Sponsored by the National Science Foundation GEC 20 Proposal & GEC 18 Survey Results Sarah Edwards Marshall Brinn Niky Riga March 18, 2014

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation 2 GEC Format – GEC19 – March 18, 2014 Why are we here? Today we want to: brainstorm ways to make the GEC format better fit the needs of the community we hope to review a specific proposal for the GEC format

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation 3 GEC Format – GEC19 – March 18, 2014 GEC 18 Survey Comments Sent survey to GEC attendees after GEC18 –78 people answered the survey –half were experimenters –quarter were newcomers Most common comments: –More small group debugging/coding/hands-on –Most useful parts of GEC: Hands-On Tutorials Face-to-Face meetings (both networking and working on experiments/code) –Don’t start on a Sunday A notable minority couldn’t attend all desired sessions –This was heavily biased towards experimenters

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation 4 GEC Format – GEC19 – March 18, 2014 Proposal Goals Which parts of the conference could be better for each audience? Experimenters -- more advanced tutorials & debugging Operations – continue to keep on one day Developers – space for small group work Newcomers – move intro sequence earlier to allow attendance at more advanced tutorials Clarify the “marketing” of the GEC agenda for these audiences From GEC18 survey: More space for small group interactions –More “coding sprint” style sessions for experimenters & developers –Lightening talks?

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation 5 GEC Format – GEC19 – March 18, 2014 Proposed Rough Agenda

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation 6 GEC Format – GEC19 – March 18, 2014 SELECTED COMMENTS

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation 7 GEC Format – GEC19 – March 18, 2014 Format “Smaller group coding sprints. Separate tutorials from other sessions to be able to attend them, something close to a single track conference. Flash talks on demos in the beginning of the conference to decide what I want to see. A roster of attendees will be handy for planning side meetings in advance.” One comment: Longer breaks for when tutorials run late. Lots of mention of OpenFlow (and conflicts with tutorials)

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation 8 GEC Format – GEC19 – March 18, 2014 Format “The demo session is nice, but I found it impossible to get to talk to everyone -- and I tried! Maybe there could be a demo "track" (i.e., add another parallel track) in which people could give a technical talk, and do a demo (maybe give them a half hour to do so?).“ “Please design day long session on a specific topics in each GEC. For example in GEC -19 : Python-Controller Design, GEC-20: OEDL /GIMI Thank you all.”

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation 9 GEC Format – GEC19 – March 18, 2014 Satisfying Multiple Audiences “It feels like two different conferences now. One for learning to use GENI, and one that is the lowest common denominator among the attendees (using geni, running geni, building geni). So the larger sessions are almost meaningless. The focus on learning geni is good, maybe have a conference more devoted to that outreach. You're trying to do too much and one size no longer fits all.” One comment: “The GECs seem either geared for newcomers, or for very experienced people with projects funded by the GPO. If you don't fall into either of those categories, it's not clear to me what sessions you should attend to be of the most value.” “some sessions seemed geared more towards providing feedback to the GPO on the status of various projects”

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation 10 GEC Format – GEC19 – March 18, 2014 “Instead of speakers reporting on their experiences running other GENI-like efforts, I'd be more interested in listening to talks on the GENI architecture itself and challenges with managing it, i.e. problems that the community might be interested in doing research on and finding solutions for.”