I’ve just received an email from F1000 which got me thinking about something I’ve considered in the past. I won’t go into the details of the email, as these are private communications, but it reinforced my idea that this project could actually work.I’m not sure that this hasn’t been done before, but to my knowledge, and in the context of my limited number of international meetings, I’ve yet to see it. Anyway, if this has already been implemented somewhere, I'll appreciate your thoughts and comments, so we can start using it at our meetings here in Chile.
My idea is to include in the conference book (the one that includes all the abstracts and is given to all the attendees), “Organizer’s picks”, which highlight a few posters of the ones that will be presented at the meeting. I consider this to be a useful addition to the book.
The way I think this could be done, is as follows: abstracts are sent as part of the normal application process, but authors could also include a slightly lengthier summary (with a limited number of words), describing in a little more detail the context of the research, the results and its implications. Both this “author summary” and the abstract, are reviewed by a panel of scientists involved in the meeting (i.e the organizers) and select a few they consider particularly interesting under a particular criteria, like “broadness of interest”, “significant technical advance” or whatever. This picks are then included in the conference book under “Organizer’s picks” or selections. Shall the writing of the author summary or its reviewing be considered as “too much work”, then the reviewing could be done based solely on the regular abstract.
I remember that the RNA Society Meeting has something similar, in which “selected talks” are scheduled on the first day, to start off the meeting. I’ve always considered this to be a fascinating idea.
While discussing this idea in my lab, someone argued that this may immediately unveil the potential winners of the “best poster presentation”, which may be considered a bad thing, as it takes the surprise away and may be discouraging for some presenters.
I argue that some posters may look good in “paper”, but are not nearly as exciting once you go see it and talk to the presenter (which is something conference organizers must do in order to award the prize). On the other hand, some posters may have a “low profile” abstract but may be particularly interesting, to the degree of being among the candidates to win the award. So, being included in the organizer’s selection does not necessarily guarantee that one of those posters will be awarded the prize. Further, the categories can be selected in a way such that they don't highlight the "best poster", but can be something along the lines of "broadness of interest”, “innovative technique”, etc, as I mentioned before, which won't get in the way of the aforementioned award.
Anyway, this is just an idea and I welcome your input, so tell me what you think, suggest ideas on how to improve it or express your concerns about its applicability.
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4 Comments:
I am not sure about the idea of "Organizer's picks". Usually, abstracts for posters or presentation are sent long time before the actual date of the meeting. In those months, researchers have time to gather more and better data, and often, the actual poster is more complete and well-rounded than the abstract itself.
Actually, me and others discussed this issue in the last meeting of the Chilean Society of Cell Biology meeting. The award for better poster is selected based on the abstracts that people sent months ago. So, the award is actually an award to the "best abstract" rather than an award delivered to a best poster. Really good works were excluded from the "final review" (to call it somehow).
Hi Pablo,
Please note that Organizer's Pick do not select the best poster, nor they dictate which poster will be awarded with such a distinction.
I tried to emphasize that point in the last part of the post.
I agree that abstracts may or may not represent exactly what will be shown at the actual meeting, but the general idea, approach, technique, train of thought, etc, will be clear, and that's the idea for these picks.
You are absolutely right about your comment. I believe that any kind of awards are always discouraging, specially for those scientists working at small universities in countries like Chile, where the gap among universities and research facilities can be big. I speak from my past experience working in two universities (and a biotech research company).
I can agree that a good idea will always be a good idea, and a relevant research will always be interesting. But sometimes these "picks" have a bad effect when influence the people to avoid the remaining talks not considered, or even to underestimate those works.
The "organizer's picks" would work better in big meetings, in which you can select "relevant themes" covered in the meeting. For example, giving a brief summary, and indicating some talks/posters related with that theme. I believe that such an approach will be more appreciated by the majority of the attendees, specially in our country (in our meetings, due to some reasons -time, money- , not all the works regarding a specific area are including in the same talk session).
Hey Pablo.
I believe that any kind of awards are always discouraging, specially for those scientists working at small universities in countries like Chile, where the gap among universities and research facilities can be big
I can see that some scientists (working either at big or small universities) may feel discouraged when they don't earn an award given at a conference, but that is not reason to stop giving them out.
But sometimes these "picks" have a bad effect when influence the people to avoid the remaining talks not considered, or even to underestimate those works
In my experience, people usually review the meeting book in advance and pre-select many of the posters they'd like to take a look at. The Picks will only direct your attention to some posters the organizers felt deserve wide exposure, but you can either agree or disagree.
Scientists may consider more important to check posters within their area of research, which can be an addition to their own work, rather than spending some time checking what the organizers selected (which may or may not share your interest), so I see no problem there.
Think of the picks as a sort of "F1000 of posters", at a meeting.
Surely when you see a paper selected at F1000 you don't stop reading what you are reading just to check the selected paper.
The "organizer's picks" would work better in big meetings
I agree.
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