EPAC’08Technical Post Mortem
J. Poole
EPAC08 Technical PM, TM KEK, November 2008, J. Poole 2
Editing at EPAC 2006
• Basic assumption is that expert editors can edit an average of 35 papers per day.
• Started pre-conference processing Thursday AM in the conference centre.
• High percentage of papers submitted by the deadline (Wednesday 21 June midnight)
EPAC08 Technical PM, TM KEK, November 2008, J. Poole 3
Paper Submission (file upload)
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
24/0
5/06
25/0
5/06
26/0
5/06
27/0
5/06
28/0
5/06
29/0
5/06
30/0
5/06
31/0
5/06
01/0
6/06
02/0
6/06
03/0
6/06
04/0
6/06
05/0
6/06
06/0
6/06
07/0
6/06
08/0
6/06
09/0
6/06
10/0
6/06
11/0
6/06
12/0
6/06
13/0
6/06
14/0
6/06
15/0
6/06
16/0
6/06
17/0
6/06
18/0
6/06
19/0
6/06
20/0
6/06
21/0
6/06
22/0
6/06
23/0
6/06
24/0
6/06
25/0
6/06
26/0
6/06
27/0
6/06
28/0
6/06
29/0
6/06
30/0
6/06
01/0
7/06
02/0
7/06
03/0
7/06
04/0
7/06
05/0
7/06
06/0
7/06
07/0
7/06
08/0
7/06
09/0
7/06
10/0
7/06
11/0
7/06
12/0
7/06
13/0
7/06
14/0
7/06
15/0
7/06
16/0
7/06
17/0
7/06
18/0
7/06
19/0
7/06
20/0
7/06
21/0
7/06
22/0
7/06
23/0
7/06
24/0
7/06
25/0
7/06
26/0
7/06
EPAC08 Technical PM, TM KEK, November 2008, J. Poole 4
Papers Processed per Day
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
22/0
6/20
0623
/06/
2006
24/0
6/20
0625
/06/
2006
26/0
6/20
0627
/06/
2006
28/0
6/20
0629
/06/
2006
30/0
6/20
0601
/07/
2006
02/0
7/20
0603
/07/
2006
04/0
7/20
0605
/07/
2006
06/0
7/20
0607
/07/
2006
08/0
7/20
0609
/07/
2006
10/0
7/20
0611
/07/
2006
12/0
7/20
0613
/07/
2006
14/0
7/20
0615
/07/
2006
16/0
7/20
0617
/07/
2006
18/0
7/20
0619
/07/
2006
20/0
7/20
0621
/07/
2006
22/0
7/20
0623
/07/
2006
24/0
7/20
0625
/07/
2006
26/0
7/20
0627
/07/
2006
28/0
7/20
0629
/07/
2006
30/0
7/20
0631
/07/
2006
01/0
8/20
0602
/08/
2006
03/0
8/20
0604
/08/
2006
05/0
8/20
0606
/08/
2006
07/0
8/20
0608
/08/
2006
EPAC08 Technical PM, TM KEK, November 2008, J. Poole 5
Processing Stats.
EPAC08 Technical PM, TM KEK, November 2008, J. Poole
Dotting Statistics
6
10%
40%
50%
EPAC08 Technical PM, TM KEK, November 2008, J. Poole
New Features
• An equation editor was used by word which had its own fonts. It displayed fine on screen but would not print either to PS or PCL.
• No solution found.• Exploding diagrams (not really new)
– Needed Word 2007 to make a PS file which was OK.
7
EPAC08 Technical PM, TM KEK, November 2008, J. Poole
Template Problems
• Borders around Fig. 1 in the Word 2007 template are missing
• The line above the footnote was frequently missing in submitted papers.
• People used the recipe for inserting figures using tables but forgot to turn off the borders.
8
EPAC08 Technical PM, TM KEK, November 2008, J. Poole
SPMS Problems
• In the editors list of active papers, the show log option only works for the last one on the page.
• Uploading of transparencies (PDF etc.) causes the status (dot) to become unassigned.
9
EPAC08 Technical PM, TM KEK, November 2008, J. Poole
Possible Improvements
• Install 2 generic PS drivers – one for A4 and one for Letter.
• Test the whole setup before cloning– Wrong joboptions used– Generic driver not set up correctly and had ambiguous
name
10
EPAC08 Technical PM, TM KEK, November 2008, J. Poole
What was good
• Download a zipped package of all files is very useful, particularly for LaTeX.
• Autodistill saved a little time• ‘You have not finished your submission’ message
when no PostScript file reduced volume of yellows.• Very few post-deadline submissions (~7%)
11
EPAC08 Technical PM, TM KEK, November 2008, J. Poole
Potential Improvements
• Review and approve yellows through SPMS – Download PDF– Accept editor version via SPMS
• Move to Word 2007
12
EPAC08 Technical PM, TM KEK, November 2008, J. Poole 13
Processing Performance
• We did not expect so many papers in the early stages of planning but we decided to stick with our original manpower estimates for editors because this is limited by budget.
• Pre-conference processing was hard work for 9 editors:• Thursday 200 papers• Friday 325 papers• Saturday 389 papers 916 (average 34 c.f. 35 papers per day per
editor)• Leaving enough for training of new editors (1200 papers finally)• Started QA early in the week and completed it before the end of the
conference.
14
Platforms and Software
LaTeX29%
Word (PC)65%
Word (Mac)6%
Windows82%
Mac8%
Unix10%
EPAC08 Technical PM, TM KEK, November 2008, J. Poole 15
Processing Problems
49 (32)% Format Probs. – doesn’t match template
20 (24)% Other
10 (12)% No Postscript File
(6)% Title not in uppercase
4 (6)% Font Problems
(4)% Bad format in references
7 (4)% A4 printed on US Paper or vice-versa
8 (4)% Unusable Files
1 (2)% Type 3 Fonts (LaTeX)
(2)% Footnote outside margin
(1)% Too many pages
(1)% Colour lost in figures
0.4 (.3)% Slow Graphics
(.25)% Blank last page
0.1 (.25)% Multiple PS Files
(.2)% PDF file not PS
Comparison with EPAC’06
EPAC08 Technical PM, TM KEK, November 2008, J. Poole 16
Conclusions
• The latest Word software has a few ‘new’ problems but the tools at our disposal to fix problems are even more powerful.
• New templates have helped to improve the quality of authors’ contributions but there is still more work to do.
• We can see from the analysis where the problems are and we should concentrate our efforts on providing tools and education to reduce them.
• Changing how we handle yellow dots could save time and effort.
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