OSS 2009 Doctoral Consortium

The OSS 2009 doctoral consortium was really fantastic. Most students that I talked to thought this was the best consortium that we've experienced, in terms of being really developmentally valuable. I suspect that this is because of the shared context, which does far more to promote useful dialog than any kind of disciplinary commonality. Instead of wasting a bunch of time explaining what FLOSS is and why it's interesting, we can all just cut to the chase and talk about the interesting stuff - and everyone knows what you're talking about, so they can actually provide useful feedback. Not just useful, but high quality and knowledgeable.

The "lightning talks" at the end were a great addition; I hope that in the future it becomes a regular part of the main program to give students an opportunity for exposure. Other things that worked really well (in my opinion) were the inclusion of students who are in earlier stages of their programs, and the fact that it was actually an open session, so there were a handful of additional people who were there most of the day. Participation was great - comments weren't just from the committee, but also students and the add-on audience. It really speaks well to the ethos of the community.

My presentation went OK - would have been better if I hadn't been so jetlagged. By the time I presented in mid-afternoon, I couldn't answer questions particularly well. It was not my best performance, but it definitely generated plenty of good criticism to apply to the research design. I got hammered on the modularity construct, which is also the biggest gap in my knowledge, so not surprising. At least now I know what some of the problems are with that, have some idea of what I could try to do with it, and who I could ask for a pointer in the right direction. I'm already looking forward to following up with new colleagues.