IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - March 2013 - 74

4
3

2012 Munich
2011 Vancouver
2010 Honolulu

2
1
0

Figure 2. Venue type preference: (1) hotel, (2) convention center,
(3) university, and (4) no preference.

Academic members still dominate attendance, i.e., about
65 percent, a further 20 percent are Government employees, with a small 10 percent private sector attendance. This
implies that Geoscience and Remote Sensing research is
ostensibly mostly occurring at universities.
On average, 75 percent of the attendees are IEEE or GRSS
members, but there is a steady growth in non-members
(from 23 percent in 2010 to 33 percent in 2012). The Society
continues to try and attract new members with its granting
of complimentary affiliate membership at conferences.
Reasons for Attendance
In response to the question of "What is your primary reason for attending IGARSS?" about 65 percent cite reasons of
technical content and networking. The balance cite, "sharing your work and obtaining a publication." This statistic
has been fairly steady over the years.
The pre-conference tutorials have remained popular
over the years, with about 25 percent of attendees using
these opportunities to increase their knowledge in specialist areas. The large majority rate the workshops as "good"
to "excellent."
Peer Review of Proceedings
As we enter the era of Open Access publications, where
conference publications are now easily accessible online,
we continue to assess members feelings about peer review.
Firstly, about 45 percent of attendees prefer the present
model of peer-reviewed abstracts only. About 30 percent
would prefer to see 4-page, fully reviewed papers. These
numbers have not changed significantly over time, which
appears to indicate that either the present model is fine, or,
maybe, the introduction of sessions with full peer review
might have traction, since there is not a very large difference
between the two camps. However, such a change would
require another layer of administration to indicate which
papers are fully reviewed, and this does not seem attractive.
Balance of Invited and Contributed Sessions
The preference here has remained fairly stable with time,
i.e., 75 percent of IGARSS attendees prefer that Invited
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Sessions (organized by individuals, with review by the convener only) be kept below 30 percent of all sessions. In fact,
60 percent would prefer this percentage is below 20 percent
of all sessions. This is a "strong guideline" that is being
provided to conference organizing committees.
Posters, Tours and Conference Venue
The format of IGARSS Poster Sessions has evolved with
time. At Munich, some innovations in terms of mini presentation venues, including video, were tested. However,
more than 50 percent of the respondents did not attend
these. Those that did attend seemed to like them, but there
were many complaints about ambient noise, and visibility, so clearly this mode of presentation requires further
development.
Regarding the venue, it seems that attendees are influenced by their most recent experience. Thus, if IGARSS is
hosted at a hotel, this is preferred, or, if at a Convention
Center, this becomes the preference! Summarizing, though,
60 percent prefer either of these two venue types, with
about 30 percent preferring a low cost, university venue, i.e.,
with a hope that it would lead to a more affordable price for
the conference.
About 80 percent of attendees are not strongly interested
in the availability of tours associated with an IGARSS.
IGARSS'12 Experience
This has been the largest IGARSS ever in terms of attendance and number of parallel sessions. Generally attendees found it no better or worse in terms of technical
content. In common with all IGARSS since 2009 (the start
of our surveys), about 80 percent of the attendees rated
the conference as "Good" to "Excellent." In the free format responses to the survey, we did pick up a number of
comments that there were too many parallel sessions and
glitches with venue size, i.e., too small for the number of
attendees. However, this is always a difficult issue for organizing committees.
An innovation at IGARSS'12 was the provision of daycare facilities, and this attracted a number of very positive
comments, as did the excellence of the evening events and
provision of free transport around Munich.
New Ideas for IGARSS Tested
This survey attempted to explore whether there would be
support for a format other than the current of IGARSS format. For example, we tested the idea of a "Multi-conference" consisting of a number of smaller conferences, each
with its own committee under the IGARSS umbrella. This
format is used by other societies. These smaller conferences
would run over fewer days in many cases, offering a smaller
number of parallel sessions.
However, 68 percent of respondents did not like this
idea, 23 percent supporting it. This seems to indicate
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