Computer and Communications Technology reading club

The Computer and Communications Technology reading club (aka "LCE Monday meetings") is organized by the Laboratory for Communication Engineering and is currently run by Frank Stajano.

Where, when and who

We meet every Monday of full term in room FW11 of the William Gates building in West Cambridge at 16:15. After the meeting, we continue the discussion in a less formal way over free beer, drinks and crisps, graciously offered by the LCE.

Detailed timetable:

Current members of the LCE
are expected to attend all meetings of the reading club (1st year graduate students will earn reading club credits).
Current members of the University of Cambridge (any department)
are welcome to any of our meetings without warning or obligation. Please introduce yourselves.
Everyone else
is welcome to the meetings of more general interest that are highlighted as such in the timetable. (You probably wouldn't want to come to the paper discussions anyway.) Please introduce yourselves.

Goals

Format

Regular meetings shall each consist of two half-hour presentation sessions as described below. Exceptional meetings such as guest lectures or debates have no predefined format.

Each presentation session is actively prepared by 3 students: a supporter, a presenter and a devil's advocate. Usually the supporter will be a more senior student than the presenter.

After the devil's advocate and the supporter have made their cases, the audience (playing the role of the program committee) votes on whether the paper should be accepted or rejected. The audience also comments on the presenter's performance, praising good points and suggesting improvements where needed.

Each regular meeting consists of two such presentation sessions. Between the two sessions there is a lottery, in the course of which the names of the following week's active students are drawn. Nobody will be selected twice for the same day, even in different roles. However every week everyone's names go back in the hat, so it is theoretically possible for a student to have to present several times per term.

Anyone who is selected to take part in the following week's session (in any role) may instead choose to present something else, as presenter, in two or three weeks' time, if there is another free meeting. In this case the topic will be chosen by the presenter (it may be the presenter's own work---this is in fact the expected choice for 3rd year students). A supporter and a devil's advocate are drawn from the hat to fit, but they don't get an advance copy of the "paper" (which may not exist).

Anyone who is absent when selected will be automatically assigned to the next available session.

These rules may be changed as appropriate in the interest of serving the stated goals in a better way.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Alastair Beresford, Rob Harle, Andy Hopper, Kieran Mansley, David Riddoch, Ripduman Sohan and all the others who put forward their constructive suggestions on how to structure this new series of Monday meetings. Further comments are always welcome.


Frank Stajano (filologo disneyano)

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