Panels - Call For Participation

Panel Proposal Submission Procedure

Submissions should include:

• Panel title
• Panel organizer(s)/moderator(s)
• Short description of the topic (suitable for inclusion in the program)
• Panel objective, scope, and target audience
• Detailed description of the topic, including suitable references
• List of the debatable points of view
• Panel format (e.g., frontal presentation, Q&A, etc.) including a detailed timeline covering all activities - (the entire panel duration should be 90 minutes)
• The names and affiliations of the panelists, and their credentials in the form of a short bio
• A statement for each panelist, indicating whether the panelist's participation is (a) confirmed or (b) pending in the case s/he has already been contacted and is not yet committed or (c) not yet contacted. At submission time, we expect that at least 50% of the panelists would have been confirmed, in particular senior panelists. Please do not "name-pad" your panel with unconfirmed panelists!
• Short paragraph stating the credentials/bios of organizer(s), moderator(s) and each panelist.
• The panel proposal should also indicate whether other similar panels have been formed recently in other conferences or workshops. If so, what is the difference?

Proposals should be 4-6 pages long and can be submitted in either HTML or PDF. Please send proposals for WWW2008 panels directly via the . Inquiries can be sent to:

Panel format:

Panels should last 90 minutes and typically include three to five panelists plus a moderator. Be creative about the panel format. A typical format includes:

• moderator introduction
• brief position statements by domain experts (it's essential that this part does not exceed a total of 30 minutes divided by all panelists)
• discussions (at least 40 minutes divided by all participants)
• closing statements from panelists and moderator

You are welcome to use various forms of multimedia presentations to help engage the audience.

Panel Program Committee

Panels Co-Chairs:

• Andrei Broder (Yahoo!)
• Yoelle Maarek (Google)

Program Committee: To be announced.

Duties of the Panel Moderator(s)

The panel moderator is the most important participant in a panel. The moderator must take an active role during the panel to ensure that the panelists stay on time and on track and to stimulate debate.

The most important part of the moderator's job, however, occurs well before the panel starts. It is the duty of the moderator to force the panelists to prepare lively and controversial initial presentations and to be prepared for the debate part of the panel. Panel moderators thus must spend a significant amount of time "herding cats", i.e., getting the panelists to adequately prepare their pitch and making sure that each panelist will have a distinct non-trivial message or role. A panel is not a stage for panelists to give unrelated frontal presentations; we will give preference to panels that plan to actively engage the audience - be creative!