The following factors need to be considered while deciding the possible format of an IAB workshop. These factors can guide those thinking of proposing a workshop.
- Physical or Online: Historically, IAB workshops were primarily conducted in person, facilitating direct interactions and social engagements. Recently, however, there has been a shift to an exclusively online format. This change has made participation more equitable and diverse, allowing attendees from across the globe to join. Organizing physical workshops requires securing a venue, arranging accommodations, and managing logistics. Alternatively, an IAB workshop can be co-located with an event that participants are already planning to attend, minimizing additional travel. A hybrid format is also an option, accommodating both in-person and remote participants. The decision on the workshop format should be made to maximize diverse participation from key contributors to ensure the workshop's success. For physical workshops, a social event could also be organized.
- Co-sponsors: The IAB can host workshops in collaboration with co-sponsors, which could include organizations such as the Internet Society (ISOC), an Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) research group, another Standards Development Organization (SDO), an industry alliance, or any other similar entity. Co-sponsorship enables the IAB to share logistical responsibilities and also facilitates broader participation. A co-sponsor is useful for physical workshops alongside other events for instance.
- Participation: Workshops are typically invitation-only events, with a preference for attendees to submit a position paper. This is not done to limit participation but to ensure that all participants contribute. Additionally, there can be invited papers, invited key experts, and individuals in leadership roles participating (without the need to submit a paper). The aim should be to make sure the right set of participants are present in the workshop for a fruitful discussion with diverse points of view. Workshops with fewer participants often foster focused discussions and in-depth exploration of specific topics, while larger workshops generally promote broader dissemination of information and educational content.
- Number of days: Physical workshops are optimally conducted over 1.5 full days, while online workshops are most effective when spread out over several days, with each session lasting a maximum of 3 hours. For organizing an online workshop, it would be good to understand the geographical locations of the potential participants in order to arrive at good timings for the virtual sessions to reduce timezone pain.
- Timeline: Planning for the workshop needs to start at least 3 months in advance to make sure sufficient time exists for the call for participation, paper reviews, and planning for the workshop, among other preparatory activities. All selected workshop participants should be notified early (at least 1 month in advance), for physical workshops a longer lead time is needed for visa and other travel arrangements.
- Paper Publications: The format of the position paper should be specified. Typically, there are no restrictions on the format with which participants can choose their preferred format, including Internet-Drafts, text- or word-based documents, or papers formatted similarly as used by academic publication venues. Paper size is not limited, but brevity is encouraged. Interested participants who have published relevant academic papers may submit these as a position paper, optionally with a short abstract explaining their interest and the paper’s relevance to the workshop. The call for papers should indicate if the papers and slides would be made public.
- Recordings: A policy regarding AV recordings should be set in advance. The default should be to publish the recording after the workshop but some discussions could happen under the Chatham-house rule (with recordings stopped) if indicated in advance by the workshop participants.
- IPR: A policy regarding IPR disclosure should be set in advance. Does the IETF Notewell apply? Some discussion might be under Chatham-house rule.
- Format: Various formats can be adopted for workshops, including paper presentations, short presentations followed by group discussions, roundtable discussions, and breakout rooms with subsequent joint discussions on the findings. The choice of format should be carefully aligned with the workshop's established goals and scope, ensuring that it is appropriate for the planned discussions. The aim should be to have ample discussions leading to clear next steps and follow-up action items post-workshop.
- Workshop report and blog post: Following the workshop, a report summarizing the discussions, findings, and recommendations is published typically as an IAB internet draft. These reports contribute to the broader community's understanding of the issues explored during the workshop. In addition, a short IETF blog post should also be published shortly afterwards.
Note: If the IETF Note Well applies, the location of an IETF meeting does not limit the likely participants, attendance is not restricted by position papers and remote participation along with broad community involvement is encouraged, then consider proposing a BoF session at an IETF meeting instead.
The program committee (PC) for the IAB workshop consists of volunteer IAB members and, when applicable, community experts who assume the responsibility of organizing the workshop. The duties of the PC are but not limited to -
- Agree on the format, timeline and logistics for the IAB workshop with the IAB
- Agree on the goals & scope of the workshop and prepare a Call for Papers
- Personally solicit participation from relevant experts
- Do outreach for the IAB workshop
- Establish Review criteria for Papers
- Review all submitted Papers
- Select Papers that are in the scope of the workshop and invite authors, further select papers that should get presentation time.
- Identify members of PC that will moderate chair the workshop sessions on each day. Moderators should take responsibilty for meeting material for their session.
- Prepare and announce an agenda for the workshop and request slides.
- Maintain all the submitted papers and slides in the datatracker repository.
- Prepare a reading list to be shared with all workshop participants in advance.
- Prepare welcome and session slides, if needed.
- Participate and help guide the discussion during the workshop.
- Define follow-up activities after the workshop.
- Prepare a draft report in the form of an internet-draft promptly.
- Prepare a blog for the IETF community summarizing the workshop.
The IAB Executive Administrative Manager assists with the logistical support and secretarial duties such as mailing list creation, datatracker and website support, invitations, Github etc.
IAB workshops are expected to publish a report as RFC in the IAB series. It is highly recommended to publish these reports in close timely approximation to the workshop date, i.e. there should be a -00 draft version within one IETF meeting circle (so roughly three months). Therefore, it is also recommended to start the report early, maybe even before or during the workshop (even though this is unfortunately often not the case).
Workshop reports do not require an adoption call (and the respective community feedback call) by the IAB, given the IAB has committed itself to provide this report when holding the workshop. As such, the -00 version of a workshop report draft should be published as draft-iab-<workshop-acronym>-report-00. Note that submission of a -00 as draft-iab- requires manual confirmation by the IAB chair or IAB Executive Administrative Manager.
Further, reports usually require less thorough review than other IAB documents, given they are supposed to reflect the discussion and results of the workshop and not any personal opinions or statements. It is recommended to have at least one non-author (usually the Shepherd) review the report in detail as well as also to request reviews from the workshop participants. However, as soon as the authors and reviewer(s) think the report is in good shape, it should be approved for publication as RFC by the IAB, ideally quickly after the -00 version was submitted. As with every other IAB RFC, approval for publication by the IAB will trigger a community call for feedback before the draft is sent to the RFC editor for final publication.
Refer to RFC-Editor for the boilerplate text that workshop reports should include.
Below is a list of things that should happen for a workshop, in order
- Draft proposed workshop description and call for papers (Proponents)
- Choose workshop Program Committee (IAB)
- Create workshop Program Committee Mailing List (IAB EAM)
- Set workshop deadlines (IAB + PC)
- Paper submission deadline
- Invitations issued by
- Workshop dates
- Finalize Call for Papers (IAB)
- Create workshop web page (IAB EAM)
- Create GitHub for PC for paper review
<workshop-name-pc> (IAB EAM)
- Decide where to send CFP (IAB + PC)
- Send CFP via email (IAB EAM, others as appropriate)
- Post CFP to social media (CommsDir)
- 1 week to submission deadline: send a reminder by email and on social media (IAB EAM, CommsDir)
- Review submissions (PC)
- Issue workshop invitations (PC)
- Create workshop participants mailing list (IAB EAM)
- Create GitHub for the report draft
<draft-iab-name-workshop> (IAB EAM)
- Create datatracker group (IAB EAM)
- Post papers to web page/datatracker (IAB EAM)
- Create und upload workshop agenda (PC)
- Create Webex + datatracker interim meetings and send out invites (IAB EAM)
- Add webex meetings to IAB calendar (IAB EAM)
- Select session moderators and invited presentations (PC)
- Send out invitation for presentation and upload slides to datatracker (Session moderators)
- Hold workshop (PC)
- Find authors for workshop report (PC)
- Write blog post about workshop (PC + CommsDir)
- Publish workshop report (IAB)
- Close workshop mailing lists (IAB EAM)
- Is there a recommended hotel? If so, is there a room block for attendees?
- What is the workshop address? It's good to provide directions and other useful information to attendees.
- Will there be coffee? Soft drinks? Cookies?
- Will there be a social event (whether sponsored or paid by attendees)?