1 / 24

University Park Campus, Penn State University June 1-5, 2008

University Park Campus, Penn State University June 1-5, 2008. Report on the First Annual School of Information Theory BoG meeting, ISIT 2008, Toronto July 6, 2008 Aylin Yener & Gerhard Kramer. School took place in the first week of June 2008. [From the “Welcome” slides on the first day] Idea.

bbatten
Download Presentation

University Park Campus, Penn State University June 1-5, 2008

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. University Park Campus, Penn State UniversityJune 1-5, 2008 Report on the First Annual School of Information Theory BoG meeting, ISIT 2008, TorontoJuly 6, 2008Aylin Yener & Gerhard Kramer Aylin Yener and Gerhard Kramer

  2. Aylin Yener and Gerhard Kramer

  3. Aylin Yener and Gerhard Kramer

  4. School took place in the firstweek of June 2008 [From the “Welcome” slides on the first day]Idea • European Winter School in Coding & Information Theory has existed since the early 1990s • Purpose: an event where students can get to know each other outside of “large” events • The idea of having a School inNorth America began in late 2006 • IEEE Information Theory SocietyBoG supported the idea • Preparations for the Penn StateUniversity event began in Sept. 2007 Aylin Yener and Gerhard Kramer

  5. Organizers and Volunteers • Program Chairs: Aylin Yener, Gerhard Kramer • Applications: Sennur Ulukus, Ivana Maric • Publicity&Web: Nick Laneman, Matthieu Bloch, Lalitha Sankar, Brooke Shrader • Local volunteers, who did a wonderful job: • Debbie Lauder (staff assistant)and other staff members atPenn State EE • Min Chen, Ertugrul Ciftcioglu,Xiang He, Ye Tian (PhD students) Aylin Yener and Gerhard Kramer

  6. Thank you… To the School Instructors for your great lectures and your willingness to take the time to interact with the student attendees. • Muriel Medard, Network Coding • David Tse, Interference and Relaying • Toby Berger, Bioinformation Theory • Vince Poor, Information Theory:Past and Future Aylin Yener and Gerhard Kramer

  7. Sponsors • IEEE Information Theory Society ($20k) • DARPA ($10k - restricted to non-food items) • Princeton University EE ($3k) • Penn State EE ($3k) • Penn State Networking and Security Research Center (CSE) ($3k) • NSF (hopefully soon, $10k for student travel ) Aylin Yener and Gerhard Kramer

  8. Attendance Statistics • Over 150 student applicants • 120 accepted and confirmed attendance • Actual Attendance: 101 students • 12 last-minute cancellations,mostly due to not being able toobtain a US visa from Canada • 7 no shows • 13 senior attendees (includinginstructors) Aylin Yener and Gerhard Kramer

  9. What the school provided • Registration Package: campus map, attendee list, other local information, dedication • Welcome Reception (Sunday) • Food: Breakfast, Coffee Break, Snacks,Lunch for Monday-Thursday • Banquet on Wednesday • Wireless LAN accounts • Poster boards/easels Aylin Yener and Gerhard Kramer

  10. Program: see school.itsoc.org Aylin Yener and Gerhard Kramer

  11. Budget • No Registration Fee: it was key to keep the costs down as much as possible. • The lectures and presentations were held in Penn State classrooms (free of charge). • Multimedia: Relatively small fee for photographer. Videos: courtesy ofPenn State • Breaks: We were able to adjust thefood amounts during the school. • Reception, Banquet: at thecampus hotel (NLI)– we were ableto save further on these two events. Aylin Yener and Gerhard Kramer

  12. Budget Details (not finalized) • We hope to have roughly 10k forstudent grants from existing funds • NSF: another 10k (hopefully soon) • We will distribute the funds. + Aylin Yener and Gerhard Kramer

  13. Feedback • Verbal feedback positive re lectures, peer interactions, and student-instructor interactions. • We conducted an anonymoussurvey (90 responses) • Rating: 1 to 5 (5 is best) • Outcome: see next 8 charts Aylin Yener and Gerhard Kramer

  14. Average: 4.52 Aylin Yener and Gerhard Kramer

  15. Average: 4.36 Aylin Yener and Gerhard Kramer

  16. Average: 4.21 Aylin Yener and Gerhard Kramer

  17. Average: 4.17 Aylin Yener and Gerhard Kramer

  18. Average: 4.44 Aylin Yener and Gerhard Kramer

  19. Average: 4.62 Aylin Yener and Gerhard Kramer

  20. Average: 4.47 Aylin Yener and Gerhard Kramer

  21. Average: 4.78 Aylin Yener and Gerhard Kramer

  22. Feedback • Attendees are overwhelmingly in favor of continuing the event. Other survey information: • How the attendees heard about the school (e-mail, web, advisor, organizers, at a conference, IT newsletter,mailing list, etc.) • Comments about the organization, application process • Recommended future instructors Aylin Yener and Gerhard Kramer

  23. Website • http://school.itsoc.org • Runs on Plone. The School Website will be an excellent resource for future events. • We posted all lecture slides, student talk slides, posters. • Lecture, panel, keynote videorecordings coming soon. • School photos will be posted soon. • Our Plone experience is positive. Aylin Yener and Gerhard Kramer

  24. Conclusion and Outlook • First Annual School of Information Theory has been a Success. • The feedback from attendees suggests to continue this event. • Motion: We propose that theSchool of Information Theorybecome an annual event withlocations in North America (andperhaps international locations). • Volunteers for 2009 ? Aylin Yener and Gerhard Kramer

More Related