ACADEMIC CONFERENCE

An academic conference is a conference for researchers (not always academics) to present and discuss their work. Along with academic or scientific journals, conferences provide an important channel for the exchange of information among experts.

Conferences are usually composed of various presentations. Presentations are generally followed by discussions, in which participants exchange reactions and critiques. Academic conferences are also places where scholars and professionals develop friendships and professional relationships. Today, developments in technology have begun to allow for Internet-based conferences.

Generally, a work is presented in the form of a short, concise presentation lasting about 10 to 30 minutes, which is usually followed by a discussion. The works may be collected, revised and published as the conference proceedings.

The proceedings are a collection of academic papers that are published in the context of an academic conference. They are usually distributed as printed books either before the conference opens or after the conference has closed. Proceedings contain the contributions made by researchers at the conference. They are the written records of the work that is presented to fellow researchers. Proceedings are published in-house, by the organizing institution of the conference, or via an academic publisher.

Increasingly, proceedings are published in electronic formats only, or distributed on the Internet. Web conferencing is used to conduct live meetings or presentations via the Internet. In a web conference, each participant sits at his or her own computer and is connected to other participants via the Internet. This can be either a downloaded application on each of the attendees computers or a web-based application where the attendees will simply enter a URL (website address) to enter the conference.

Often conferences feature one or more keynote speakers (usually scholars of some standing), whose presentation can last from 15 minutes to an hour. Panel discussions, roundtable discussions on various issues, or workshops may be a part of the conference; in particular, conferences related to the performing arts feature workshops.

Prospective presenters are usually asked to submit a short abstract, which will be reviewed before the presentation is accepted for the meeting. Some disciplines require presenters to submit a paper of about 12-15 pages, which is peer reviewed by members of the program committee or referees chosen by them.

A large meeting will usually be called a conference, while a smaller meeting is termed a workshop. They might be single track or multiple track, where the former has only one session at a time, while a multiple track meeting has several parallel sessions with speakers in separate rooms speaking at the same time.

Depending on the theme of the conference, social or entertainment activities may also be offered. In a large enough conference, academic publishing houses may set up displays offering books at a discount. At larger conferences, business meetings for learned societies or interest groups might also take place.

Academic conferences fall into three categories:

1) Theme-based conferences organized around a particular topic.

2) General conferences that feature sessions on a wide variety of topics. These conferences are often organized by regional, national, or international societies, and are held on a regular basis.

3) Professional conferences or any large conference not limited to academics, but with academically-related issues.

Abstract management is the process of accepting and preparing abstracts for presentation at an academic conference. The process consists of either invited or proffered submissions of the abstract or summary of work. The abstract typically states the hypothesis, tools used in research or investigation, data collected, and a summary or interpretation of the data.

The abstracts usually undergo peer review after which they are accepted or rejected by the conference chair or committee and then allocated to conference sessions. The abstracts may be presented as an oral talk or as an illustrated poster during the event. Abstracts are often published before or after the event as conference proceedings or in academic journals or online. In some cases submission of a full paper may be required before final acceptance is given. In some fields (for example, computer science), most mainstream conferences and workshops ask for the submission of full papers (rather than just abstracts) and academic program committees peer review the full paper to a standard comparable to journal publication before accepting a paper for presentation at the conference and publishing it in an edited proceedings series.

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