Student Conference: Organisation and Overview, fall 2013

The course as a whole is organised into the following six phases:

Topic selection (1 week)
You are free to choose any topic you like as long as it conforms to the conference's main theme. To exclude too difficult, exotic, or odd topics, all topics require approval by the programme committee. The programme committee members might help out with suitable topics in case you have difficulties finding a topic on your own.
At the end of phase 1 you have to deliver a short document (about half a page) describing your topic of choice and why you selected it (deliverable 1). All documents will be reviewed by the programme committee.
Information gathering and planning (4 weeks)
When your topic is approved you research the field and outline your paper. You search for literature and review the most interesting resources you found. The reviews are documented in an annotated bibliography.
At the end of this phase you have to deliver a preliminary outline of your paper and the annotated bibliography (deliverable 2, about 3-5 pages in total). All submissions will be reviewed by the programme committee.
Development of the full paper (7-8 weeks)
After approval of deliverable 2 you complete your full paper (deliverable 3). The full paper should be about 15 pages in length. All papers will be evaluated by the program committee based on originality, form, contents, and technical quality. Based on this evaluation some (or all) of the papers will be accepted for inclusion in the conference proceedings. Accepted papers will also be orally presented at the conference.
Preparation of final paper (2 weeks)
For the actual conference we will publish a formal conference proceedings. The proceedings comprises revised versions of all accepted (full) papers (final paper, deliverable 4a).
Papers which were not accepted may be reworked and resubmitted (deliverable 4b). Resubmitted papers are not published in the conference proceedings.
Preparation of oral presentation (~1.5 weeks)
An oral presentation at the conference takes at most 30 minutes (including a short discussion). Depending on the number of students there might be parallell sessions and/or shorter presentations.
The conference (1 day)
The actual conference.

To support the students in their writing we group students with related topics into so-called peer review groups of 3-5 students. Each group will be assigned a member of the programme committee as a mentor. During the phases 2-4 of the writing process the peer review groups will meet several times to discuss their work-in-progress.