Whither NSTCS?

Meena Mahajan

Institute of Mathematical Sciences, CIT Campus, Madras 600 113, India.
E-mail: iarcs@imsc.ernet.in

Since 1991, NSTCS, the National Seminar on Theoretical Computer Science, has been held each summer, in different locations across the country. NSTCS was started with the intention of complementing the high-profile international FST&TCS conference held annually in December. NSTCS and FST&TCS are the only two events in India where the entire theoretical computer science community of the country may be expected to congregate at one place.

Contributions to FST&TCS are refereed stringently and the Proceedings are traditionally published in Springer's prestigious LNCS series. There are invited talks by prominent researchers, which usually appear in the Proceedings as well.

NSTCS is a very different kind of event. The goal is to encourage participation in and increase awareness about theoretical computer science research. Consequently, the seminar has typically included tutorials on specific areas. It also has contributed papers, selected with different (as compared to FST&TCS) refereeing norms---the principal aim has been to identify original ideas and seeds for work and nurture these, rather than look for work in its final form.

The format of NSTCS has undergone a lot of experimentation. The first Seminar had three tutorials and 18 contributed papers. Each tutorial was of 3 hours duration spread out over three days. In subsequent years, hour-long invited talks have been introduced to give the audience an exposure to current research topics. Contributed papers have been partitioned into full presentations with papers in the proceedings, and short papers with a one page abstract in the proceedings. All this has led to considerable discussion about the format of NSTCS.

Tutorials

Should these be longer, since a tutorial is expected to give a reasonably in-depth introduction to a research area, assuming only a minimal background?

Refereeing

How much effort should be put into refereeing? Should NSTCS serve more as a springboard for promising ideas than as an outlet for final published work? If so, can the selection be done based on 3--4 page abstracts instead of requiring full papers with detailed technical proofs?

Proceedings

Since the refereeing norms are not very stringent, is it fair to publish the proceedings in copyrighted form? Is it not better to stick to publishing them as Technical Reports as in earlier years?

Drawing crowds

What is the most effective way to attract potential researchers (fresh doctoral students, teachers from colleges and universities) to the Seminar, while still making the program attractive enough for established researchers? Should the programs be targeted at specific audiences? Can we target the tutorials at the first group and the invited talks at the second? \medskip Clearly, we have still not evolved a standard ``most desirable'' format for the seminar. Through IARCS, I am initiating a two to three month long discussion on the format of NSTCS. Suggestions, ideas, criticisms, comments on these questions are welcome. Write to the author, address at the top of this page.

The discussion will then be summarised in the next IARCS newsletter.