I came across the ECIR2020 conference due to my will to learn more about search, information-seeking behaviour and information retrieval. I would like to share my experience in my first time attending such an important event.
In the first place, the website was well design to facilitate people to find the registration and the structure of the conference. All essential information was there such as the list for presentations, papers and zoom rooms. Since I connected from Peru, the time zone was very important to know the time difference between Lisbon and Peru. My attendance was after lunchtime (Lisbon time). But, I am glad all the presentations were recorded and posted on YouTube. Certainly, technology has played an important part in this event and it gives a chance who missed the morning presentations to hear it again.
Their papers have been divided wisely in each zoom room A, B, C and categorized by Retrieval, Entities, Deep Learning, Multimedia, Recommendations, Evaluation, Clef, Reproduction, Information extraction, Information retrieval- general, Queries, Industry day, and Short papers and demos. I found this structure very convenient for everyone who would like to learn a little bit more about everything.
Each speaker had 15 minutes to exhibit the paper and 5 minutes for Q&A. As this was an online meeting, I think it is usual for speakers to expand on their talks on each slide and some of the speakers took a little bit of time to start. Nevertheless, chair´s people managed the time accurately on telling in advance how the meeting was organized and how many minutes were left. The presentations were very well displayed on the screen. Furthermore, I noticed as usual when you are behind time, you talk fast. Some speakers talked slow and one speaker used English subtitles in their presentation. This was amazing. Overall, I found the speakers stunning along with their presentations. Clearly, it could be said that the organizers and the speakers have prepared and practised their presentation in advance.
All the presentations are my favourites. Each paper has its unique way to examine data. That’s why all of them have caught my attention in the way information can be so dynamic to be explored. Moreover, since I started my passion for researching information-seeking behaviour and all that it is involved, I found this online conference an important aspect to continue working to pursue a PhD application.
Finally, I am very grateful to be able to attend this online conference on information retrieval. I learned and got valuable information and insights on investigations that clearly is contributing our society. So now, I am listening on YouTube from the beginning and read each paper in a deeper way.