I just returned from the ICERI (International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation) Conference in Madrid. It is one if these Conferences that have as a basic motivation...money! New researchers, 'light' professors, Asian people searching networks, pay a quite good amount of money in order to have their work published. Ok, I admit it, I was one of them. It is because in the beginning of your 'scientific life' you need these kinds of pseudo-conferences basically for two reasons: 1)it is easy to get accepted and 2)you get motivated because you see that your work is more scientific than the work of people who have been doing this for years!
Some useful tips in order to avoid 'useless conferences':
- the time of oral presentation has to be at least 20 minutes without the questions (in 10 minutes it is quite difficult to provoke meaningful questions and/or interaction)
- the more specific a conference is, the more useful for you to 'network'
- go to an International Conference only if you are quite sure that you will meet people who can be really helpful for your work
- there have to be key-note speakers! if not, something goes wrong..
Get a look at my presentation by linking to:
http://www.box.net/shared/1daiksexup
I hope I'll have some feedback from you at least! See you at the next GOOD conference ;)
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4 comments:
well,
anyway you published! :-)
don't be too strict with yourself...
and consider this: you're just in that wonderful situation in which you can list your "youthful sins"!
the first step for wisdom...
c'est deja pas mal, hein?
Dear Chriss, thank you for your post, you were really "tender". Thank you also for your tipps, I experienced something similar in my first conference, the EC-TEL one (I didn't identify people to speak with before going, the conference was interesting but not that relevant for my research). Let's work and support each other!
I also remember attending a couple of pointless conferences... Of course, also learning how a conference should *not* be is useful!
Chrysa's post (and the comments) point out how important it is to prepare for conferences. For example, reading the program of past editions, reading the list of participants, or of the scientific committee, or how focused the call for proposal is.
And I must say that no, you do *not* need to attend those conferences for having one more line on your pub list or just seeing researchers that are not that good. This mainly because all good researchers will be able to spot the bad pubs in your list!
So, CHALLENGE: find out the bad conferences from my publication lists? http://www.people.lu.unisi.ch/botturil/publications.htm
Beat Döbeli wrote a nice comment (in german) on the buzzword logics of conferences. http://wiki.doebe.li/Beat/PreachingToTheConverted
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