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Ten Ways to Improve SIOP
On May 23, 2006 by Jamie Madigan
I've been to 11 of the SIOP conferences since 1843, and I've seen a lot of improvements in the program and the way things are run. That said, however, I think there's still a lot of room for improvement. Here's just a few ideas:
One: Podcasting of seminars. Sure, you can supposedly buy a CD with .mp3 recordings of all the seminars from a company called Blue Sky and SIOP is supposed to be streaming the content from their website (though it's still not up at the time of this writing). But really. That's so 2004. The kids today, they want their discussions of leadership development and meta analysis right away, and in a form they can just dump into their fancy iPods as they head out the door to their rave parties and ice cream socials. SIOP should be posting these things right away and making podcasts immediately available to all paid members.
Two: More mini workshops. There are some of these things that go on, but the entire nature of the conference seems to shy away from basic content like "Job Analysis 101" or "Implementing an online 360 survey 101" or the like. There's plenty of heady academic research and reports on what some mega consulting agency or another was paid to do, but there need to be more one-off, simple, and imminently useable workshops on how to do simple stuff. Besides those expensive, pre-conference workshops. This would be a big draw to grad students and newly minted I/O professionals.
Three: More quality control, especially on symposiums. Okay, I think I can say this since I've been a SIOP reviewer and had SIOP submissions both rejected and accepted in the past. But really, there needs to be more QC here. A lot of the posters are kind of "meh" and obviously someone's Master's Thesis conducted on college sophomores in desperate need of extra credit, but they're easy to ignore and I think the recent practice of displaying the best posters during evening receptions is a great idea. But symposiums aren't really reviewed very much. Just proposals for symposiums, not the actual content, which too often doesn't match up with what's described in the program. So, SIOP, start demanding at least completed papers, and preferably completed presentations before these things are accepted.
Four: Make an online archive of presentations Preferably all SIOP presentations, but at least put up a section on the SIOP website where presenters who so wish can have their PowerPoint slides, posters, and other papers available for easy searching and downloading. I'm tired of hunting through the program for presenters' e-mails so I can beg for a copy of their slides or paper. Put them up there next to those podcasts I was talking about. Now I know that there's some concern about whether this constitutes a "publication" and some researchers wouldn't want to jeopardize their chances of getting some form of their SIOP presentation published in a refereed journal. But for many (most?) presenters, this isn't an issue. Let them choose whether to have it included.
Five: Move to a conference center, for crying out loud. I've never been to a SIOP where the hotel was ideally laid out to accommodate a conference like this, and I doubt I ever will. Conference centers exist specifically to accommodate this kind of thing --they're big, well equipped, laid out in a manner that makes getting around easy, and they're usually located in the heart of an area with plenty of accommodations. So move SIOP to one. I know this is kind of a pipe dream, though, from conversations with someone who has negotiated contracts for the conference. Hotels subsidize some of the conference costs in exchange for guaranteeing a certain number of guests for the hotel rooms. Without this discount, SIOP would be more expensive. But hey, I can still complain hope, right?
Six: Move away from the weekend. I know that SIOP has traditionally been over the weekend (plus Friday and pre-conference workshops on Thursday) in order to allow academics and students to attend while cancelling fewer classes, but come on. Giving up me weekend is tough. I would much rather give up my work week! Run the conference over the weekend or at least from Thursday to Saturday. And actually, I hear that this is going to happen starting in 2008! But I'm still going to complain until then, just on principle.
Okay, so there are six reasonable recommendations for improving SIOP. Now, for fun, here are some that are less reasonable, but which I would fully support.
Seven: Ditch the Plenary Session. Seriously, who goes to this? I mean, I know that hundreds of people go to it every year, but my point is that I never go to it. It's a bunch of people I don't know being given awards I didn't know existed. None of it impacts me much. Instead, use the time to give everyone a free pony.
Eight: Whittle down the exhibitor hall. There are too many exhibitors in the exhibitor hall. I don't think that's what it's for. Each day of the conference, attendees should be able to vote exhibitors out of the hall after having them complete difficult tasks like eating bug sandwiches or running a Denny's for a day. Have Donald Trump do it. At the end of the conference, the last vendor standing should be awarded ALL contracts for ANY work that ANYONE needs done. Then it should be revealed that they're a construction worker from Boise, Idaho.
Nine: Trapdoors, trapdoors, trapdoors! Those little "2 minutes" signs that symposium chairs hold up to curtail the ramblings of long-winded presenters work some of the time, but we need trap doors for the more egregious offenders. There should be a big golden rope with a tassel on the end that hangs down in front of the facilitator or discussant. If someone goes over their time limit, the facilitator gives it a yank. Problem solved and we can all get to the next coffee break before the grad students scarf up all the cookies.
Ten: Zero Tolerance for Correlation Matrices. If any presenters utter the words "Now, I know you can't read this..." and include in their presentation a giant table full of tiny tiny numbers, they should be thrown into gladiatorial combat with one of the vendors from the exhibitor hall. To the death. And accompanied by the music from that one episode of Star Trek where Kirk fought against Spock.
So there you go, SIOP. Feel free to take any of these ideas and run with them.
Existing comments:
Posted by Bryan at May 24, 2006 3:16 PM:
Amen, brother! I haven't been to SIOP in years simply because it's a giant unmanageable mess (oh yeah, and no money). I, like you, have been checking the audio site with no luck yet. And absolutely they should be posting presentations--IPMAAC does it, why can't SIOP? I think it really speaks to the point of the conference. At this point it seems like a way to showcase research (agree with you that much is chaff) and salespeople. That may or may not be the best way to serve the I/O community. It has occurred to me that having separate I and O conference may be the way to go (although they'd never do it), or possibly having more than one conference per year (probably never do that either). Best solution is likely to up the quality control, as you suggest. BTW, some of Purdue's are here: http://www2.psych.purdue.edu/~jfoster/siop2006.htm
Posted by Howard at May 11, 2007 4:10 PM:
I agree with the blog and comments. I was a presenter in a symposium this year but ditched the rest to see NYC. Too many people, overlapping presentation times, and arcane topics. It seems like everyone's thesis defense in on parade. Not much there for applied testing folk. We will see, next year in CA about 90 miles from me so I can really say its hard to get to. I like the suggestions of separating I and O. We will see. Cheers.
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