General Instructions
Event Organizer and Calendar
Advanced Users & XML
Certificate Instructions
The event organizer and calendar system provides the ability to set up events with arbitrary numbers of sessions and breaks. Within each session, a moderator can set up an arbitrary number of talks and small breaks, discussion sessions, etc. Each talk has a running time and each session has a starting time. This creates a time ordered agenda. Anything from an afternoon video conference to conferences with parallel and plenary sessions can be organized with the organizer. The calendar provides an easy way to see which events are scheduled.
These instructions refer to a "moderator" which is any user who is authorized to organize an event. Several people can collaborate to organize an event, but when changes collide or appear to collide, only the first is taken.
DocDB supplies a calendar which shows upcoming and past events.
The calendar also allows you easily create new events.
There are four views
which the calendar supplies; the first view you
will likely see is the month view.
The daily view shows a detailed list of a day's events. Events with no sessions are shown first, followed by the various sessions taking place on that day. Start and end times as well as locations and URLs (if any) are also shown. Click on the link for the event to see the relevant agenda. At the top of the page are buttons that can be used to schedule events for that day. You can also click on the dates at the top of the page to view the next or previous days, or to switch to the monthly or yearly views.
The monthly view shows a whole month and an abbreviated list of the events on each day. Start times for events that have them are shown. If you move your mouse over the event link, you will see more information. Click on the links to see the agendas. At the top-left of each day is a link to the daily view for that date. Click on the plus sign at the top-right to add a new event on that date. You can also click on the month names at the top of the page to view the next or previous month or click on the year to switch to the yearly view.
If you are viewing the current month, the table of upcoming events is also shown.
The yearly view shows the calendar for a whole year. The linked dates are days with events; click on a link to see the daily view for that day. Click on the name of a month to see the monthly view for that month. You can also click on the years at the top of the page to view the next or previous year.
If you are viewing the current year, the table of upcoming events is also shown.
This view shows events scheduled for the next 60 days. The view is similar to the day view in that titles, locations, and URLs are all shown. Click on the links to view the agendas.
DocDB is capable of scheduling three kinds of events. Events with no sessions (perhaps a conference someone from the group is attending), events with just one session (a small meeting) or events with more than one session (a multi-day meeting, perhaps with plenary and parallel sessions).
Begin by clicking the correct button on the Change or Create page according to how many sessions your event will have. (You can always add sessions to existing events, so don't worry if you change your mind later.) For creating an event with no sessions, follow just the instructions for Event information. For events with one session follow the instructions for Event information (realizing that some of the inputs described are not present), and then follow the instructions for Managing Talks in Sessions. For meetings with multiple sessions, follow all these instructions.
A list of the groups of events are shown; you must select one. You must also provide a title, or short description, and start and end dates for the event. A long description of the event, a location, and a URL (external homepage) are all optional, but if they exist, you should supply them. The "Show All Talks" selection controls what the user sees when viewing a event. In the event view, either all the sessions for an event with all their talks can be shown or just links to the various sessions. This should probably be checked for events with just a few dozen talks, but left unchecked for larger events.
The boxes labeled Event Preamble and Epilogue provide a space for text which will be placed at the top and bottom respectively of the display of the event. A welcome message or instructions can be placed here.
Finally, the View and Modify selections are used to control which groups may view and modify the agenda for the events. The documents (talks) themselves rely on their own security, not this setting.
The same form is used for modifying event information.
On the same form used for creating or modifying an event, the moderator is able to set up one or more sessions in the event. If there are not enough spaces for all the needed sessions, don't worry; blank slots will be added after "Submit" is pressed.
The order of these sessions is displayed and can be changed by entering new numbers in the Order column. Decimal numbers are OK, so entering "1.5" will place the session between those currently numbered "1" and "2."
Sessions may be designated as "Breaks" which cannot have talks associated with them. Breaks can be used for entering meals or other activities.
Existing sessions can be deleted by checking the delete box.
For each session or break, a location (such as a room number) and starting time should be entered. A session title should be entered and a longer description of the session (such as an explanation of the topics covered) may also be entered.
Once at least one session has been added to the event, talks can be associated with the sessions.
To create or modify slots for talks in a session, either click on the "Modify Session" button on the "Display Session" page or the "Modify Session Agenda" link on the "Modify Event" page. For events with a single session, you will modify event and talk information on the same page. The moderator may add as many talks or breaks as needed (blank slots are created at the bottom after the submit button is pushed). Breaks can be announcements, discussions, or coffee breaks (any activity which won't have a document attached to it) during a session.
To create an agenda, the moderator should enter as much information as needed about each talk or break. The fields are described below.
For each talk, at least a suggested title and time (length) should be entered. A note on each talk can also be entered, but these are only visible when clicking on the "Note" link in the event or session displays.
On the far left is the document order within the session. To reorder talks within the session, just input new numbers and press "Submit." Decimal numbers are allowed, so entering "1.5" will place that talk between the talks currently numbered "1" and "2."
On the form there are places to enter the document number of a talk if the moderator already knows it, to confirm a suggestion by the DocDB, and to delete the entry for a talk entirely. (This will NOT delete the document from the database, just the entry for the event.)
A confirmed talk is one where the relationship between agenda entry and document has been verified by a human, not guessed at by DocDB as explained below. Unconfirmed talks are shown in italics type.
By checking the "Reserve" box when creating creating or updating an agenda, the moderator can create new documents with the title, authors, and topics chosen. Then, the author can upload document by updating this initial document. If you choose to do this, make sure the users understand that they are supposed to update rather than create new documents.
If document numbers are entered manually, the "Confirm" box(es) must also be checked, or DocDB will guess its own numbers instead.
Finally, the moderator may enter the suggested authors and topics for the talks to be given. This has two purposes. First, before documents are entered into the DocDB, attendees can more clearly see what the preliminary agenda is. Secondly, this assists DocDB in finding the correct matches as described below.
From the Create or Change page, follow the link to modify an existing event. Then select the event you wish to modify. You will see the same page you used to create the event. If you are a moderator, you will also see buttons to modify events or sessions when you view those events or sessions.
In addition to the moderator associating or reserving talks as described above, there are two other ways documents are matched with agenda entries. The first way is for the user themselves match the documents. The second way is to let DocDB guess.
A suggested course of action for the moderator is to first encourage users to match their talks as described below. Then the moderator confirms its correct guesses, and then inputs numbers manually to correct DocDB's incorrect guesses. DocDB will not assign documents confirmed for another agenda entry to a second entry, so confirming documents and letting it guess again may find correct matches.
When a user presses the button at the top of a session or event display that says "Upload a document," they will see a document entry form with one small addition: a menu to select his or her talk from the list of talks for that event or session that have not yet been entered. When the user selects his or her talk from this list, it is entered into the agenda as a confirmed talk, just as if the moderator had followed the instructions below.
For entries without a confirmed document, the DocDB will try to figure out which agenda entry matches which document. To do this, the DocDB constructs a list of documents which might match the entries in the agenda. It then compares each of these documents against the items in the agenda and picks what it thinks is the best document among them. This document becomes an unconfirmed match with the entry in the agenda. If it guesses right, confirm the match by clicking the confirm box.
The list of documents to check against comes from two sources. First documents with modification times in a time window around the event dates are considered. Second, documents associated with the event are considered.
Documents are matched with the agenda entries using a scoring system that takes into account several criteria:
Points are assigned to documents for each of these criteria where the document matches the agenda entry. For each agenda entry/document pair, a score is calculated. If the score is high enough, that document is entered as an unconfirmed match. When documents are confirmed, they are removed from consideration, which may change which assignments DocDB makes.
The precise algorithm used in choosing the best match can be determined by looking at the DocDB code.
As explained above, the final step in the process is for the moderator to either confirm DocDB's correct guesses or manually enter the correct document number and check confirm. If a very good match for a suggested document is found, a button to confirm the match will appear in the agenda. In all cases, clicking on "Note" in the agenda will pop up a window that will list all possible matches, from best to worst. Click the relevant button to confirm the match.
For very small events (just a few talks) moderators may wish to not use hints at all and just manually enter the talks.
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