hunch_net hunch_net-2006 hunch_net-2006-203 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
Source: html
Introduction: The 2006 Machine Learning Summer School in Taipei, Taiwan ended on August 4, 2006. It has been a very exciting two weeks for a record crowd of 245 participants (including speakers and organizers) from 18 countries. We had a lineup of speakers that is hard to match up for other similar events (see our WIKI for more information). With this lineup, it is difficult for us as organizers to screw it up too bad. Also, since we have pretty good infrastructure for international meetings and experienced staff at NTUST and Academia Sinica, plus the reputation established by previous MLSS series, it was relatively easy for us to attract registrations and simply enjoyed this two-week long party of machine learning. In the end of MLSS we distributed a survey form for participants to fill in. I will report what we found from this survey, together with the registration data and word-of-mouth from participants. The first question is designed to find out how our participants learned about MLSS
sentIndex sentText sentNum sentScore
1 It has been a very exciting two weeks for a record crowd of 245 participants (including speakers and organizers) from 18 countries. [sent-2, score-0.867]
2 In the end of MLSS we distributed a survey form for participants to fill in. [sent-6, score-0.602]
3 The first question is designed to find out how our participants learned about MLSS 2006 Taipei. [sent-8, score-0.645]
4 Unfortunately, most of the participants learned about MLSS from their advisors and it is difficult for us to track how their advisors learned about MLSS. [sent-9, score-0.819]
5 Asked about why they attended MLSS, as expected, about 2/3 replied that they wanted to use ML and 1/3 replied that they wanted to do ML research. [sent-15, score-0.731]
6 Most of participants attended all talks, which is consistent with our record. [sent-16, score-0.535]
7 Asked about what makes it difficult for them to understand the talks, about half replied mathematics, about a quarter replied “no examples” and less than a quarter replied English. [sent-18, score-0.953]
8 Finally, all talk topics were mentioned as being helpful by our participants, especially those talks that are of more introductory nature, such as graphical models by Sam Roweis, SVM by Chih-Jen Lin, and Boosting by Gunnar Ratsch, while talks with many theorems and proofs are less popular. [sent-19, score-0.527]
9 A quick fix for this problem is to provide Web pointers to previous MLSS slides and video and urge registered participants to take a look at them in advance to prepare themselves before attending MLSS. [sent-23, score-0.736]
10 Then our participants would like organizers to design more activities to encourage interaction with speakers and among participants. [sent-28, score-0.98]
11 We could have let our speakers “expose” to participants more often than staying in a cozy VIP lounge. [sent-30, score-0.874]
12 We could have also provided online and physical chat board for participants to expose their contact IDs. [sent-31, score-0.646]
13 It turned out that our speakers were so good that they covered and adapted to others related talks and made the entire program appear like a carefully designed coherent one. [sent-34, score-0.771]
14 So most participants liked the program and only one complaint was about this part. [sent-35, score-0.548]
15 One cluster of participants is looking for new research topics on ML or trying to enhance their understanding of some advanced topics on ML. [sent-37, score-0.757]
16 If MLSS is designed for them, speakers can present their latest or even ongoing research results. [sent-38, score-0.514]
17 To them, speakers need to present more examples, show them applications, and present mature results. [sent-42, score-0.485]
18 We also designed a graduate credit program to give registered students a preview and prerequisite math background. [sent-46, score-0.534]
19 I think we could have done a better job helping our participants understand the nature of the summer school and be prepared. [sent-48, score-0.746]
20 Finally, on behalf of the steering committee, I would like to take this chance to thank Alex Smola, Bernhard Scholkoph and John Langford for their help to put together this excellent lineup of speakers and the positive examples they established in previous MLSS series for us to learn from. [sent-49, score-0.988]
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