to be introduced.

  5. Briefly introduce the Session and remind the audience of the question protocol (normally only simple questions and clarifications during a talk) notified by hand-raising. This will be followed by the aforementioned period of discussion. Other questions can be introduced as Chat (and upvoted by the audience).

  6. Introduce each speaker.

  7. Track time and give a 3-minute warning.

  8. Look out for raised hands.

  9. Be prepared to stop the talk after the time limit. Be strict! If a talk finishes early allow a short pause so that the next talk is synchronised with the schedule.

  10. For the discussion encourage participation. Allow pauses, as many participants are still learning to be comfortable with the technology and virtual conferences.

  11. For technical help please enter the TechSupport room which will be supported by the IT Team for the duration of the conference.


Good luck everyone. We look forward to a stimulating and valuable conference.


Best wishes,


Organizing Chair

Local Organizing Chairs

Program Chairs