04-02-2024, 04:11 AM
Thanks, Rene.
Anything on the list that isn't too complicated, and anything else like it added later, that is those activities that don't involve peer review, moderators, interviews, experts, other speakers, musicians or artists (and Koen's State of the Voynich), I should be able to manage myself, including polls and the program. Those things I can't handle myself I will need volunteers to handle, hence the need for a planning committee.
Koen, in addition to his State of the Voynich, indicated he has something in mind regarding interviews. For anything he hasn't got covered, we will need a volunteer (moderator, getting expert and other speakers). And he also suggested getting Cary to participate as an artist. And Lissu offered to participate with music. So I am hoping they can help handle those activities. Or if not, one volunteer in each of the three areas may be sufficient. It would be great if a blogger could organize the blogging review activities. And it would be good to have a volunteer, perhaps a site admin or editor, organize the new member welcome. That's a max 6 volunteers for the planning committee for everything except the peer review and what I have covered.
Polling the members as to what activities they would like included in the VM Day program may eliminate some of the activity suggestion list and/or possibly add to it (because you know members will likely make suggestions in the poll thread). So I think that is a good idea and I will run with that sometime this upcoming week. But I can put out a call for volunteers for the planning committee as well without waiting on that poll's results.
So speaking of the peer review, that and the art auction suggestion (the latter I realize probably won't happen) are likely the most time consuming activities to organize so far. In order to move forward with any form of peer review, I would want a panel, preferably made up of those who normally would handle peer review here, to review any papers submitted. But it may be better to just review and approve or decline papers for their authors to present as part of the VM Day program instead of a full peer review. In the Drafts For Peer Review forum here, there are already excellent guidelines (and an additional thread that goes more in-depth) that we can use to limit the submissions for VM Day. All the review panel would need to do is decide which papers are best ready for presentation and narrow the selection down to those few they approve for the program. The panel could set a cap on how many papers can be submitted and close submissions at whichever is met first, the cap or the 8 April deadline. The panel would also set the limit for the final number of papers approved for presentation. And they could add any additional requirements for the VM Day author presentations. I would suggest each author be required to provide their own webinar details so once they are given the green light by the panel and added to the program, the panel's work would be done and the rest up to each author. I suggest each author be limited to 60 to 90 minutes max presentation duration, including Q&A.
Of course, I realize it is possible, for whatever reasons, we may still only get a limited number of submissions. It may be worth it to run a separate poll to see if there is sufficient researcher interest and readiness first and I could run that unless a site admin/editor would prefer to do so instead. If the results prove insufficient to keep this in the program, we could instead offer presentations on the peer review process and getting published, which could help de-mystify these processes for authors, especially those who are looking to get reviewed or published for the first time.
My two cents for what it's worth. Any additional thoughts from anyone on any of this?
Anything on the list that isn't too complicated, and anything else like it added later, that is those activities that don't involve peer review, moderators, interviews, experts, other speakers, musicians or artists (and Koen's State of the Voynich), I should be able to manage myself, including polls and the program. Those things I can't handle myself I will need volunteers to handle, hence the need for a planning committee.
Koen, in addition to his State of the Voynich, indicated he has something in mind regarding interviews. For anything he hasn't got covered, we will need a volunteer (moderator, getting expert and other speakers). And he also suggested getting Cary to participate as an artist. And Lissu offered to participate with music. So I am hoping they can help handle those activities. Or if not, one volunteer in each of the three areas may be sufficient. It would be great if a blogger could organize the blogging review activities. And it would be good to have a volunteer, perhaps a site admin or editor, organize the new member welcome. That's a max 6 volunteers for the planning committee for everything except the peer review and what I have covered.
Polling the members as to what activities they would like included in the VM Day program may eliminate some of the activity suggestion list and/or possibly add to it (because you know members will likely make suggestions in the poll thread). So I think that is a good idea and I will run with that sometime this upcoming week. But I can put out a call for volunteers for the planning committee as well without waiting on that poll's results.
So speaking of the peer review, that and the art auction suggestion (the latter I realize probably won't happen) are likely the most time consuming activities to organize so far. In order to move forward with any form of peer review, I would want a panel, preferably made up of those who normally would handle peer review here, to review any papers submitted. But it may be better to just review and approve or decline papers for their authors to present as part of the VM Day program instead of a full peer review. In the Drafts For Peer Review forum here, there are already excellent guidelines (and an additional thread that goes more in-depth) that we can use to limit the submissions for VM Day. All the review panel would need to do is decide which papers are best ready for presentation and narrow the selection down to those few they approve for the program. The panel could set a cap on how many papers can be submitted and close submissions at whichever is met first, the cap or the 8 April deadline. The panel would also set the limit for the final number of papers approved for presentation. And they could add any additional requirements for the VM Day author presentations. I would suggest each author be required to provide their own webinar details so once they are given the green light by the panel and added to the program, the panel's work would be done and the rest up to each author. I suggest each author be limited to 60 to 90 minutes max presentation duration, including Q&A.
Of course, I realize it is possible, for whatever reasons, we may still only get a limited number of submissions. It may be worth it to run a separate poll to see if there is sufficient researcher interest and readiness first and I could run that unless a site admin/editor would prefer to do so instead. If the results prove insufficient to keep this in the program, we could instead offer presentations on the peer review process and getting published, which could help de-mystify these processes for authors, especially those who are looking to get reviewed or published for the first time.
My two cents for what it's worth. Any additional thoughts from anyone on any of this?