How to organize a successful VoCamp - Part 3: At the VoCamp

The VoCamp day has come. By now, you should have some things clear for the next couple of days (which is the common duration of a VoCamp, since a one-day event can be too short).
And the most important thing that you must have clear is the goal of your VoCamp, because this goal is what should guide the whole event.

Having concrete goals and restricting the scope of the VoCamp is advisable in order to ensure that you will obtain the results that you want. This usually leads to cover a single domain (or subdomain) or a set of tightly-related domains. You can always organize a multi-domain VoCamp, dealing with several unrelated domains, but in this case interactions between participants can decrease ("Do you think that I can apply your protozoa digestion concepts to my ontology for kernel modules in operating systems?").

As a handy reference, here you have a checklist of the inputs and outputs of a VoCamp.
Inputs:

• VoCamp goals
• Domains covered
• Reading list
• Participant list

Outputs:

• Models
• Pictures (e.g., of sticky notes or boards)
• Next steps

Take care not to disregard this last output. The VoCamp does not end with the VoCamp!

The VoCamp outcome

The added value of gathering people together in a VoCamp is the possibility of discussion and consensus-reaching.

Therefore, if your expected outcome is to develop a new ontology, take advantage of this added value and focus on activities such as specification or conceptualization, instead of trying to produce an OWL implementation.

Of course, you can have other outcomes in mind. In any case, prefer tasks that demand human interaction and leave other mechanical/technical tasks for another time.

Potential VoCamp outcomes:

• Develop a new ontology
• Analyse other ontologies/models
• Specify ontology requirements (e.g., competency questions)
• Extend an existing ontology
• Define mappings between ontologies
• Identify ontology design patterns
• Evaluate or debug ontologies
• Implement an ontology (yes, even this is a valid outcome)
• Any other outcome that you can think of

Grouping participants

It may happen that you need to split participants into different groups. This may be required in circumstances such as when multiple domains (or subdomains) are being covered in the VoCamp, or when there are plenty of participants and certain tasks (e.g., discussion or consensus reaching) are not efficient. In this second case, avoid working in parallel unless you have a significant number of participants.

If you make groups, you will need group leaders, who will be in charge of leading the tasks to be performed in the group and taking them to a good end.

And if you expect having groups, it is better to identify in advance group leaders (as another input for the VoCamp). Try to find people with a motivation for leading the group (e.g., the creator of the ontology to be extended in the group).

VoCamp schedule

Which is the best way of reaching the VoCamp goals in a limited period of time? This is something yet to analyse; however, there are different sessions that should be part of your VoCamp schedule:

• Participant presentation (including related work and interest in the VoCamp)
• What is a VoCamp (how does it work and what is expected from participants)
• VoCamp goals and scope
• Working sessions (see next section)
• Outcomes presentation
• Discussion

If you plan to have different groups working in parallel, you will need to add sessions for

• Group creation
• Findings sharing

And don't forget about other types of sessions that do not directly lead to the VoCamp outcome but strongly support it, such as

• Free time slots, so people can open their laptops and make things unrelated to the VoCamp (such as reading email) instead of doing them during the rest of the sessions. 
• Breaks, for networking, informal discussions, resting, etc. 
• Lunches and dinner, for more networking, having fun, drink some beers, etc.

Finally, there are certain sessions that are not recommended based on previous experiences; these are tutorial sessions, that is, those sessions where someone spends a significant amount of time presenting or educating the rest of the participants in a certain topic. This type of sessions should be kept to a minimum, since the important ones are working sessions that really take advantage of gathering people together.

Working sessions

Working sessions are the most important part of the VoCamp. However, there is not many information on how to carry them out successfully. While keeping the notion of an informal event, the rules of the game (e.g., participant roles, collaboration techniques) should be defined and clear for participants.

Make some research and find those collaboration techniques that are more suited to your task at hand and to your audience. Don't worry about making things more structured, but don't forget letting people have fun!

Different techniques will require different tools.  However, prefer non-digital tools (e.g., pens, boards, flip-chart pads, sticky notes, etc.) over digital ones (e.g., ontology editor, wiki, document processor).

Ask people to let their laptops closed (and their phones in the pocket (and their tablets in their cases (and ...)) to avoid distractions. The schedule already contains different free time slots, so sooner or later they can go back to their cyber-lifes.

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 How to organize a successful VoCamp:

• Part 1: Before the VoCamp
• Part 2: VoCamp participants
• Part 3: At the VoCamp (this post)
• Part 4: After the VoCamp 
• Part 5: Potential risks at VoCamps