July 6, 2008Aylin Yener and Gerhard Kramer1 Report on the First Annual School of Information Theory...

July 6, 2008 Aylin Yener and Gerhard Kramer 1

Report on the First Annual Report on the First Annual School of Information School of Information

TheoryTheory BoG meeting, ISIT 2008, Toronto

July 6, 2008

Aylin Yener & Gerhard Kramer

University Park Campus, Penn State University

June 1-5, 2008


School took place in the firstweek of June 2008

[From the “Welcome” slides on the first day]

Idea• European Winter School in Coding & Information Theory has existed since the early 1990s

• Purpose: an event where students can get to know each other outside of “large” events

• The idea of having a School inNorth America began in late 2006

• IEEE Information Theory SocietyBoG supported the idea

• Preparations for the Penn StateUniversity event began in Sept. 2007


Organizers and Volunteers• Program Chairs: Aylin Yener, Gerhard

Kramer• Applications: Sennur Ulukus, Ivana Maric• Publicity&Web: Nick Laneman, Matthieu

Bloch, Lalitha Sankar, Brooke Shrader • Local volunteers, who did a wonderful

job: – Debbie Lauder (staff assistant)

and other staff members atPenn State EE

– Min Chen, Ertugrul Ciftcioglu,Xiang He, Ye Tian (PhD students)


Thank you…Thank you…To the School Instructors for your great

lectures and your willingness to take the time to interact with the student attendees.

• Muriel Medard, Network Coding• David Tse, Interference and Relaying• Toby Berger, Bioinformation Theory • Vince Poor, Information Theory:

Past and Future


Sponsors• IEEE Information Theory Society ($20k)• DARPA ($10k - restricted to non-food

items)• Princeton University EE ($3k)• Penn State EE ($3k)• Penn State Networking and Security

Research Center (CSE) ($3k)• NSF (hopefully soon,

$10k for student travel )


Attendance Statistics• Over 150 student applicants • 120 accepted and confirmed attendance• Actual Attendance: 101 students

– 12 last-minute cancellations,mostly due to not being able toobtain a US visa from Canada

– 7 no shows• 13 senior attendees (including

instructors)


What the school provided• Registration Package: campus map,

attendee list, other local information, dedication

• Welcome Reception (Sunday)• Food: Breakfast, Coffee Break, Snacks,

Lunch for Monday-Thursday• Banquet on Wednesday• Wireless LAN accounts• Poster boards/easels


Program: see school.itsoc.org

June 2Monday

June 3Tuesday

June 4Wednesday

June 5Thursday

Opening remarks

3X90min Lectures Muriel Medard: “Network Coding”

3X90min Lectures David Tse: “Interference Channels, Relay Networks, Scaling Laws”

2X90 LecturesToby Berger: “Bioinformation Theory”

Panel:Muriel, David, Toby,Gerhard, Aylin (Mod.)“What Do I Do Now?”

KeynoteVince Poor: “Information Theory: Past and Future”

Student Presentations4-6:10 pm

ITSOC Student Committee Meeting6:30-7:30 pm

Student Presentations4-6:20 pm

Student Posters and Presentations3:00-6:10 pm

Banquet 7-9:30

Student Posters and Presentations 10:00-6:10 pm

http://school.itsoc.org/


Budget• No Registration Fee: it was key to keep

the costs down as much as possible. • The lectures and presentations were held

in Penn State classrooms (free of charge). • Multimedia: Relatively small fee for

photographer. Videos: courtesy ofPenn State

• Breaks: We were able to adjust thefood amounts during the school.

• Reception, Banquet: at thecampus hotel (NLI)– we were ableto save further on these two events.


Budget Details (not finalized)

• We hope to have roughly 10k forstudent grants from existing funds

• NSF: another 10k (hopefully soon)• We will distribute the funds.

+Food total $13,094 (≈$4,000

savings)Banquet dinner $ 4,213 (≈$1,500

savings)Reception $ 2,199 (≈$600 savings)Other (posters, photos, tapes, badges, reg. packs)

$ 2,885

Instructor lodging $ 955Instructor transportation $ 2,000 (est.)Contingency $ 3,000Total $28,346 (of $39k)


Feedback• Verbal feedback positive re lectures,

peer interactions, and student-instructor interactions.

• We conducted an anonymoussurvey (90 responses)

• Rating: 1 to 5 (5 is best)• Outcome: see next 8 charts


Average: 4.52

Overall Organization

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Average: 4.36

Did School of IT meet expectations?

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5

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Average: 4.21

Did you learn from School of IT?

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Average: 4.17

Interactions with students & professors

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Average: 4.44

Would you attend a future School of IT?

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Average: 4.62

Recommend to colleagues?

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Average: 4.47

Local Organization

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Average: 4.78

Should School of IT be annual event?

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Feedback• Attendees are overwhelmingly in favor

of continuing the event.Other survey information: • How the attendees heard about the

school (e-mail, web, advisor, organizers, at a conference, IT newsletter,mailing list, etc.)

• Comments about the organization, application process

• Recommended future instructors


Website• http://school.itsoc.org• Runs on Plone. The School Website will be an

excellent resource for future events.• We posted all lecture slides, student talk

slides, posters.• Lecture, panel, keynote video

recordings coming soon.• School photos will be posted soon.• Our Plone experience is positive.




Conclusion and Outlook• First Annual School of Information

Theory has been a Success.• The feedback from attendees suggests

to continue this event.• Motion: We propose that the

School of Information Theorybecome an annual event withlocations in North America (andperhaps international locations).

• Volunteers for 2009 ?

July 6, 2008Aylin Yener and Gerhard Kramer1 Report on the First Annual School of Information Theory...

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