Guide for GomacTech Session Organization and Implementation
(Draft)

Over the years the practices associated with definition and implementation of GOMACTEch technical sessions have varied. In recent years, the Technical Program Chair has had considerable latitude in these matters. This is appropriate because each Chair tends to use the familiar personnel and resources readily available to his/her organization. There are, however, a number of concepts and structures that have worked well . The purpose of this note is to identify and recommend some of these tried and true approaches.

Initial Program Definition
At the earliest TPC meetings the technical sessions will be known in at least a fuzzy way by looking at the session structure for previous meetings. At this stage the TP Chair can formulate a possible set of sessions and seek to identify a “Champion” for each potential session. A “Champion” is typically a member of the Steering Committee and/or the Technical Committee who has knowledge of the players in the potential session technical area. The role of the Champion is to seek out a session organizer, and to work with and guide the session organizer to define the Session Chair, Session Co-Chair and overall scope of the session. The Champion is responsible to the Technical Program Chair, and reports on the status of the session formation to the Chair and the TPC.

Session Detail Definition
The “Session Organizer” has the task of seeking out a Session Chair and Co-Chair, and identifying prospective papers. In recent years the trend has been to invited papers where the Session Organizer, who is knowledgeable of the field, designs the session to provide an over-view of current state of the art. The Organizer may elect to have any mix of invited versus submitted papers. Papers submitted in response to the Call for Papers are subjected to review by the Technical Program Committee , and may be claimed by any Organizer for their session. Conflicting claims between Organizers are settled by negotiation at the Technical Paper Selection Meeting. The session organizer has the responsibility of coordinating with the session chairs for the review of the abstracts and final materials to assure the highest quality for the session. The session organizer also has the responsibility of assuring that the abstracts, full papers and presentation materials are timely in meeting conference deadlines.

Abstract Screening Before Acceptance
The preferred situation is that every abstract be subjected to a review process before it is accepted by the conference. While the current trend is toward “invited” papers, every invitation extended by an organizer should be qualified by clearly stating to the invitee that his/her abstract  is going to be reviewed by the Technical Program Committee, and that a condition of the invitation is that the abstract must be rated acceptable by the Committee. 
Session Implementation
Each session is moderated by at least a Session Chair, and preferably by a Chair and Co-Chair. These individuals are selected by the Session Organizer and have the responsibility of structuring the session,  introducing the speakers, watching the time, and controlling the question and response interactions. While there are no firm rules regarding this point, a practice that seems to have merit is to have a government person and an industry person in the Chair and Co-Chair positions.

Roles of the Personnel
The comments above identify four personnel roles associated with session development: Champion, Organizer, Chair and Co-Chair. Each of these functions is distinct and  the Technical Program Chair must make and effort to see that a person’s name is associated with each slot. It is, of course, not necessary that four different people be involved. The Champion and Organizer will most often be the same person, and that individual may elect to also serve as the Session Chair. 

Session Chair Responsibilities:

The session chair has the authority over the session and in concert with the Co-Chair introduces the speakers, watch the time, and control the question/answer period. The session chair can also, in coordination with the Session Organizer, help structure the content of the session for best results and in meeting with the conference theme.