The JavaOne Conference Opens the Door to Community Participation

Imagine you have to host an elaborate dinner for thousands of people from all over the world, each with his or her own particular tastes and expectations for a satisfying meal. Now imagine what it's like to prepare a rich and fulfilling four-day curriculum for thousands of Java technology developers -- and that's the job of the JavaOne Program Committee.

The Program Committee members are the track leaders and their teams of subject-matter experts who review all the session and BOF proposals submitted for each track at the event: Consumer, Desktop, Java SE Platform, Java EE Platform, Open Source, and so on.

It's up to the members of the Program Committee to make the difficult decisions, eventually turning thousands of hopeful proposals into one relatively small menu.

The thrills and agonies of the selection process used to fall on the shoulders of Sun's Java technology experts alone. Each track leader would step up from among the ranks of Sun engineering, and then the leaders would select expert reviewers to fill out their teams. The push to get the reviews done was intense for these Sun volunteers, each of whom already had a day job with plenty to do.

Beyond the reviewers' fatigue, many at Sun couldn't shake the nagging feeling that we were being too insular. Furthermore, the wider community was asking for more influence in determining the Conference curriculum. In the follow-up surveys from attendees each year, the same old complaint would surface: "I think it's about time Sun had an open committee for content selection. JavaOne has been dominated by a Sun agenda for way too long."

For this year's Conference, the Program Committee let in some fresh air. Sun made the decision to invite some of the community's brightest stars to review submissions and help select the Conference content.

In fall 2006, as in years past, Sun track leaders selected their reviewers based on expertise and domain knowledge. However, this time they invited experts from the wider industry to join the Sun reviewers. Each track leader targeted a well-balanced mix of Sun and non-Sun members. The result? In addition to Sun software engineers, this year's Program Committee included professors, researchers, architects, and open-source leaders from outside Sun.

You may recognize the names of the experts who participated in the Program Committee this year:

• Andre Charland, president, Nitobi: Tools and Languages track
• Dan Creswell, Lone Crusadar Ltd.: Cool Stuff track
• Neal Gafter, software engineer, Google: Java SE Platform track
• Ben Galbraith, self-employed consultant: Next-Generation Web and Desktop tracks
• Leonardo Galvao, SouJava, Java magazine director and editor-in-chief: Open-Source track
• Romain Guy, freelance software engineer: Desktop track
• Cay Horstmann, professor: Tools and Languages track
• Stephan Janssen, BeJUG chairman: Open-Source track
• Theodore Leung, Apache: Open-Source track
• Brian Lewis, Intel, Inc.: Cool Stuff track
• Fabiane Nardon, JavaTools community: Open-Source track
• William Pugh, professor, University of Maryland: Java SE Platform track
• Dirk Riehle, SAP/Research: Open-Source track
• Hani Suleiman, CTO, Formicary: Next-Generation Web and Java EE Platform track
• Dain Sundstrom, IBM, Apache Geronimo: Open-Source track
• Fabio Velloso, senior consultant, Summa Technologies: Open-Source track
• Joe Winchester, IBM UK, software engineer, IBM Rational Software Group: Desktop track

When the Call for Papers ended on December 15, 2006, the total number of submissions was nearly 1500. The Program Committee teams then began the process of reviewing the abstracts in the submitted proposals. This year, they built in extra time to allow external reviewers to learn the process and sync up with the very tight review schedule.

For the first time, technical professionals from outside Sun had front-row seats to the difficult selection process. The criteria for acceptance can be mystifying if you're on the outside looking in. Each year, some submitters wonder openly in their blogs why their proposed sessions were not accepted:

• Was the Program Committee not interested in the subject matter?
• Was my proposal not written well enough to persuade the reviewers?
• Was it my breath?

In fact, the Program Committee's formula for selection of the proposals is a combination of these factors:

Quality of abstract + subject matter + speaker = acceptance

However, with multiple great proposals for each slot, the Program Committee reviewers have to narrow it down, and each year they reject many good proposals for lack of space in the curriculum.

This year, the reviewers combed through nearly 1500 submitted abstracts. By the end of February, they had accepted about 200 technical sessions and 117 Birds-of-a-Feather (BOF) proposals.

After the selection process, the Program Committee reviewers begin the second phase: reviewing the speakers' slides to make sure they deliver on the promise of the original proposals.

This phase is tough on reviewers and speakers alike. Where in the selection process the Program Committee teams read through the relatively slim abstracts in the proposals, in the next phase the reviewers have to look through thousands of slides, and -- where necessary -- request changes or enhancements from the speakers.

Throughout, the challenge for the reviewers is to stay focused on the overall quality of the talks. Fortunately, this year's crop of reviewers cares passionately about the subject matter and, by extension, the curriculum.

Annette Vernon, content manager for the JavaOne conference, says: "I think the participation of external reviewers actually boosted the quality of the reviews this year. Each brought their expert perspective to the task and encouraged lively discussion during the review and selection processes."

Did the Program Committee succeed in building a great curriculum this year? You'll have to be the judge as you participate in this year's Conference.

In any case, the doors have opened to a much broader consortium of discerning experts, and the merits of that are clear to all. As with all good collaborations, many Java technologists inside and outside Sun have worked together for the first time to create the content for the world's largest developer conference.

Send email to j1papers@sun.com.