!!! TO CONVENER: TRY TO READ AND SHARE THIS WITH THE PARTICIPANTS OF YOUR WORKSHOP AND INFORM THEM ABOUT THE FORMAT YOU HAVE CHOSEN!!!

The CEDAR Workshops have, in response to the growing size of the audience, tended more towards mini-AGU sessions, i.e. one brief paper presented after another for the entire 'workshop'. The emphasis has been more on work that has been done than work that is in need of corroborative data or work that could benefit from collaboration. This is a valid and useful way to run a small meeting but is not the only form that is useful to the community.

With that in mind we ask that potential conveners consider other ways of organizing their workshops. The guiding principles that CEDAR has endorsed since its inception remain:

• When preparing the session format, the conveners should keep in mind that workshops offer an opportunity for interactive information exchange between participants.
• For the students and non-specialists, it is important to introduce the topic in general terms and provide context.
• The conveners should encourage informal discussions and always allow enough free time in the schedule for it. They should avoid an 'AGU-type' session consisting entirely of scripted/scheduled oral presentations.
• In order to insure time for informal discussion, the conveners are encouraged to set the maximum allowed time (or maximum number of viewgraphs allowed) for each workshop presenter and convey this requirement in their workshop description.
• In order to stimulate discussions, the conveners are encouraged to include in the abstract of their sessions: current issues, serious limitations, controversial results, or unsolved problems they would like to be debated during the workshop.
• We encourage you to dedicate the last 15 min of the workshop to review the major issues raised, to discuss a strategy for solving problems, or to prepare the planning of upcoming campaigns or future collaborations.
• Regarding the viewgraphs presentation itself, we encourage the use of fontsize of 20 or larger.

There seem to be five general types of workshop formats that the organizers may wish to consider as they consider proposing a CEDAR workshop. Please inform the CEDAR Workshop committee of your anticipated workshop format:

1. Tutorial-type:

   • This format could be selected when the workshop is aimed at presenting a given technique/approach or at introducing a new topic to the community.
   • No more than 4 presenters during a 2-hour workshop
   • At least 10 min allocated for questions and discussion after each presentation
   • The presentations should be 'archived' as PDF or postscript presentations on the CEDAR website for future reference.

2. Short-presentation type:

   • This format could be selected when the workshop focuses on a campaign/mission/instrument results.
   • No more than 4 viewgraphs per presenter. Avoid an 'AGU-type' session. The conveners should allot at least 15 min at the end of the session for reviewing the present status and discuss the future plans.
   • Ideally some of the material would be 'archived' on the CEDAR website.

3. Round-table type:

   • This format is dedicated to a well defined topic or small scale project. It involves a moderate number of participants. Small rooms with a large, common table would be made available to the conveners.

4. Panel discussion:

   • Two or more people would take the stand and discuss from different sides, a controversial topic or a new project. The discussion would be opened to the audience for further input and feed-back.

5. Web-enabled presentation:

   • This is the most radical departure from the current format: participants are encouraged to place their material on a website as images, datasets, presentations, papers, notes, etc.
   • The participants can then access the material before the workshop and may, in fact, swap information.
   • There might be a few pre-planned talks that would address the workshop topic in the global sense.
   • At the workshop, individual participants that have contributed to the workshop 'database' would be able to present some interesting aspect of the data that they are working on and describe the questions/issues that they have and what they see from their analysis.
   • At some point in the future, we anticipate that the workshops would host peer-to-peer wireless connections to further enable the cooperative analysis of the data at the workshop.
   • Ideally some of the material would be tarchivedv on the CEDAR website.

Some additional thoughts come to mind:

• It is tempting to gauge the success of a workshop by how many people attend it - please try to avoid this mind set. It is more important that we bring together students and scientists to look at problems and gain new insight than that we do head counts.
• It is also tempting to view the success of a workshop in terms of how tight the schedule is. It may well be that a workshop topic is so exciting that it can't be covered in two hours: we suggest that you take part of your two hours to plan your own dedicated, multi-day workshop to cover the material that could not fit in the CEDAR workshop. Meeting rooms for about 20 with a large central table will be available for informal meetings outside the regular program. Please, contact Barbara Emery (emery@ucar.edu) for further details.
• Take chances. You will not be refused the opportunity to host another workshop if your workshop doesn't work out because you tried a new idea and that implementation was not entirely successful. As scientists we know and appreciate the value of a well-conceived experiment.

Note that the accepted formats for files to post or archive on the CEDAR website are: .pdf, Postscript (.ps or .eps), and html. However, .doc files can be submitted and either converted to .pdf, .txt, or .html format. Please submit your descriptions in .txt with line breaks or .doc format since they will be altered to conform to a common layout on the web and in hard copy form.

Workshop conveners need to also supply to the workshop organizers the following information (by 11 April 2005):

• title of the workshop
• plans and workshop format (the five encouraged formats given above)
• conflicts with other workshop to avoid (provide subjects or name of campaigns/missions/instruments, when applicable)
• duration (2 hours by default)
• estimated attendance (for the choice of the room)
• initial ascii short description
• any special requests

Please send any comments on these guidelines to Marina Galand (mgaland@bu.edu) and/or Larry Paxton (larry.paxton@jhuapl.edu).

-- Revised 03 Mar 2005 by emery@ucar.edu