Here is a useful strategy from Algorithm / MIT Technology Review (newsletters@technologyreview.com) called How I prepare for AI conferences.
While the author focuses on AI conferences, the same approach will work well for a conference on any topic.
///////
FROM: The Algorithm from MIT Technology Review
July 10, 2020
How I prepare for AI conferences.
The International Conference on Machine Learning, one of the largest annual machine learning research gatherings, will begin its week-long virtual proceedings in two days on Sunday, July 12. Tickets are significantly reduced this year due to the online-only format, costing $25 for students and $100 for everyone else. If you have the time and can afford to, I would highly recommend dropping in. Research conferences are one of the highest density ways that I keep up with the field’s latest work and emerging trends. Even if you can’t attend, you can still learn a lot from browsing through the accepted papers (labeled “posters”), which are accessible for free. To help you get the most out of the experience, here are a few tips on how I navigate the deluge of information:
Understand the prioritization. ICML has three main formats for people to present their research: invited talks, workshops, and poster sessions. I typically look through them in that order. Invited talks are usually given by established researchers and often capture emerging trends or challenge the community on where to head next. Workshops coalesce around the most salient topics of interest right now and provide the broad strokes on what themes the community is focused on. Finally, poster sessions are a larger catch-all for interesting papers and offer a cross-sectional look at everything that is being worked on. If you’re short on time, you’ll still get quite a lot from attending just one or two invited talks and some presentations at a workshop.
Pick an area to deepen and an area to learn. To create a more focused conference-going experience, I try to narrow my interests to two or three anchor areas: one or two topics that I already have a foundation in and want to deepen my understanding of, and one or two topics that I know little about but have grown increasingly popular. This is where prepping comes in handy. A few days before the conference, I’ll skim through all the talk, workshop, and poster titles to get a general sense of the themes and hone in on my anchors. I’ll then skim through one more time to make a list of the presentations and papers I should pay extra attention to.
Summarize key learnings. After I finish attending talks and poster sessions that I know I’ll want to refer back to, I jot down a 2-3 sentence lay summary of what it was about. The process of distilling the information without jargon helps me identify what I’m still confused about and remember core concepts that will come in handy later. Sometimes I also jot down a few sentences summarizing the overall conference to help me contextualize what I learned in the broader field and tie everything together.
Google® Better!
Jean Steinhardt served as Librarian, Aramco Services, Engineering Division, for 13 years. He now heads Jean Steinhardt Consulting LLC, producing the same high quality research that he performed for Aramco.
Follow Jean’s blog at: http://desulf.blogspot.com/ for continuing tips on effective online research
Email Jean at research@jeansteinhardtconsulting.com with questions on research, training, or anything else
Visit Jean’s Web site at http://www.jeansteinhardtconsulting.com/ to see examples of the services we can provide
No comments:
Post a Comment