This year the conference is going to be fully virtual and we will be using the Clowdr platform for the conference. Some of the workshops will also be using the Clowdr platform, whereas others have opted for a Zoom room (with a link provided through Clowdr) instead. It is best to check with the workshop organizers directly.

In case you’ve registered and haven’t received a Clowdr invite yet, please contact our support team.

How is the conference organized?

The program of ESEC/FSE 2021 will use a 12 hour mirrored format. Each conference “day” starts at 08:00 EEST (Athens time) and consists of a full 12 hour schedule of research talks, plenary events and social events. Each of these events will be mirrored exactly 12 hours later for attendees in other time zones. Each session (social, plenary or research) is scheduled to last exactly one hour. For information on when certain events are scheduled, please refer to the online program which can be found here.

Research session organization

• Research sessions are blended sessions and can consist of talks for main technical track papers, journal first papers, as well as those in special tracks, such as ideas, visions and reflections.

• We have asked all authors to pre-record their research talks. The talk length can vary based on the type of paper being presented. All authors should have received an invite from Clowdr to upload their presentation. The deadline for uploading the videos is Monday August 16th midnight AoE – late submissions are strongly discouraged as this risks Clowdr being unable to process the video in time for the corresponding session.

• The first 30 minutes of each session consists of three to five pre-recorded talks. The next half of the session is a live Q&A session with the authors that will be moderated by a session chair. As an author, you should prepare to join the Clowdr “backstage” early for this live portion to check your mic and camera. A session chair will be present before the start of the Q&A to help you identify any problems. The backstage will clearly indicate when a session is about to go live.

• Since we use a 12 hour mirroring format, each session will take place twice. We ask authors to be present at the first session in which their talk is scheduled. The first session will always conclude with 30 minutes of live Q&A.

• For the mirrored session, which will be exactly 12 hours later, author attendance is optional but encouraged. In this mirrored session, we will first try to hold a live Q&A depending on the attendance of the authors. If there are no authors, the session chair assigned to that session will choose to the end the live Q&A and ask a volunteer to play the recorded Q&A instead.

Plenary session organization

All plenary sessions will be live for the first instance. For the mirrored version of the plenary session, the original session will be replayed without any live component.

Social session organization

This year we have an exciting slate of D&I social events that will all be held in Zoom sessions and will be linked to from Clowdr.

How to attend?

All conference registrants will receive a registration invite from Clowdr to signup for the platform and join the ESEC/FSE 2021 Clowdr conference. Clowdr offers plenty of opportunities to setup ad-hoc video calls with researchers in other time zones, or to go old-school and chat with anyone at any time. All registrants who have signed up for the conference before the 23rd of August should expect a Clowdr invite before the event starts. During the conference week itself we do not guarantee immediate onboarding onto the Clowdr platform. For help on how to use Clowdr to ensure a successful conference, please refer to Clowdr’s resources page for attendees which can be found here.