PROTOCOL ON HOW TO ORGANIZE MEETINGS OF THE ISA RESEARCH COMMITTEE 28 ON SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
By Harry Ganzeboom
Last revision: December 24, 1999
[This protocol is a statement about procedures, earlier experiences, and common-sense ideas about how to set up RC28 meetings. It is meant to be helpful to organizers and to improve the quality of the meetings. However, most of it are just suggestions, and should be treated as such. Organizers should feel free to depart from it and eager to share their ideas and experiences.]
Schedule: The Research Committee currently meets twice a year. There exist strong, but incompatible preferences on places to meet: (a) to have one in US/Canada (connected with ASA meetings in August) and the other one in Europe & surroundings (in the Spring), (b) to have interesting, but affordable places to meet, (c) to involve as many as possible stratification researchers from outside Europe and North America. In the year of the ISA World Congress, we have only meetings there, in July/August. However, this creates an opportunity to have an early Spring or Winter meeting in places that would be inconvenient for regular RC meetings (such as Canberra, Taipei).
Workload: Organizing a RC28 meeting can be a quite demanding task, but how much time it will cost will strongly depend on how much work the organizer is willing to engage in. As a general rule, it is to be expected that every participant will send 3-4 messages that need to be answered. Most of these communications will be related to hotels & housing; as a consequence, a major work saver is to provide the participants with not too many options, or let them directly communicate with the hotels. Another major work saver is to set up a separate email address, since most participants will use this (next to fax). Leave all the messages in log of the e-mail address, which is a convenient way to archive all the communications. Still another time saver (an a way to promote the conference) is when you put together a website with relevant information.
Past experience shows that most of the communication can well be left to a capable assistant. If you can afford this assistance, there is very little work left for the organizer, except setting up the initial arrangements.
Timing: The location, exact date and program / theme (if any) of the meeting should be announced to all members of the RC about a year in advance. Conferences usually last 2 to 4 days. The Secretary of RC28 will send email messages to all members at an earlier date and post the schedule and announcements on the RC28 website.
Budget: The RC meetings are to be self-financing. The main costs regard:
- Mailings (one or two) to all RC members. However, these are usually included in the RC Newsletter and the cost is taken care of by the general RC28 funds.
- Mailings (2) to all participants: (a) preliminary program + confirmation letter, (b) final program.
- Conference rooms & equipment.
- Early xerox of papers (if you decide to make copies available).
- Instant xerox of papers (if you decide to make copies available).
- Conference lunches, dinners, social events.
- Coffee & tea, other refreshments.
- Conference agenda & general information.
- Assistance before the conference (to answer all communications) and during the conference (registration, xeroxing).
Best is when local sponsors can be found. Xeroxes, food, etc. can be charged to the participants, either through a conference fee or pricing. In exceptional cases, the general RC funds are available for support. The meeting organizer is personally accountable for any expenses made by him/her. If there is any leftover, it is gracious to donate these to the RC28 funds.
Fees: Fees, if any, should be limited and be discounted or waived for anyone who is in special need (students, members from low-income countries). If the problem arises that low income members do not participate in the general conference dinner and the local organizer is not able to cover these costs, RC general funds will be made available.
Location: There is nothing wrong with somewhat boring places to meet, such as universities. Spectacular surroundings may interfere with the concentration of the participants. Expensive hotels and conference places are not advised if there is no substantial outside financial support.
Accommodation: The meeting room(s) should be spacious (60-100 persons) and convenient. Overhead projector is mandatory. If the conference is run in parallel sessions, meeting rooms can be smaller, but should meet the same requirements. Since much of the work of the RC-meetings is discussion focussed, it is much better to have a roundtable setup than a auditorium. If you have separate tables and chairs & many participants, consider to arrange them in a double or triple roundtable design.
Program: In the past, RC meetings often have followed only loosely defined themes and programs. Basically, members of the RC come out and show their ongoing research. The papers can be organized in more or less coherent sessions on the basis of titles and the abstracts sent in advance to the conference organizer.
Core program: A good way to give more body to the meetings and have better papers, is to define a core program with two or three plenary sessions and invited papers. If decided upon such a format, the organizers should go out of their way to make sure that this part of the program matches everybody's and in particular their own expectations. In particular, they should not assume that participants' paper proposals will automatically fit into the announced conference theme, but rather make sure through personal contacts that at least some fitting contributions are made.
Organizer's paper: Many organizers have reported that it is better not to do a presentation at their own conference, since they tend to be occupied with minute details. This is true. Do not even attempt to be a session chair, at best take part in the discussion from the floor. If you really cannot resists the temptation, take part in the very first session and prepare well in advance. However, do realize that putting yourself in focus creates high expectations.
Conference books: In the past, several books have been published before or after RC meetings containing papers (to be) presented at conferences. Some of these books contain a collection of local contributions (Budapest, Utrecht), some deal with the conference theme (Duisburg), others have contained papers from the conference at large (Warzaw, Konstanz, Taipei). While such publications are very valuable, they are not necessary to make the conference a success and require a major editorial investment on the part of the organizers. This type of initiative therefore is left to the organizers. An important issue here is only that such publications should not interfere with the submission of papers for publication in journals. This should be carefully checked with the prospective contributors.
Session titles: Another way to structure the program is to announce session titles in the call for papers of the meeting. As always, such titles are very broad if the meeting is not truly thematic. Examples are: "Class mobility in historical and comparative perspective", "Educational attainment studies", "Measures of stratification", "Career models", "Historical perspectives on social mobility", "Women and stratification", "Economic development and stratification", "Ethnic and social stratification", "Methods and Models in Stratification Research", etc.
Paper titles & summaries: Papers can be accepted on basis of their titles and summaries. The titles and summaries should be sent to the organizer at least 3-5 months in advance, since these are the material for putting the preliminary program together. The summaries should include: title, authors + affiliation + adresses, research problem and/or main hypotheses, name - nature - year - size of data set, techniques of analysis, main results. Summaries of presented (and distributed) papers need to be collected (preferably in electronic form) before, during or after the conference.
Acceptance of papers: Selection of papers should be on quality, substance, early mailing, and availability of a complete paper. In the past, we have hardly ever refused papers, if they were submitted in time and fell within the general theme of the conference. However, the conferences have become more popular over the years, and organizers should be eager to promote the quality of the meetings, and this can be severely damaged by having too many papers. Although the decisions which and how many papers are accepted is up to the local organizer, s/he is kindly asked to keep in close contact about these matters with the Secretary, should any problem arise.
New policy: In Warzaw, May 1999, the RC28 Board accepted a new policy on acceptance of papers, aiming at cutting down the size of the conferences and enhancing the focus and quality of the papers given, as well as the discussion of the papers. The selection is to be based (A) quality, (B) adopting a comparative perspective and more [see the RC28 website]. The new policy will be implimented first at the May 2000 conference in Libourne, where the number of papers is to be limited to 50, for a full 4-day conference.
Selection of Travel Awards: Students and RC28 members in special need may apply for travel awards. The application for travel awards should be announced immediately following the acceptance of paper, and the deadline for application is usually about 15-20 days after the paper acceptanace date. The organizer is responsible for making recommendation of travel awards to the Secretary. The notification of travel awards to the recipients is usually done within the month of application. The formal announcement of the travel awards takes place at conference dinner.
Preliminary Program: The preliminary program should be fixed at the earliest possible date, together with the acceptance of the paper and be sent to the participants some 3 months in advance. If you have trouble finalizing the program at this date, send the acceptance letters first, since these are often required to obtain travel funds. The preliminary program should be organized by session, including the names and whereabouts of all the participants, the chairs / discussants and the arrangement of sessions in time, so that participants can make their travel arrangements and plan the preparation of the paper presentation.
Final program: The definitive daily schedule is sometimes fixed shortly before the beginning of the meetings, when it is clear who is going to show up and who is not (so print the program late). Of course, one should stick as much as possible to the preliminary program, because travel plans may depend on it. During the meetings some new changes may come up: do not print new programs (that tends to be confusing), but hand out a bulletin with last minute changes, and doublecheck that chairs, discussants and other session participants are well aware of the last minute changes. Print the final program on paper with a different color than the preliminary one and make clear that this a the final program, in contrast to the preliminary one. Use the same color for program updates. Of course, the final program should also contain the room allocation for the session, as well as the exact time.
Local themes: In general it is not advisable to put contributions from one country in one session, but an exception should be made for sessions that deal with the country in which the RC meeting is organized (in particular when this is a country not strongly represented in international sociology). There is always a strong interest in presentations by local stratification researchers & their students. An interesting format for such local or other themes could also be a roundtable discussion, in which a few authorities on the subject take a prime role.
Registration, archiving: At some point in the beginning of the conference, all participants should be registered, their fee collected and their paper and summary archived. It is suggested that every author hands in a paper. Summaries will have been send by email beforehand. (It is valuable, -- in particilar when there are parallel sessions and participants will have to choose -- if you can collect these in an 'abstract book' available at the conference, but previous experiences show that there is often a difference between the abstract submitted and the abstract of the presented paper.) Titles and summaries of papers presented will be published in the following RC28 Newsletter, with the addresses of the authors. There is a fixed format for these summaries (see a recent Newsletter). If one is going to process the summaries before sending them to the RC28 Secretary (this is a very helpful service), please edit them in this standard format. In addition, participants should be urged to leave the copies of their paper that they may have brought with them on the paper distribution desk (in stead of distributing them during/after the presentation). Collecting summaries (as has been done ever since 1990) also serves to document the history of RC28 itself.
RC-Membership: As of 1994, the RC has imposed the policy that no one can present a paper on the RC28 meetings without being a member of the RC28, or having paid a $40 surcharge on the conference fee. (The actual membership fee and surcharge may vary between years and nature of the participants. The RC28 Secretary will give details.) This way we hope to stimulate participants to become paid members of the RC28. Membership of the RC28 should be checked at registration, and surcharge/membership fee should be collected from those who are non-members. A list of paid members will be send to the conference organizers shortly before the conference date. The surcharge revenues go to the RC28.
Sessions: Paper presentations at the RC meetings should be allowed somewhat more space (not less than half an hour, including discussion, but preferably more) than is usual elsewhere. There can be up to four two-hour sessions in a conference day. For a three-day conference, this means that only 3*4*4=48 papers can be accepted for presentation. Allowing for slack, this can be up to 50 papers. The program can be stretched by having parallel sessions, increasing the number of papers per session, or have some papers only distributed. [** Note the new policy above **]
Session chairs, discussants: As of the Stockholm, 1996, meetings, we have moved to a format in which there are session chairs, who will serve as discussant. (Sometimes there are also separate discussants.) This improves the quality of the discussion, but also has the desireable effect of making the mailing of the (finished) paper before the conference mandatory. In the past, organizers have had a tendency to appoint local colleagues as session chairs, but this has often proved to be a bad idea, in particular when these local colleagues attend only part of the conference, as they often do. So, don't do this. Session chairs should be be senior members of the RC28 (including RC28 board members) who speak English well and have a substantive interest in the papers being presented in the session. Chairs should never present in the sessions they chair, but keep time, give comments and direct the discussion. Please consult the Secretary before appointing session chairs, even if you feel that you know what you are doing.
The task of the session chair: It should be pointed out to the session chairs / discussants (in particular when relatively new to this task), that there duties and tasks are the following:
- Keep time in a very strict way. The standard allotment has been: 20 minutes presentation, 5 minutes comments by the discussant, 5 minutes general discussion.
- Each paper is to be treated in its own right, allotted the same amount of time, and discussed separately.
- The discussant has to be well prepared, also not to say everything there is to say. It is very helpful when discussant write down their points and hand it to the presented afterwards.
- If a paper has not arrived in time, the discussant is justified in providing no comments, but open the floor immediately after presentation. If there are no comments from the floor, move on to the next paper.
- The comments are meant to be helpful to the further development of the paper. Reduce the laudatory remarks to a minimum, and bring up substantive suggestions on how to improve and strengthen the paper. Do not use the occasion to give a paper of your own, but make the participant the focus of the attention.
- Keep time: at most 5 minutes and reducthe of points. Also, be extremely clear on how many and which points you are addressing, by numbering them. If you can, put these on a (one) transparancy.
- Invite additional comments from the floor and let the discussion not float into a mode in which the participant is making weak excuses for every error there is in the paper.
- Make sure that you oversee the floor and pay attention to everybody who wants to add to the discussion. In extended discussions, write down the order in which people have asked the floor.
Presentation position: Make the arrangements of presentation position, overhead projector etc. such that the speaker can see the audience, the chair and the transparancy, which in fact is hard to accomplish. This needs fine tuning! Best is when chair, presenter and overhead projector sit next to one another, and face the rest of the audience. So, the presenters change places during the session. Try to make the arrangement such that the presenter does not commit one of two very common errors: (A) not paying attention to directions by the chair about time keeping, (B) not facing (part of) the audience by having to face the overhead projection in stead of the audience. Also make sure that the overhead projection is as large as it can be, and as visible (lights, sharpness) as can be.
Microphones: Microphones can be a big help for presenters, in particular when they are soft spoken or have less than perfect English. Best are microphone systems that can be attached to the body. Ideally, the session room should not be so large that even louder voices cannot address the whole audience. Also the use of 'walk-up microphones' in the room is not advised, since they tend to structure the discussion into a monopoly.
Presentations: Presentation time should be equally divided between participants and not be less than 30 minutes. At least 1/3 of the time devoted to each paper should be reserved for comments, questions and discussion. Session chairs should be instructed to guard the discussion time closely.
Parallel sessions: Parallel sessions are discouraged and should not be the general rule. One should rather extend the program in the (early) evening and have somewhat more crowded sessions, than scatter the members around in two or more parallel sessions. If there are parallel sessions, put minor papers or papers with a very specialized subject into those. Make sure that the opening and closing sessions of the conference (and of the separate days of the meeting) are non-parallel, as this will build up the conference morale.
Distributed paper sessions, poster sessions: If there are too many paper proposals, the organizers should decide what to do about this. One alternative to refusing papers has been to have distributed paper sessions, in which papers are simply handed out by their authors and not presented. This would serve the purpose that the authors of those papers can still claim that their paper is accepted and go for funds to attend the conference. A somewhat better format of such sessions may be a poster session, in which several authors present their paper on a handout or poster and conference participants have an hour or so to everybody.
Xeroxes: The most valuable, be it expensive, service to the participants is quick xeroxing of all (complete) papers. This is much more important than fine lunches and dinners! All participants should be required to send their papers beforehand, so that these can be copied in the cheapest possible way (this should be charged to the conference budget). If participants have not met the deadline, they should deliver on site a clean copy of their paper or handout. Xeroxes of these should be available within hours. The extra costs can be charged to the participant. If you cannot find the funds for this operation, leave the participants the choice between bringing their own copies, or do on-site xeroxing, in which case the will be charged. Make sure that nobody can give a paper without being at least an extended handout being available to the participants in the session, or the participants in the conference at large.
Make the copies of the papers available on the day of the session, to avoid that participants steal copies in advance and the session if left with too few copies. Put the session number on the paper in a uniform way and organize the paper distribution by session number, otherwise participants will take too many copies.
Program & List of Participants: Each participant should receive upon arrival the final program of the conference (list of participants, titles, time, place), and a list of participants, including their mail and email addresses, and their whereabouts if they are in different hotels.
Social events: Social events can be at a minimum, in particular one conference reception (before the conference) and a conference dinner. Common lunch meetings are better than dinner time meetings. This is so because many participants like to get together in subgroups to do other important business. Another convenient time to get together for a social event is on the evening before the start of the conference (can be cash bar, no food), since this is a time when the participants have not had a chance to meet each other, can meet and go out for diner. Excursions or a spouses' program need not to be provided, but spouses need to be invited to the conference diner.
Business and board meeting: The Board of the RC meets once during every conference, usually during lunch time. Organizers of the ongoing conference and future conferences are asked to be present, since most of the agenda is about meetings. Once in a while, the RC meets in a formal, but brief business meeting, but usually only at World Conferences. The schedule of the conference should allow space for these two meetings.
Information to be send out to all RC-members: In general, only one mailing needs to be sent out to all RC-members, this is the conference announcement / registration form. This should also include general travel information, so that people can sort out how to travel. Usually, this can be included in the RC-Newsletter and needs not be charged to the conference budget.
Advertisement: Organizers should encourage participation of researchers who have not participated in the RC conferences before. One way to do this is by putting announcements in local sociology journals, etc.
Information to be send out to meeting attendants: At least two mailings are to be send out to everybody who attends the meeting: (1) As soon as possible, each attendant should receive confirmation about acceptance of his/her paper (this information is often needed to get travel funds); (2) at least one month before beginning of the conference the preliminary program is sent out, including last minute information on how to get there. The organizer may include here some elementary information about the surroundings of the conference, information on local means of transportation and a list of restaurants and eating places in all price ranges, but it is better and cheaper to provide these at the conference site. However, it is mandatory to provide very detailed directions (alternative, prices, schedule) about how to get to the conference site.
Advance payment: Although advance payment may seem attractive to secure some initial funds and ascertain conference attendance, it is in practice very inconvenient, because of the difficulties to convert foreign currencies and cheques, and the bank fees that this often requires. The easiest way to collect money is on the conference site. In case some advance payment is needed, it is better to get this from the general RC funds (to be refunded).
Hotels & lodging: The organizer should be instrumental in access to (cheap) accommodation. In the past, this has been accomplished by blocking rooms with double occupancy in hotels, providing student dormitories, etc. At a minimum, the participants should be informed about addresses, prices, and telephone numbers of alternative ways to stay around the conference place. It is nice to arrange all these things on behalf of the participants, but it takes a lot otime. experience suggests that almost all RC-members prefer cheap & simple accommodation over an expensive & luxurious one. An important supplementary mode of accommodation can be to provide some free lodging at private addresses (colleagues, students, friends), that takes away the costs for at least some of the participants from low-income countries, students etc.
Support: The RC28 has created the RC28 Travel Awards Fund for (limited) support in travelling expenses for members from low-income countries, (graduate) students, and others who are in need of support. Requests for support (with estimated expenses & a full paper) should be sent or forwarded to the Secretary of the RC. The awards are given as a recognition for good scholarship in the field of stratification. The priority of giving awards is dependent on the quality of the expected contributions. At the very least, the contribution should be accepted as a paper for presentation by the conference organizer. In addition, the conference organizer should evaluate all the requests with respect to contribution to scholarship and inform the RC Secretary about his/her recommendations.
Paper format: Participants should be stimulated to present (& bring) their paper in semi-standardized RC28 format. Here are some rules:
- Only papers in English.
- Please specify your name and full affiliation at the front page.
- Include the abstract in the paper.
- Prepare an appendix with descriptive materials on the data you analyze and the statistical analyses. For regression models, include means, standard deviations and correlations for all the variables. For loglinear analyses, include the analyzed cross-tabulation whenever feasible.
Presentations: The following rules should be brought to the attention of the congress participants:
- Send the full paper to the conference organizer and the session chair / discussant before the announced deadline.
- Bring full copies of your paper and/or a considerable number of handouts to the session and hand them out before you begin, so that the audience can read along.
- Prepare a presentation of at most 15-20 minutes and do realize how little can be said in this time. If you are inexperienced, try the talk on a friend and time it.
- Make sure that you get your problem and your conclusions across before you start filling in the details.
- Do not read from a prepared text, unless you are a experienced performer, in which case you do not need to.
- Prepare ample overhead sheets that summarize your talk while you are giving it. If you have small print to present (tables), make sure that they are also included in the handout/paper.
- Face the audience and speak to the audience, not to the chair or the overhead projection. Use a pointer (pen) to point to details in the transparancy at the projector (not at the projection) so that you keep facing the audience. Make sure that you are not standing in the way of the projection, or that your hand is.
- If you English is not perfect or you are not a perfect presenter to begin with, provide more overhead transparancies so that people can read along.
CHECKLIST
In advance
- Budget
- Accommodation
- Conference site / rooms
- Mailing 8-10 months in advance (RC28 listserv / website)
- Set up email address and/or www-site (include in early announcement)
- Start advertizing in professional media.
Three months in advance
- Acceptance letter.
- Start appointing session chairs (discussants). Consult with the RC28 Secretary about this.
One month in advance
- Provisional program. Stipulate that papers will be removed from the program if they are not finished and have not reached the session chair well before the conference. Information about how to get to the conference site, in particular to the first reception. If you want to have them pay by cash, say so, or otherwise which checks or creditcards you will accept.
Before the conference
- Received list of paid members to check status of participants?
- Xerox facilities.
- Coffee / Tea / Other refreshments.
- Overhead projectors. Be prepared to have a replace copy at hand when one breaks down.
- Microphones.
- Registration desk.
- Paper distribution desk.
- Archiving of papers and summaries.
- Receipts for conference fees/RC28 membership/surcharge.
- List of eateries, for lunch and dinner.
- Instruction to session chairs and participants.
- Information on local transportation.
- Name cards. Make these BIG.
- Make list of participants and their whereabouts (home and hotel adresses) and make available to all participants.
During the conference
- Update program.
- Have spare overheads and writing materials ready.
- Instant xerox.
SAMPLE INFORMATION TO BE SEND OUT TO PARTICIPANTS
Dear ...
This is to confirm that your proposed paper "TITLE" has been accepted for presentation/distribution at the "CONFERENCE". Please find a provisional program of the conference enclosed, as well as additional information on TRAVEL, LOCATION, ETC.
The conference will be held at DATE. Please be sure to arrive not later than DAY-BEFORE and leave not before DAY-AFTER.
The conference cost will be $XX for paid RC28 members, and $XX + US $40 for others. The congress fee will be collected on site and covers the cost of refreshments, ETC. [Please note that only cash payment is accepted and we cannot accommodate credit cards or personal checks.]
Please make sure that you bring to the conference XX copies of your paper.
If you have not already done so, email me the (updated) abstract of your paper IN ASCII-FORMAT, for publication in the RC28 Newsletter. The abstract should be at most 300 words, and contain information on research problems, data and statistical models used and a sketch of the conclusion, and specify full authorship and affiliations (including email and fax).
Please note with respect to the format of paper and presentation:
- Only papers and presentations in English are acceptable.
- Please specify your name and full affiliation at the front page.
- Include the abstract in the paper.
- Prepare an appendix with descriptive materials on the data you analyze and the statistical analyses. For regression models, include means, standard deviations and correlations for all the variables. For loglinear analyses, include the analyzed cross-tabulation whenever feasible.
- Bring full copies of your paper and/or a considerable number of handouts to the session and hand them out before you begin, so that the audience can read along.
- Prepare a presentation of at most 15-20 minutes and do realize how little can be said in this time. If you are inexperienced, try the talk on a friend and time it.
- Make sure that you get your problem and your conclusions across before you start filling in the details.
- Do not read from a prepared text, unless you are a experienced performer, in which case you do not need to.
- Prepare ample overhead sheets that summarize your talk while you are giving it. If you have small print to present (tables), make sure that they are also included in the handout/paper.
ORGANIZER
TO BE INCLUDED IN EARLIER ANNOUNCEMENTS
I call to your attention the existence of the RC28 Travel Award Fund, that supports graduate students and members in special need for travel to conferences. If you want to qualify for an award, please send a full copy of your paper and an itemized budget and a letter of recommendation that you may have to me and the RC28 Secretary. Awards are given as a recognition of good scholarship in the field of social stratification research and is conditional on acceptance of your paper in the program. As a rule, travel awards are given only once in a four-year period to the same person.