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People and finance

Organising Organizing a Hydra Samvera Connect requires a team of people, some Hydranauts who are passionate about organising a successful event plus one or two others (Hydranauts or not) from the conference venue who can make things happen there (book rooms, equipment etc). For HC2015 the program was handled by a Program Committee working in close partnership with a team from DCE on the ground; in 2016 again a Program Committee, this time working with folks at the Boston Public Library.  It is recommended that the venue for HC be sorted out at least eight months in advance and that no less than four months be allowed for the program team.Meetings conferences requires a great deal of planning.  It is recommended that the venue for each Connect should be established prior to the preceding conference so that it can be announced there.  At least six months should be allowed for the actual planning process.  Over the years we have arrived at the notion of having two planning teams: the Host Committee who are responsible for the detailed planning at and around the conference venue, and a Program Committee who are responsible for soliciting, selecting and programming the meeting's content.  Each group will ideally have a representative on the other for liaison purposes.  The work of the two groups has, in the past, been assisted by a member of the Samvera Steering Group who has dealt with a lot of the routine administration in relation to the Samvera Community.  It is hoped that this assistance will be continued by a staff Community Manager if, and when, appointed.

Ideally, meetings should have a designated facilitator who prepares an agenda in advance. Meetings/calls should be minuted and clearly identify decisions and action points (with names) within this wiki to support transparency and allow us to learn from one another for subsequent events. Someone should be given the job of checking on the page regularly to see that the action points are being dealt with in a timely fashion. The planning team(s) should use a dedicated email list (hydra-connect@googlegroups.com),currently connect@samvera.org) to make sure every member receives every email. For Connect #2, Connect 2015, and Connect 2016 the team was split with a logistics group first putting in place the organizational essentials and a program group later joining the process to flesh out the goings on at the event.  This generally worked well.

One of the earliest tasks of for the conference team host committee will be to arrive at a figure for the conference fee - one which is realistic in terms of covering the hire of rooms, refreshments, the "formal" evening event, equipment hire, conference give-aways, printing and signage, badges and admin fees etc.   Matters financial are dealt with on the next page.

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Every effort should be made to ensure that the dates for the Connect meeting do not clash with other events that might draw on the pool of potential delegates.  It   In particular, the DLF Forum takes place at a similar time of year and its proximity on the calendar can be a problem for potential attendees.  It has been pointed out that late September and into October is the time of several Jewish high holidays which may prevent some of our colleagues attending.

The first Connect meeting spanned four days: a pre-meeting workshop day and then three days of meeting proper.  As noted below, there are potentially good reasons for loading such an international meeting towards the end of a week.  This model was refined for Connect #2 to have an explicit workshop day, two conference days and then a day totally committed to working groups.  It was noted that there was significant fall-off in attendance on the afternoon of the workshop day as people headed for the airport.  For Connect 2015, there was a workshop day, a day half-and-half between plenary and poster session, a day half plenary, half beakout (unconference) and a further day of unconference.  Connect 2016 had a workshop day, a day split between plenary and posters, a day split between parallel sessions and panels, and a final day with unconference in the morning and specific working groups in the afternoon.  This arrangement seemed to have dealt well with the final day lunchtime drop-off by timetabling only pre-arranged groups in the afternoonFrom 2017, or thereabouts, the conference has fallen into a pattern:  Monday of the conference week is a Partner Meeting which, although nothing directly to do with the conference, requires a space with remote access facilities to take place.  Partners attending will expect to make their own lunch arrangements but would likely be grateful for pre-meeting coffee and perhaps a top-up later in the day if that can be arranged easily.  Tuesday is a workshop day, Wednesday is a plenary session in the morning with a poster reception in the afternoon, Thursday is largely devoted to presentations and panels, Friday morning is an unconference session.  The conference usually finishes at lunchtime on Friday because so many people head to the airport at that point that timetabling afternoon events may be pointless.

Facilities

From the beginning, the organisers organizers need a clear view of the structure and outline content of the meeting because this has an impact on facilities needs.

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• General needs
  • Access to reliable high speed wireless Internet is required to enable communications and aspects of the program. Hydra  Samvera folks are hyper-connected to the Internet. Many will need Internet connections to present, some have ongoing coding responsibilities during the conference, still others need to track correspondence while attending the conference.  Of these a proportion will expect to be able to use, for example, VPN, IRC, Slack, and Github without difficulty.  Organisers shouldn't  Organizers should not underestimate the load that a conference like this can put on local systems - many delegates will have multiple devices in play.  As a corollary: delegates will also appreciate access to power strips, if possible, to keep their devices charged whilst in Connect sessions; lack of accessible power was probably the biggest single complaint from Connect #2.  Despite the best efforts of the local organizers in 2016, BPL's technical folks woefully underestimated the wifi demands such that on the first day of the conference proper the "dedicated" wifi was overloaded to the point of being unusable for many, so people switched to the library's public wifi network - and pretty well took that down too.  It is strongly recommended that organisers engage their institution’s network engineering staff to communicate with venue staff to help validate whether wifi capacity will be adequate.  The majority of delegates nowadays have an Eduroam account but organizers should also ensure there is a guest network for those who do not (or if their organization does not offer Eduroam).
     
  • Refreshments and food.  At the first Hydra Connect we provided coffee each morning and, additionally, pastries on the first day of the meeting proper (which is to say not on the preceding workshop day): this service seemed to be much appreciated.  It is advised that participants do not have to stray far from the meeting in order to buy refreshments of their own during breaks - if they do, they will almost certainly be late back to the following session. 
    Connect #2 had morning coffee on the Tuesday workshop day (based on 75% of the full attendance), Wednesday morning and morning break coffee, Thursday morning and morning break coffee, and Friday morning coffee only (again based on 75%).  Pastries were provided first thing Tuesday and Wednesday only.  In retrospect, coffee during the Tuesday and Friday morning breaks would likely have been appreciated and we did hear some complaints that a more consistent approach to "breakfast" (pastries) would have been better. 
    Connect #2 was big enough that the eatery obviously available to delegates for lunch was overwhelmed; in retrospect we might have warned them!  In fact there was a large food court 2-3 minutes from the conference sessions that most delegates failed to find on the first day.  Lessons:  if there are only a few of them, make sure the obvious local eateries are forewarned; make sure delegates know in advance where to find lunch close to the conference rooms.
    

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• •   It has become the pattern that, during the conference proper (Wednesday to Friday mid-morning) the hosts offer a light breakfast and a refreshment break mid-morning and mid-afternoon.  The food and drink provided need to cater for the range of dietary needs specified in the conference registrations.  Some venues have offered lunches as part of the conference fee but, if there are adequate catering outlets in close proximity to the event, this may not be necessary.  If local catering is used it may be wise to warn outlets that the conference could produce an unusual peak in demand.

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• • Social event(s):  Part of the fee charged for the first two Hydra Connects was used to fund food on the evening of the first formal day: such a social event is a good way to get people networking.    Connect #2 provided wiki sign-up sheets for ad-hoc dinner groupings on the Monday evening preceding the event and an optional beer bus (charged separately) on the Tuesday night.  Connect 2015 arranged an optional conference "dinner" charged separately.  About 65% attended.  In 2016, the costs of arranging an evening dinner (in Boston) were just prohibitive - but a number of people commented that the event was "missed".
     Conference goodies:  It seems that conference goers (and Hydranauts are no exception) like some conference goodies.  These may be bookmarks, stickers etc.  At the first two Hydra Connects part of the conference fee funded t-shirts.  Ideally these will be of a different design to any Hydra t-shirt offered at the summer Open Repositories conference.
    Dates: The timing should ideally be loaded to the end of the week - so, for instance, pre-conference on a Tuesday, conference proper Wednesday - Friday.  This will allow folks who need to stay a Saturday night to get cheaper air fares still to have the option of coming in for the pre-conference day or not without forcing an extra non-meeting day on them  Early Connect conferences included an evening buffet event. This was discontinued from 2016 on partly because delegates' enthusiasm for it was mixed and partly becuase the additional cost for them could be considerable.  More recently, hosts have provided recommendations about good places to eat in the evenings and have usually arranged voluntary sign-up lists for people who would like to make up dinner groups.
     
  • Conference goodies:  From the very early days, we have provided a conference t-shirt from within the registration fees.  This is now an expectation and people look forward to each year's new design.  Thus far, the design has always been facilitate by Lynn McRae at Stanford and, even though he is now retired, he seems keen to continue that service.  The registration process should establish what size and gender t-shirt each person requires.  Lynn can arrange production of the shirts or they can be printed locally.
    
    
  • Hotel(s):  The conference organizers should try to arrange preferential rates at one or more local hotels.  Rather than commit to a large number of bookings, at Connect #2 we managed to arrange that we guaranteed only the first 20 bookings but then the hotel added more rooms, 20 at a time, with no further commitment. The welcome proximity of the conference hotel (where we had arranged preferential rates) was favorably received by many participants in Connect #2.  HC2015 was similar, as was 2016
    
Space needs
• What is the balance between needing a plenary space and breakout spaces?  Which rooms are needed which days?  Don't forget an "unconference" space for those who want to skip a particular organised session.  A room for developers to work together, or designated public space for individual work, can also be helpful.
• If at all possible, the plenary space should be available for a "round-up" session at the end of the last day (though experience shows that people prefer to head for the airport!)  In 2016 we decided not even to try...
• The acoustics in large plenary spaces are frequently poor.  Such a room will need a microphone at the podium and roving microphone(s) for questions etc.  Ideally, an engineer should be on hand to deal with sound problems.  Acoustics were a problem with a couple of rooms again in 2016.
• Experience suggests that using such a plenary space also as a breakout space is not ideal unless one of the breakouts is very large.  The acoustics of the ballrooms used at UCSD and CWRU were not good for a small group.
The ideal space is probably one plenary space and at least four breakout rooms. We were commended at HC2015 for finding a plenary space that was a room (not a ballroom or lecture theatre) with seating at round tables.  The lower ceiling made it more "cosy" and people naturally gathered there to chat prior to sessions using the room.
• • A greater commitment is usually required.  If such block booking comes with one or more 'free' rooms, past organizers have been generous in donating these for use in conjunction with the conference scholarship scheme.  In arranging discount periods, organizers should try to accommodate the needs of some delegates who will 'need' to stay the Saturday night prior to or immediately after the conference in order that they can get discounted air fares - this is perhaps especially true for transatlantic delegates.
    
    An alternative strategy used by the 2019 host committee is to direct delegates to a number of local hotels which offer a 'university discount' and to agree with the hotels in advance that delegates can access the lower rate.
• Space needs
  • The workshop day will need a number of rooms to accommodate parallel workshop sessions.  Most workshops are likely to require flat table surfaces (not chairs with swing-in surfaces, or a lecture theatre arrangement) with access to power for laptops. Five parallel sessions has been known.
  • Throughout the conference it will be helpful if there is always a small 'quiet room' available.
  • The plenary session will require a large space with good acoustics and projection facilities.  Ideally it will be able to support lapel microphones for the speakers and roving microphones at question times.
  • The poster session requires a good open space with pinboards for up to 60 or so posters.  There needs to be plenty of circulation space and the acoustic should deal with many people talking at once without the ambient noise becoming obtrusive.  A reception (drinks and nibbles) is normally provided in conjunction with this session and needs appropriate space for the food and drink to be laid out.  It is possible that a series of lightning talks will be presented at the same time as this session and if so, it will require a nearby room so that people can 'slip out' and back again.
  • The presentations and panels will require at least five rooms be available (plus the quiet room).  This potentially allows for four mainstream tracks plus a further track of lightning talks (unless they are completely covered alongside the poster session).
  • The unconference session requires a number of rooms - those available for the previous day's presentations and panels will be adequate.
  • It is likely that the Samvera Steering Group will wish to hold a meeting for an hour before the start of conference business - likely on the Thursday or Friday.
  • Ideally, all the above conference rooms will be able to support audio recording, if not actual streaming.  It is appreciated that local AV costs may limit what can be done in this regard.
  • There will be occasional other needs for rooms.  Samvera folks like to be able to have small meetings of, for instance, Working Group members, or to organize Birds of a Feather meetings (BOFs).  They will likely appreciate rooms being available across lunchtimes and possibly for a short time at the end of the day. 
    
    
• Equipment needs
  • General sound and vision: The plenary space will need very good projection facilities and sound.  A roving mic should be available for Q&A sessions.  Breakout rooms needed for working groups will need a projector  All presentation and panel spaces will require projectors. Breakout rooms offered at lunchtimes will ideally have a projector though this may not be essential.
    • Note that equipment and A/V support costs are usually quite high and may not be included in an initial space cost estimate
  • Poster "Show and Tell" session:  There needs to be adequate provision for people to display posters they have brought.  Communicating a maximum poster size in advance is helpful (preferably in terms of a standard paper size such as "A0" or "A1"). Some people may want the ability to give demonstrations and will appreciate a good monitor. Other people may want to draw so flip charts might also be desired.  At HC2, HC2015 and HC2016 we had local printing facilities which meant   In recent years, we have tried to point people to local printing facilities which mean folks didn't have to struggle with poster tubes on planes.  If   Some venues have been able to manage the printing themselves.  If possible, the ability to leave the posters up after the formal session will be appreciated.
  • Planning the unconference sessions:  The use of the software "Sessionizer" in HC2015 and 2016 was seen as a great improvement over a messy session with flip charts and post-its.
    

• • has been helpful in organizing past unconference sessions but this needs agreeing well in advance.