Three participants have evaluated the OTMA 2010 quantitatively (by giving some scores) and qualitatively (by writing up some paragraphs of comments).

Amy Van Looy

OTMA was my first conference experience. Since the Academy took place in a small meeting room with a limited audience (circa 10 persons), it was more approachable for me as a starting Ph.D. student to go out of my comfort zone. Although the reviewers were very critical at first sight, they gave me appropriate and constructive advice to narrow my research scope. They also proposed to include more examples in order to increase the readability of the paper for people outside my research field, and thus to reach a larger public. Another advice was to contact organisations that were interested in applying my theoretical model, as from the beginning of the research. Still some questions remain regarding the practical realisation of the research. However, new ideas were given which inspired me and which can be further elaborated on together with my advisors.

OTMA is organised by an enthusiastic team, involving people with relevant experience in the IT domain in general, who also know how to encourage people. Besides the formal conference part, I really enjoyed the informal talks and the events. This does not only apply to the other PhD students I met, but also to the coaching professors. Imagine that I visited the Knossos Palace and Heraklion together with the reviewer who was the most sceptical before!

Christophe Debruyne

OnTheMove Academy was a surprisingly rich experience for my Ph.D.  research. Surprisingly since I've never received so much constructive criticism on my work than on other "regular" conferences and workshops that I have attended. This was possible as the OTMA faculty invested a lot of effort in evaluating each of the participating students. Evaluation was on two levels: content and presentation.

Presentation wise, I learned that my texts were aimed to a particular in crowd within my research community, rendering my articles less accessible to outsiders. I furthermore received tips on how to improve my writing. Content wise, it was a great experience to be examined by  reviewers outside my field. This nice, though difficult exercise showed that the scope and aims of my research needed to be better defined. The comments by the faculty staff even lead to some new insights that I will explore in the near future.

The Academy doesn't end after just one day, faculty staff join you to discuss ideas and point to relevant people and literature throughout the conference. These contacts even seem to be of the lasting kind. I'm actually considering reentering the Academy in two years time to present my progress.

Klemens Muthmann

Right now after OTMA 2010 I believe my participation was of great value for my ongoing thesis. It was my second publication after one year of thesis work. Most important were the discussions right after my presentation and face to face during dinner and the coffee breaks. They showed how people not in my thesis receive it, what is understandable and what not. It was also a great opportunity to practice the critical examination that will surely take place during my final defense. In addition I was able to talk to these most critical people in private afterwards, to find out why they tore things apart in the first place.

Now I think I have a much clearer picture of were to go from here. Unfortunately I received the information about poster preparation and review session a little late. So I had not that much time to prepare them in advance of the symposium. However I think this will be fixed next year and advice everyone to take some time for preparations to receive comments on content and not on layout problems.

Many thanks to the whole OTMA team