#Special session definition how to#

Ideally, your special session talks should contribute to answering important scientific questions in the field. Moreover, the topic should be new and cutting-edge: something that is getting momentum in the scientific literature. It should not be too broad (for example, “Convolutional neural networks in epigenetics”), but rather specific to a subfield of the scientific domain of the main conference. The topic of the special session is a pivotal pillar of the success of the special session itself. Rule 1: Pick a specific, cutting-edge topic We fill this gap here by providing this short list of simple rules learnt by organizing special sessions during the International Meeting on Computational Intelligence Methods for Bioinformatics and Biostatistics (CIBB) and other occasions.

#Special session definition how to#

In the past, the PLOS Computational Biology Ten Simple Rules collection already provided guidelines for organizing scientific meetings, virtual conferences, unconferences, for curating and facilitating small workshops, and for chairing special sessions at conferences, but did not give suggestions on how to organize special sessions. If the conference has several tracks in parallel, instead, the special session will happen during one of them. Regarding duration, we believe a successful special session can occupy half a day of a conference schedule, even if this allocated time can be bigger (in case of many accepted papers) or smaller (in case of few accepted articles).Īn accepted special session must follow the format of their main conference, of course: If the main conference has a unique main track, the special session will occupy a part of the program of the main track. Special sessions, instead, happen within scientific conferences. In our experience, workshops are satellite events of conferences, related to the scientific meeting but actually happening outside its rooms and schedule. Some conferences use the term workshop as a synonym of special session. In this manuscript, we refer to the former definition. Other scientific meetings call special sessions brainstorming discussions on new and emerging fields where participants are engaged in an active dialog and ideas exchange, without peer-reviewed papers. The authors of the accepted articles usually have then a slot to present their work as a plenary talk (if the article’s quality is outstanding), as a short talk (if the article’s quality is good), or as a scientific poster (if the article’s quality is sufficient), based on the assessment of the reviewers or of the special session’s organizers.

In this manuscript, we consider special sessions where (short) scientific papers are submitted by the authors, reviewed, and selected for inclusion in the special session. A typical bioinformatics conference includes special sessions (sometimes called special tracks) that are parts of the conference dedicated to a specific subfield or to a particular topic. Conferences are sometimes called symposiums or scientific meetings, as well. Scientific conferences are events where researchers, students, and scholars gather to present and discuss new scientific developments and results regarding a specific field.