jsk20 Scheduling Process and the complete Program Committee

#uncategorized #callforpapers #conference #diversityintech

The Program Committee: Miloš, Jessica, Jowe, Vanessa, Golo, Madeleine, Johannes, and Klara (clockwise from left top)

In one of our previous posts, we have introduced the first members of the Program Committee of JS Kongress 2020 — now they are joined by more members. Starting October 16, when the Call for Papers is closed, they will review all your ideas submitted in the CfP and create a selection for the program: Let’s give a big round of applause for these amazing community people!

The Anonymous Selection for the Program

For the last edition in March 2019 we have received about 250 papers in the CfP and have been able to present a great program with the help of the committee: Please find 2019’s program here.

We have already received a number of proposals through our Call for Papers form, but we are still looking forward to having yours! The CfP is open until October 15 — submit your paper here.

This year for the first time, we are doing our CfP (or “Call for Speakers” as the tool calls it) on sessionize — a great tool in our experience from a backend view. Many of you might already have an account on the platform for speakers as well as organizers, otherwise, you would have to create one for making sure you have access to your papers when coming back. How did you like submitting via sessionize? Please let us know!

This is how talks get selected for the JS Kongress 2020 program:

The core of the whole process is an anonymous selection. After the Call for Papers has been completed, all contributions are anonymized. Only the session title, content and the integration with the motto “Scaling JS — Pushing the Limits: Massive Platforms, Data-Driven Architectures, Modern APIs” are relevant for the evaluation of the proposals. The Program Committee will be assigned to the event in the tool as “content team” and therefore only have access in anonymous mode: Their view does not contain any personal data of the author (future speaker), which does also protect your personal data. Those will only be used by the Orga-Team to invite you and to create your speaker profile for the JS Kongress website (this is how a speaker profile looks https://2019.js-kongress.com/speakers/mariko-kosaka/).

The talks are not linked to speaker profiles in anonymous mode. Speaker data are not accessible at all for the content team (or Program Committee as we call it).

This means, the committee blindly assesses whether the proposed contribution is suitable for the program focus. As well, they have the option “Ignore”, when the paper does not fit this year’s motto or the topic is outside their expertise. In this case, the evaluation of the other Program Committee (PC) members will decide, whether the talk gets voted to be held on the main stage. The PC does not look at proposals in isolation, but compare them with other talks in the area: 3 talks are presented at once, which then will be sorted by which one fits best (1st, 2nd, 3rd), or if it’s even a must-have for the event (Top).

In addition, we ask the Committee for feedback about why the submission was evaluated in this way and suggestions for the presenter. This does not only make it easier to decide which presentation will be included in the program in the case of a neck-to-neck race but should also help the submitters. Because rating by numbers does not always say everything, there can be many reasons for “1st” or “ignore”. We will send you the team comments, no matter if your talk will be on the schedule or didn’t make it this time. We want to support you as well for future proposals.

One of the features, that we like the most about sessionize, is the evaluation by track or area. Therefore the PC does not find themselves confronted with many, many, many proposals (remember, in 2019 we have received more than 250 ideas). They can easily compare talks that have been submitted for a certain area, e.g. evaluate all talks for “optimize coding and architectures for scaling”, in the next step they will evaluate all ideas that we have received for the area “scale massive frontends in Angular, React or Vue” and so on.

As soon as all reviews are done, it’s the Orga-Team’s turn–please look over here, where we introduce ourselves. In the“admin” view in sessionize, the talk proposals are linked to speaker profiles. The main focus for inviting speakers is:

a diverse event: we would like to invite everyone from groups underrepresented in tech e.g. women, ppl of color, handicapped, LGBTQIA+ (our diversity scholarship program will start soon, stay tuned!)
also we encourage 1st-time speakers (there is a checkbox in the CfP form to ask for support for your first or one of your first talks): The Orga-Team, as well as your companion speakers, will offer support in preparing contents, your slides, as well as getting ready for the stage.
no trade show: We do avoid speakers that will only host a marketing show for their company’s product/service (talking about your “baby” won’t necessarily be pure marketing, please include in the talk description the usage in projects and with clients as well as brick-world examples)
unique program: We clearly do prefer talks that haven’t been presented before, or have only been presented in another language (all talks on #jskongress will be in English). But if your proposal fits like a glove, we might include it anyway.
a continuing thread and telling a story: The composition of all the talks gives an overview as well as makes some deep dive into “Scaling JS — Pushing the Limits”

The JS Kongress team will discuss all available information (that are important to fulfill the event’s goal, see main focus above) in combination with the evaluation and comments of the PC.

According to 2 criteria, we assemble the program from the pieces of the puzzle: The JS Kongress 2020 will be a diverse, cosmopolitan and welcoming community that discusses “Scaling JS — Pushing the Limits”, listens to each other, exchanges new ideas and looks beyond its own nose. This is the maxim behind our program, which is made possible by passionate work and great motivation by the Program Committee.

Many thanks for your great work, PC members!

#jskongress Program Committee 2020

These are the members of the Program Committee für JS Kongress 2020. Click on the link following their name to find some motivation for you to submit in the Call for Papers, as well as their vision of the program.