EclipseCon 2011 Submission Guidelines

These pages are referenced from the main eclipsecon.org website. [1]

So You Want to be a Presenter?

Thank you for taking the time to consider presenting at EclipseCon 2011. Your submissions make up the heart and soul of our conference. We would love to be able to provide a speaking opportunity to everybody. Unfortunately, we have a limited number of slots, so we need to pick those talks that we think will provide the best conference possible.

This short guide has been created to help you create the best presentation submission possible. Submissions are evaluated and selected by the EclipseCon 2011 program committee (PC). Our goal is to provide a balanced program that represents all of the Eclipse community.

For some advice on creating a good submission, see what Kent Beck wrote about getting a paper accepted at OOPSLA.

Submission Guidelines

Quality presentations are a lot of work! If you are not prepared to spend the time putting together a quality proposal, it is unlikely that you will find the time to prepare for the presentation. Take the time to think clearly about what you want to say, and more importantly:

Why would someone want to use their valuable time listening to this presentation?.

Category Check

Please take the time to search the other submissions within your chosen category and make a search based on tags that might relate to your talk. If someone has a talk that is very similar to yours, you may want to approach them through the comments section to suggest working together on a presentation. Some of the very best presentations are done by a team of presenters. Make sure that you tag your own talk appropriately so that attendees and other presenters can search for what interests them.

Speaker Qualifications

Anyone can submit a talk, but the PC is looking for the very best presentations. Great presentations require a good topic, but the key is the presenter. Your experience, knowledge, and presentation skills all make a difference. Please fill out your bio in the EclipseCon submission system.

If you have done this presentation at a different venue, please add a comment to your submission that details when and where. If this is your first time presenting at a national conference, make sure that you get the practice in - do some dry-runs of your talk with people that will give you feedback. In fact, you should do this even it isn't your first time presenting.

The Submission Is Only a Starting Point

Please be prepared to work with the program committee to modify your talk so that it can fit into the program. This may mean combining your talk, shortening your talk, or changing the subject matter.

The Submission Form

The EclipseCon Submission System has been designed to be very easy to use. There are just a few things to fill out:

• Title
• Abstract
• Type
• Category
• Difficulty Level
• Author

Five minutes, and you're done, right? Just remember that the program committee will probably end up reviewing between 400 - 500 submissions. If you want your submission to stand and get selected, there are things that you can do to distinguish your submission.

Title

Short, descriptive and catchy. We all hate sales, but that doesn't mean we can live without. Your title is your sales pitch. If you want people to select your talk or attend your talk work on the title. A simple test if you are faced with two talks:

• Pimp My Editor
• Improving the Visual and Functional Attributes of the Eclipse Editor Through the Addition of Compelling Visual Communication Elements

Which one would you choose?

Abstract

The abstract is the most important component of your submission. Take the time to demonstrate that you are an articulate communicator that has something valuable to share with the community. At a minimum your abstract should address these four questions:

• What are you presenting?
• Why is it important?
• What can someone expect to take away from the presentation?
• What makes your presentation unique?

If you are submitting a tutorial, it is highly recommended to provide an outline that covers the content and the hands on exercises that you expect to give during your presentation.

Type

EclipseCon has three basic types of talks.

• Standard Talks are 20 minutes in length and are designed to enhance basic discovery by drilling into the details of a subject. A good talk requires preparation and a good pace; the EclipseCon audience is atypically highly intelligent and well prepared and thus any introductory material should be very brief (less than five minutes). There will be several parallel sessions competing with your talk (in separate rooms, of course), so your talk needs to be compelling.

• Extended Talks are 40 minutes long. If you are applying for an extended talk you will need to justify your request to the Program Committee. We've all seen too many long talks that should only have been 20 minutes, and we want to make sure that the attendees get the best use of their time. Remember, it's more difficult to do a shorter talk than a longer one. Some sage advice can be found in this Cornell piece on shorter talks.

• Tutorials are longer, hands-on presentations. Tutorials are two hours long, and Extended Tutorials are three hours long. It is expected the attendees will learn how to work with a technology. All of the EclipseCon tutorials require that the instructor let the attendees get their hands dirty because attendees who invest hours of their time at your tutorial have high expectations. Tutorial presenters should expect to have their presentation reviewed by the program committee in the month prior to the conference start.

  If you would like to do a tutorial but don't feel that you have enough material, go ahead and submit your tutorial, with a note about how much time you need for your presentation. The category leads may be able to combine complementary tutorials into a single session.

• Sponsored Talks are presented by EclipseCon exhibitor sponsors who have contracted for a sponsorship package that includes talks in the conference technical program. Only those sponsors should submit using this type.

We also have

• Birds of a Feather (BoF) sessions are informal discussion groups. This is an opportunity to meet with your community and share each other's experiences. Some BoFs are scheduled ahead of time, with others scheduled first-come, first-served on site. Projectors or microphones are not available for use in BoF sessions.

Category

The EclipseCon 2011 program is organized into three major categories or themes:

• Making with Eclipse -- Tell us what you have built on top of Eclipse and tell us how you did it. Tell us about your internal applications, commercial products or services. Tell us how using Eclipse has changed how you build software.
• Making at Eclipse -- technical content that's highly relevant to Eclipse projects, such as state-of-the-nation talks, new tools and techniques, testing, API baselines, etc.
• Making Community -- including introspective topics and asking ourselves hard questions; "Future Eclipse" fits in here -- how we are stewarding the longevity of Eclipse as a platform, as a community, and as a Foundation
• OSGi DevCon -- OSGi DevCon is an integral part of EclipseCon - an entire conference track and content selected with the support of the OSGi Alliance.

Please do your best to choose a category for your talk. Sometimes a talk seems to fit more than one category, or doesn't seem to fit any of them. If your abstract is good, the PC will be able to re-categorize your talk later.

Difficulty

The program committee is attempting to provide something for everyone. That means we need talks that range in difficulty from the novice to the expert. We have adopted the ski run standard to identify the difficulty of a talk.

• Easiest
• Intermediate
• Difficult
• Expert

When gauging the difficulty, consider how difficult would it be for a typical person that is a member of the categories community. If your talk is based on having two years experience developing SWT widgets, you have a strong Double Black Diamond. If you feel your talk can be attended by anyone that is attending the conference, you have a .

Speaker Passes

Speakers for EclipseCon sessions chosen by the program committee will receive free or discounted passes depending on the number of talks and the length of talks accepted. For example, a speaker with a standard 20-minute talk receives 50% off registration; a speaker with an extended 40-minute talk received 100% off. Bear in mind that only a very few, top-quality talks will be granted an extended talk by the PC. Two 100%-off passes are available for multiple-hour tutorials. Please note that there is no speaker discount for BoF organizers.

Speaker passes may be combined together; for example, a presenter giving two standard talks may combine these discount for a single, 100%-off coupon. Co-presenters must agree among themselves who will use the discount for a particular talk if there are more presenters than coupons available.

All presenters must register for the conference. All presentations (except for BoFs) receive a discount on registration fees. If your session has more than one presenter, all of you must register. You will receive detailed registration information after the program is chosen.

Discounts will be automatically combined by the registration system for speakers who have multiple sessions chosen by the program committee. Please note that speaker discounts are not eligible for combination with any other additional discount (member, alumni, committer, OSGi member, group, etc). Discounts are not transferable under any circumstance.

Please do not register before the program is chosen and you are notified about your submission(s).

Please email us if you have questions.

Authors

We love co-presenters. If you are going to team up with someone please make sure that they are added as an author and that your co-presenter has filled out their bio page.

You've Read All This, So Submit Your Proposal Now

Head over to the Eclipse Submission System and fill out the forms.