It may be desired to order the posters near one another in a poster session based on their topic area. This is a guide for performing this sophisticated action on the website. The main steps are:
- Import Papers as Poster events using CMT or OpenReview
- Assign a Topic Area to Each Poster
- Identify Posters Events with a Corresponding Oral or Spotlight Event
- Create and Input an Ordering Poster Positions for the Poster Room(s) or Session
- Assign Posters Events To A Poster Session
- Create or Acquire a 2D Poster Position File
- Create a Spreadsheet with sortkeys for the Poster Events
- Assign the Posters to Poster Positions based on their sortkey
¶ Assign a Topic Area to Each Poster
It is the Progam Committee's job to assign a topic area to each paper. A good option is a hierarchical set of topics like used for ICML 2023 because papers can be grouped in a more focused subtopic but still overall be grouped together in a top level topic.
These can be assigned via a spreadsheet and imported using the program_committee_keywords column in a spreadsheet. The program_committe_keywords spreadsheet field is a json list of strings, e.g. ["Deep Learning"] or ["Theory"] or ["Applications", "Deep Learning"]. The first program_committee_keywords is used to determine the topic area. If the first keyword is a subtopic (i.e. it has a parent topic in the hierarchy) then the parent topic is the topic area for an event.
It's best if the top level topic areas for a conference are a relatively small number (10 plus or minus 2).
¶ Identify Poster Events with a Corresponding Oral or SpotLight Event
It is desirable to have the poster event for each paper which is presented in an oral or spotlight event occur soon after the oral or spotlight event. This allows for conference attendees to ask questions of the presenter which weren't able to be asked during the oral event. This means that scheduling posters into a poster session requires that all related oral or spotlight events are scheduled before papers are assigned to a poster session.
Oral and Spotlight events may be scheduled by first creating the various oral session events in the database (use either the Events editor, the Events Admin page, or import them from a spreadsheet using the Session Events spreadsheet format).
¶ Create and Input an Ordering Poster Positions for the Poster Room(s) or Session
The website software supports assigning poster positions automatically to the "next available poster position". In order to support this feature a list of poster positions, in order of assignment, must be provided in database model PosterPositions (use the Admin->Database->Core->PosterPositions page to update). The valid_positions field of the PosterPositions model is a list of strings which are valid poster positions. While it's common to use a list of strings like "#1", "#2", "#3", etc. there is no dependency on any strings that are desired. They should simply correspond to the way the poster positions are labeled in the physical room.
The posters will be assigned based on the first string in the array which is not assigned to any other poster at the same time.
A PosterPositions model instance is most often simply associated with a single room layout at a conference. In this case simply create the model and indicate the year and the room for the poster positions and leave the Sessions field in the PosterPosition instance blank. You should only fill in the Sessions field if you have different poster layouts or orderings for different poster sessions.
The following steps assume that the ordering of the poster positions are the order for grouping similar posters together. This can mean that sophisticated orderings may get more related posters near eachother. For example serpentine ordering of the posters will produce posters around a corner which are still related to one another. An even more sophisticated ordering is a back and forth across an aisle serpentine ordering.
¶ Example Poster Positions
Some example poster ordering layouts are given below. First here is a picture of how a poster room in a conference center may be set up. This picture includes some common issues in a room layout. One thing to note is that the numbers are not consecutive and that the pattern for the layout is complex.
¶ Simple Sorted Ordering
One ordering for the above layout is to simply have a list of the poster positions sorted numerically:
102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 170
This actually isn't very good for grouping similar posters together as posters 116 and 117 may be grouped together but they are actually not next to each other in the poster room.
¶ Serpentine Ordering
An improved ordering is serpentine ordering where things are ordered one direction for one row and the opposite direction for the next row. Here is a serpentine ordering for the above room layout.
103, 105, 107, 109, 113, 115, 117, 119, 120,
118, 116, 114, 112, 108, 106, 104, 102,
123, 125, 127, 129, 133, 135, 137, 139, 140,
138, 136, 134, 132, 128, 126, 124, 122,
143, 145, 147, 149, 153, 155, 157, 159, 160,
158, 156, 154, 152, 148, 146, 144, 142,
161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 170
Note how the odd rows go left to right in the room and the even rows go right to left.
¶ Back And Forth Serpentine Ordering By Aisle
An even better ordering gets posters across an aisle from one another grouped near each other and then does serpentine ordering of the aisles. Let's call this back and forth serpentine ordering. Here is how the above might be ordered for this ordering. Note that position 140 doesn't flow well, so is simply moved to the last element which often goes unused in a poster session as long as it isn't completely full. These are listed for each "aisle".
103, 105, 107, 109, 113, 115, 117, 119, 120,
118, 139, 116, 137, 114, 135, 112, 133, 108, 129, 106, 127, 104, 125, 102, 123,
122, 143, 124, 145, 126, 147, 128, 149, 132, 153, 134, 155, 136, 157, 138, 159, 160,
170, 158, 168, 156, 167, 154, 166, 152, 165, 148, 164, 146, 163, 144, 162, 142, 161,
140
¶ Ordering for Late Posters
Often individual poster sessions are not full and some space is reserved for late assignment of posters to a session. Ordering is less important for these late arrivals as they would simply like a space to present their poster. A small improvement on the ordering in the last section is to note that the first aisle only has nine posters in it while the other aisles have sixteen or seventeen posters. So it might make sense to reserve aisle one for late poster changes assuming that there are at least nine originally unused spaces. This ordering simply reorders the first aisle to the end.
118, 139, 116, 137, 114, 135, 112, 133, 108, 129, 106, 127, 104, 125, 102, 123,
122, 143, 124, 145, 126, 147, 128, 149, 132, 153, 134, 155, 136, 157, 138, 159, 160,
170, 158, 168, 156, 167, 154, 166, 152, 165, 148, 164, 146, 163, 144, 162, 142, 161,
103, 105, 107, 109, 113, 115, 117, 119, 120, 140
¶ Poster Positions Summary
Of course other orderings are possible and each conference should do whatever works best for it.