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MPI Informatik -> Conferences -> ADFOCS 2001 -> Feedback

Feedback from the participants, comments by the organizers, and pictures

On the
feedback form, the participants were asked for their opinion on four items: 1) Lectures/Lecturers, 2) Exercises, 3) Talkshow/Excursion, 4) Organisation/Other. Comments by the organizers are set in italics. A summary of these comments is given in the end, followed by a few blurry pictures.

There were 40 participants (16 from MPI and 24 external), not counting the organisers (2), and the invited lecturers (4).

17 feedback forms were returned.

Lectures/Lecturers

[Feedback on specific lecture(r)s omitted, as we stated on the form that we would not forward this to the lecturers.]

The topics were quite interesting. Unfortunately I did not understand everything [...] The speed was not too slow.

Lecturers presented their subjects in a friendly way even for somebody with not such a strong background in their field but I believe that each of them should use the first lecture to give a tutorial and the second one for examining more specialised issues.
HB: Interesting suggestion; see the comment to the comment below.

Good. Maybe there should be 3 x 1 1/2 hours for each lecturer. That way they could use the first one to basic things/notation, and still get to "state of the art" in the last lecture.
HB: I agree, and would probably implement something like this if I were to organise another school of this kind (and rather invite one lecturer less in case of time contraints).

Mostly very well prepared and adequate to the level.

Very good. [...]

[...] In general: a good mixture of different subjects. The content of the lectures were not always predictable from the announcement/abstracts. All in all they were quite interesting [...] Nice to have lecture slides.

Criticism: The organisers should have ensured that the lectures and their topics are fun to listening and what they say is relevant.
HB: The organisers have indeed tried hard to do so.

Exercises

Nice and interesting.

The understanding/not understanding of the lectures is reflected in the ability of doing the exercises. (Sometimes I was unable to understand the question.) However it's a very good thing to have these exercises because during this time we have to think about the matter _actively_.

Exercises are one of the strongest reasons for somebody to participate in this school. I enjoyed them very much but I think that it would be better the two lectures to be given in the morning and the exercises in the afternoon.

Good and helpful, but sometimes boring too.

Most too hard. Emo's were very good though. Should have been more basic in general.

A very good idea to better understand the concepts just explained.

I only attended Emo's and David's and liked them. The idea of giving more exercises than one can deal with in the time is good. [...] The daily changing of exercise-teams was good (to get in contact with different people).

Nicely organised. Good balance lectures <-> exercises timewise. Keep the concept!

Both exercises and group organisation was very good.

Really good to have exercise-session. It makes you understand the things better.

The exercises was generally very good, in the sense that we got a good understanding of the problems presented. I think exercises is a very important part of the summer school.

There should be prepared "hint-sheets" which are handed out after half the time.

In general the exercises were interesting and challengig.

Difficult & interesting, nice arrangement with ex-groups, room was a bit cold, too little exercise time Fri afternoon.

Talk-Show/Excursion

Nice/Nice (too much rain).

I was positively surprised about the very good organisation/preparation of the talkshow. I really enjoyed it. Maybe it is a good idea to tell the audience, that they can ask questions, so that they can think about "good" questions. Of course, there are also disadvantages of "too many" questions from the audience. The excursion was also fun.

Talk-Show was real good one. Could have been another one hour extended. Would have been much better if all participants were asked to prepare some questions too for the show.

Talk-Show was nice, the excursion ok. I would have prefered this day removed though and the talkshow at one of the evenings, maybe at the dinner.

Excursion very interesting, but too rainy:)

Talk Show: Good. Different and interesting with some not so work-related info about lecturers. Perhaps they could have been a bit more prepared (it was better in the end than in the beginning). Excursion: Interesting, but the English-speaking guide was a bit too technical/assumed too much knowledge about steel-making. Better with historical/more "personal" things.

It would be better to show the university (some persons arrived too late for monday excursion).

Good, sometimes really wise and witty. If questions of the audience are desired, there should have been some time for preparation, but I don't know if this could work anyhow. Better weather for the excursion!

Sorry, I went to Strasbourg.

Both very interesting, but the idea of having a completely free day ocassions a too big break in the concentration.
HB: I agree. If I were to organise the event again, I would rather have one or two less heavily scheduled days instead

Talk Show: Was fun. Very nice and well prepared questions. Excursion: Interesting.

Nice to have a day off. Both the talk-show and the excursion was good entertainment.

Both were entertaining and well prepared.

Talks show seemed quite unnecessary to me. Excursion was great. Could have taken longer.

Nice break from the lectures. The excursion was interesting (except from rain).

Talk Show: Good idea and well done, except maybe the activity of the audience. Excursion: ok.

Very nice, good organized, well prepared talkshow! If we would have known that we have the possibility of asking questions ourselves, we would have prepared some, maybe. Excursion: Interesting, could have been better weather. I would also have liked a walking tour thru the forest.

Organisation/Other

Good and smooth. The only real criticism is the bad availability of computers with outside access. I don't really know if the organizers can be blamed for that.

I enjoyed the entire week. Let me say a big thank you for all who were involved in the organisation of this summer school.

As concerns the organisation while the program was ok I think that there was a problem with the lunch breaks. We weren't informed that the student restaurant closes after 13:30.

Everything is perfect since the beginning.

Quite good in all :) Good coffee.

Very good: structure better than last year (less lecture time, more exercises). Only the lunch was nicer last year since it was easier to get to know people as everybody was eating together. Other: Thanx for telling us about the ping-pong table!

Lecture breaks should have been scheduled. Computer room a bit small ... Great that we got Mensa-cards! Thanks you for an overall great summerschool, with great organization and good lectures/excercises! :-)

Really optimal.

The overall organisation was really fantastic. I would have liked a table with the major research interests of every participant, only by chance I found out that there is someone working on a topic closely related to my work.

Nice atmosphere. Well organized.

Thank you for the very good and efficient organisation.

The schedule is better than ADFOCS2000 with the exercises after every lecture. I prefer to eat in the restaurant than in the mensa: 1) It's easier to choose the food for non-german people; 2) The group remains together, and it's faster to get to know everybody.
HB: We reserved tables in the Mensa, but A) they were occupied already when we came, and B) we didn't make an effort (which we should do next time) to keep our people together and direct them towards a common place in the Mensa.

Lunch: It was much better last year at the restaurant: 1) the food was better 2) we were alone together at lunch, talking to new people.
HB: 1) The quality of the food in both the Mensa and the restaurant varies a lot and in an unpredictable manner -> difficult; 2) Yes, the restaurant is probably better for that (but also more than twice as expensive)

Everything has been very well organized. The lecture room and exercise room was fine and the snacks delicious. But I'm sorry that the party is on saturday since I will miss it. All together it has been a great summer school.

Bus-week-tickets should have been provided by organisators.

No complains - everything was running smoothly. But I think it was better to eat lunch in the restaurant. In general: I think it could have been nice if the lecturers had maybe one more day.

I think it could be scheduled a little bit busier, we had too much loose time.
HB: I agree (see my comment above).

Well organised, good info-flow before and during the summer-school, charming organizer, good snacks (fruit,etc, unfortunately no choclate kekse on Friday), workload and free-time quite balanced, Mensa-food not extremely nice, nice conference dinner, bad weather.



General comments by the organisers

If we were to organise another event of this kind ...

... we would do again:

Blocks: lecture/exercises/discussion.

Exercises in randomly mixed groups in a common room.

Invite lecturers we know personally.

... we would do differently:

Three lectures per lecturer; if there are time-constraints, rather have three instead of four lecturers then.

Have one day more relaxed, but not a whole day off.

Take more care that participants have lunch together; think twice about where to have lunches.

From Monday to Friday (and maybe offer a tour/excursion/day trip for Saturday, for those people having to stay until Sunday because otherwise their travel would be twice as expensive).




And finally the pictures




ADFOCS 2001 organized by Berthold Vöcking & Hannah Bast; WWW page last updated on Monday, 01 October 2001.