Event format - REFSQ 2023

REFSQ is a highly interactive event. Sessions are organized so as to provoke discussion among the presenters of papers, discussants and all the other participants. Typically, after a paper is presented, it is immediately discussed by a pre-assigned discussant, then subject to a free discussion involving all participants. At the end of each session (or after a group of sessions), a discussion takes place about all the papers that were presented in this session (or group of sessions). This discussion is triggered and concluded by one or two discussion facilitators (depending on the number of paper sessions being discussed).

Which roles are there?

Three particular roles can be distinguished in this organization:

Session Chair (SC) - Introduces the presenters of the papers in a session. The SC takes care of the time, organizes the discussion of a paper after its presentation, and gives the word to speakers in the audience during discussions. The SC also moderates session and plenary discussions.
Presenter (PR) - Presents a paper. A PR is also often a discussant (see below).
Discussant (DC) - Prepares the discussion of a paper. Each paper is assigned one DC. DCs are typically presenters of other papers in the same session, but can also be presenters of papers other sessions. The DC gives a critical review of the paper directly after its presentation by presenting a slide that provides answers to a predefined set of questions (see below). The assignments of discussants will be made available to paper authors well before the conference.

How do I know which role I have and what I have to do?

PR - Your paper has been accepted and you will be the author who presents the paper. It is highly recommended that you attend all three days of the event and take an active part in the discussion of all papers presented at the conference. Prepare your presentation and bear in mind the available time: full papers (Technical Design Papers and Scientific Evaluation Papers) are restricted to 20 min, and short papers (i.e., Vision Papers, Research Previews, Experience Reports and Journal Early feedback) are restricted to 10 min. Meet the SC 10 minutes before the session starts.
DC – Please have a look at the programme to check when the paper you should discuss is scheduled. Read the paper you are assigned to. Prepare a one-slide summary answering the following questions, depending on the type of paper you discuss.
- For a Technical Design Paper:
  - Technical solution:
    - What can we do now that we could not do before?
    - How sound is the solution?
  - What is the next step to take?
    - Think of the quality attributes of a technical solution
  - Whose goals are served or helped by this?
  - Pick one of the following intentionally controversial questions to answer in your discussion:
    - What is the most questionable issue of the paper?
    - Why wouldn’t I use the same approach?
- For a Scientific Evaluation Paper:
  - How sound is the research design?
  - What do we now know we did not know before?
    - Are the reported conclusions generalizable?
  - Pick one of the following intentionally controversial questions to answer in your discussion:
    - What is the most questionable issue of the paper?
    - Why is the study not very representative?
- For a Vision Paper:
  - So what? In what sense does this vision make a difference to what researchers and practitioners should do?
  - Is the vision controversial?
  - What new avenues of research does this vision imply?
  - Who would disagree with this vision?
  - Who would share this vision?
  - Pick one of the following intentionally controversial questions to answer in your discussion:
    - What is the most questionable issue of the paper?
    - Why is this vision not so visionary?
- For a Research Preview:
  - Same questions as for a Technical Design or Scientific evaluation paper (depending on the type of research), but about the planned research
- For an Experience Report:
  - What do we now know we did not know before?
  - Are the reported conclusions generalizable?
  - In which way can you relate to the lessons learned?
  - Pick one of the following intentionally controversial questions to answer in your discussion:
    - What is the most questionable issue of the paper?
    - Why is the experience not very representative?

Meet the SC 10 minutes before the session starts. Present your summary slide right after the PR.

SC - You received an invitation to serve as SC or offered to do so. Please prepare by taking a look at the papers of your session. Meet the PRs and DCs 10 minutes before your session starts. Open your session and introduce the PRs. Keep the time and give the PR signs when the end of the time slot is approaching: presentations of full papers (Technical Design and Scientific Evaluation papers) are restricted to 20 min + 20 min discussion, presentations of short papers (i.e., Vision papers, Research Previews, Journal Early Feedback, Experience Reports) are restricted to 10 min + 10 min discussion. Invite the DCs and moderate the paper discussion to keep the session structured and focused. Close the paper discussion and hand it over to the next PR.

After the last paper discussion, moderate the session discussion (10 min), and close the session when the time is over.

Finally, your task will be to prepare a brief (2 minutes) session summary, comprising 2-3 sentence summaries of each paper and particular issues that were brought up by the DCs or the audience. The session summary will also mention the main topics that were brought up during the session discussion. Chairs of parallel sessions are responsible for summarising their session in a plenary session at the end of the conference day. You may also be asked to moderate such a plenary session. You will find schedule information in the final programme.

How does it all fit together?

A typical session consists of at least 2 presentations. The flow of events is as follows:

Opening

The SC opens the session.

Paper presentation and discussion

For each paper

The PR presents her paper (10 min for a short paper, 20 min for a full paper).
Individual paper discussion (10 min for a short paper, 20 min for a full paper):
- The DC presents her one-slide summary of this paper. (typically 1.5 to 2 min)
- All participants ask questions and discuss the paper in the remaining time.
The SC closes the paper discussion and hands it over to the next PR.

After the last paper in the session, the SC moderates a general discussion about all papers in the session (10 min).