Call for Papers

For most of our events, the majority of the program is compiled based on proposals submitted through a call for papers. You can submit a proposal for our upcoming event using our Sessionize call for papers application at https://sessionize.com/jfall23/ .

When the call for papers deadline has passed, the program committee are handed the session abstracts and they have to individually rate the sessions using a “five star system” (1: bad — 5: excellent). The committee consists of members from the NLJUG board and is complemented by 8 individuals that stand out in the NLJUG and open source communities. Program committee members individually judge the session abstracts paying attention to the following criteria in no particular order:

  • Is it a hot topic?
  • Diversity in topics for this particular conference
  • Variety in topics over conferences in the past
  • Speaker credentials (pay attention to your speaker bio, especially previous speaking engagements!)
  • Evaluation results for speaker from previous conferences/universities, if any
  • Whatever other criteria they may find of interest (that’s why they stand out, right?)

Finally, the committee sits together and adds up the individual ratings. Remarkably, most of the time this produces very uniform results. Still, the final cut is a tough call. If conflicts arise the NLJUG board members make the final call, but most of the time we’ll manage to come to an agreement before that happens.

Fortunately for us, we do receive lots of proposals. Mostly, over four times the amount of session slots available. This means we have to disappoint people as well. Sometimes we get angry e-mails or funky phone calls in return. That’s why we like to share this information with you here and manage expectations up front.

Is it an honest system? Yes, we like to think so. This way we try to eliminate all kinds of conflicts of interests. Quality content first! If you think there’s anything wrong with that, or have suggestions for improvement, we would love to hear from you. Drop the program committee a line at papers@nljug.org.

Details of the selection process, tracks and topics are described in our call for papers application at https://sessionize.com/jfall23/.