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Digest No. 1 : December 1996
Please send material/submissions/comments for the WATT
Digest to D.W.Corne@reading.ac.uk.
WATT Digests are emailed monthly to WATT members and also appear here.
Contents
- Introduction
- Current Membership
- Events
- WWW Site
- Call for Contributions
Introduction
Welcome to WATT digest no. 1. WATT Digests will be emailed
to members of EURO/WATT regularly, roundabout once per month,
providing regular news and views from the Automated
Timetabling research and end-user community. Regular features
will be an update on our membership profile,
news of relevant events, and a
rundown on what's new at our WWW-site .
We hope, of course, to make this digest as useful and informative
as possible to our members, so please send comments, suggestions,
and so on to me at
D.W.Corne@reading.ac.uk. In particular, please look at
this issue's Call for Contributions, where
we have a little more to say on such matters.
In this first issue, there is a brief review of current membership,
a note on two upcoming events of paricular interest to WATT folk,
a short overview of the WATT WWW site, and an appeal for
contributions and ideas for future issues.
Current Membership
WATT currently has 99 members! Who will be
the 100th? Members come from a total of 34 countries.
Many countries are represented by just one or two members;
the only countries with four or more members at the
moment happen to be: The UK ,The US ,Germany, The Netherlands,
Singapore, Italy, France, and Australia. Close behind with
just three members are: Spain, Portugal, Canada and Brazil.
I haven't quite had time yet to profile our membership in terms
of interests, timetabling roles (eg: no. of researchers, no. of
practitioners, etc ...), but this is planned for the January
issue.
Events
There are two main events to look forward to which are
particularly timetabling oriented:
First, the FIRST WATT MEETING (call for abstracts). Key
parameters for this are subnmission of a 100-word abstract
by 10th December, preferably by email, to
D.W.Corne@reading.ac.uk;
the meeting will take place between July 14th and 17th in Barcelona,
as part of EURO-XV.
Next, there's PATAT-97. Key parameters for this are submission
of a full paper (up to 8,000 words) by 15th January 1997
(or a 1,000 word abstract for presentation at the conference,
but not considered for the post-conference publication) to
Dr Edmund Burke.
The conference will be in Toronto, on 20th--22nd August 1997.
WATT's WWW Site
WATT's WWW site is up and running, and wide
open to comments and suggestions. In particuilar, many
thanks to Kirk Jackson for producing the logo.
Please let me know
what you'd like to see there, and what you curently think
of it.
The goal is for the WWW site to be useful to the WATT membership
in a variety of ways. Two ways in which members can be of
particular help are these:
- Correctness: You will find a lot of information in the
WWW pages, by far the majority concerned with membership
details. It would be good if each member could check their
own details by searching for themselves in the `By Surname'
index and the `By Country' index, and then
let me know
of any errors/inaccuracies you find. I would also encourage
members to let me know
their URLs, so that I can incorporate this in the relevant
lists.
- Content: It will not surprise anyone to learn that a
variety of things are planned, such as adding information
about members' publications, other relevant publications,
tutorial material, members' interest and other profiling'
details, and so on. I would appreciate WATT members' help
either to identify additional useful WATT WWW-site
facilities, or to help me prioritise the aforesaid additions.
Contribute to the WATT Digests
As you can see, your first WATT Digest is
not as packed with information as it might be; the cure
for this is to send
me contributions for the next and/or future issues.
For example, write a paragraph or two about a new
timetabling-related project you are embarking on, or one
in progress, or one just completed. Send me announcements
about the availability of papers and/or software. Send me
reports on the timetabling-oriented content of
conferences/workshops you have recently been to, or books
that you have just read. And so on!.
That's it for the December 1996 issue; Season's Greetings
to all!.
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