THE SCALE OF THE EVENT
The school lasts one week and involves over 100 people.
There are three or four courses courses or workshops offered each day. Evening lectures, social events, and a student session are offered each day.
Often there are conferences or workshops that are collocated with the school.
Naturally, such a course schedule poses various requirements for NASSLLI's location.
Preferably all courses take place in the same
building or in nearby buildings, since this provides the optimal situation for people to meet.
At least 2 large lecture halls capable of accommodating
about 70 participants are needed,
as well as several smaller lecture halls (around 3 to 4 rooms, in
the size of 30 to 50 participants).
For evening lectures, one very large hall is needed.
It is critical to make accommodations available at a reasonable rate.
In the past, this has meant dormitory housing at the host institution, or else
at inexpensive hotels.
There should be a central place where the local organization
could set up an office during the event. It should be a secure room.
When
possible, registration could also be done there. Furthermore, there should be
a large open space in the building where book exhibitions can be held.
There should be a central place for coffee and refreshments, and for display of
materials related to courses and the student sessions.
This could be a large entry hall or a departmental lounge space.
Finally, there should be good computer facilities available. Computer-based courses are popular at NASSLLI, and so they must be held in special rooms. Again, these rooms should either be in the building where the summer school is held, or at a nearby location (<5 minutes walk). It is important to make wireless internet connections as easily available as possible for all NASSLLI participants.
WHO IS INVOLVED
There are various parties involved in the organization of the NASSLLI summer schools:
- NASSLLI Steering Committee (SC)
- Program Committee (PC)
- Student Session Committee (SSC)
- Local Organizing Committe (OC)
The NASSLLI Steering Committee is a permanent body responsible for the quality of the NASSLLI scientific programs, the choice of future NASSLLI sites, and the constitution of program committees. It also seeks out funding for the school. In addition, the SC is the repository of accumulated advice on running NASSLLI.
The Program Committee is responsible for the NASSLLI course program and the selection of the evening lectures.
This committee is chosen by the SC.
After the PC has been constituted, the chair announces the call for course proposals. The majority of the courses will be selected from the submitted proposals. In addition, a few
courses may be invited. Because the summer school is primarily an North American event, and also due to financial contraints, we expect most of the courses to be taught by instructors whose travel
to the school will be inexpensive.
The PC also is responsible for preparing surveys to evaluate the courses and the school overall.
The Student Session Committee is responsible for organizing the student session. This is a forum where Master's and PhD students can present work in progress before an expert public. The Student Session is typically organized as a separate slot in the schedule of a NASSLLI, and is held every day of the summer school. Organized for and by students, this is a special event at NASSLLI. Therefore the chair of the student session is always a student. He or she should be selected by the PC chair, the SC secretary, and the chair of the previous Student Session. Typically, the rest of the committee is small in number.
The Local Organizing Committee is responsible for organizing the summer school on site. This might include selecting the summer school site, communicating with relevant people at the host institution, arranging dormitory rooms, obtaining funding, publicizing the event, registering participants (including accommodations), printing course readers, and keeping in contact with lecturers and prospective students. The head of this committee should be someone who has organized at least one workshop or similar event. This committee's work is far too much to be done by one person alone. It is critical to have several people who will be very committed at various points, and to delegate many of the minor tasks to a large group of capable locals.
SCHEDULE
The time table below is from NASSLL 2003. It is an example, of course.
| 9:00am- 10:30am |
Foundations of Constraint Satisfaction Barták |
Games in Informational Form Monderer |
Referential Intensions: a Logical Calculus for Synonymy Moschovakis |
| 11:00am- 12:30pm |
Logics of Programs Leivant |
An Introduction to the Theory of Coalgebras Pattinson |
A Mathematical Theory of Grammatical Categories Keenan and Stabler |
| 2:00pm- 3:30pm |
Logics for Communication Baltag |
Statistical Models for Language: Structure and Computation Paolillo |
Computational Semantics for Natural Language Blackburn and Bos |
| 3:45pm- 4:15pm |
Student paper session | ||
| 4:30pm- 6:00pm |
Algorithmic Verification for Epistemic Logic Van der Meyden |
Reasoning about Space Workshop |
Linguistic and computational issues in Optimality Theory Jaeger and Blutner |
| 6:30pm- 8:00pm |
Reception (Tuesday) | ||
| 8:30pm- 10:00pm |
Logic and the Dynamics of Information Johan van Benthem |
A Short History of the Concept of Information Michael Dunn |
Structured Interaction in Game Theory Michael Kearns |
| * | Introductory courses | Advanced courses | Evening lectures |