Indico: An Event Management Software (and more)

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Indico An Event Management Software(and more)
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Outline

• Project history
• Technical details
• Conference management
• Lecture/meeting management
• Planning/Archiving tool
• Indico future trends and related collaborative
  tools

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Project History

• CDS Agenda
• Created in 1999 following a
• request by ATLAS
• Stores timetable of events and
• related files
• At CERNused by various projects,
• departments, experiments and
• committees
• Available as open-source under the GNU GPL and
  installed in several places worldwide
• IN2P3, NiKHEF, DESY (ILC), ICTP, Elettra Trieste
• Is used to create headers of many web pages
  (CERN, ATLAS, CMS)
• http//agenda.cern.ch
• Hosts mainly seminars, meetings and small
  conferences

TOO LIMITED SCOPE
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Project History

• Indico (Integrated Digital Conference)
• European project 2002-2004
• Partners
• Italy SISSA, University of Udine
• Holland TNO TPD, University of Amsterdam
• CERN
• CDS Agenda served as basis for writing the user
  requirements of Indico
• In production at CERN since 2004 (first time use
  CHEP2004)
• Currently hosts gt45 conferences
• Usage is growing fast
• Also available as open-source under the GNU GPL
• http//indico.cern.ch
• Current migration of CDS Agenda events to Indico

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Technical Details

• main development platform Python
• runs on an Apache web application server using
  the Python module (mod_python)
• Uses the Zope Object Database (ZODB) for storing
  conferences metadata
• Object Oriented database implemented in Python
• The submitted files and archives are directly
  stored on the servers file system
• HTML 4.0
• XML XSLt for timetable generation
• Interfaces
• Web, OAI (Open Archive Initiative) protocol for
  metadata harvesting
• Tested on Windows, linux

InDiCo is distributed under the GNU General
Public License and is fully open source
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Technical Details

• Software architecture

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Conference Management
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Conference Management

• A complex event

human
logical
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Conference Management

• with a lot of processes

gt Web Site Management
gt Conference Program Definition
gt Attendant Registration
gt Call for Abstract
gt Abstract Selection
gt Material Submission
gt Timetable Setup
gt Electronic Proceedings
gt Long term archive
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Conference Management

• Indico helps managing all these processes by
  providing
• A customizable web portal for the conference
• Dedicated interfaces for all the actors of the
  conference
• Fine-granularity protection setup
• Flexible delegation of responsibilities
• File storage at all levels
• Various listings (contributions, authors,
  speakers, registrants) and communication means.
• Export mechanisms (iCal, PDF, XML, Excel)

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Conference Management
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Conference Management
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Meeting Management
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Meeting Management

• Less actors, less processes smaller complexity
• Same basis but simplified interfaces

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Meeting Management
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Meeting Management
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Lecture Management
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Lecture Management
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Lecture Management
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Planning/Archiving Tool

• One server Many events of various sizes
• Hierarchical organisation tree of categories to
  classify the events

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Planning/Archiving Tool

• Various handy temporal views

overview
calendar
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Planning/Archiving Tool

• Long-term archival of the events metadata and
  related material
• Browsing capability
• Search engine uses CDSware
• Export tools creation of external web pages
  (ATLAS home page, LHCb)

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Future Trends and Related Collaboration Tools

• Planned developement
• Still a huge task list (gt 6000 hours)
• Interface improvement program (based on the
  feedback from EGEE and new CERN users)
• Fulltext search
• Proceedings creation improvement
• Internationalization (in collaboration with
  IN2P3/EPFL)
• A goal for CERN Organise the event 100 from
  Indico (avoiding searching for several tools)
• Closer integration with other conferencing
  services room booking, resource booking,
  video-conferencing (VRVS, CERN MCUs),
  audioconference, seminar recording
• Does not mean implement everything in Indico BUT
  regroup all useful tools in a unique and
  convenient location.
• Indico live usage
• Collaborative features instant messaging/chat
  and presence
• Webconferencing

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Future Trends and Related Collaboration Tools

• Making Indico aware of its environment
• Automatic download of ppt files on local
  conference room computer
• Example of a successful integration SMAC (Smart
  Multimedia Archive for Conference)
• In collaboration with EIF (Ecole dIngénieurs de
  Fribourg)
• Fully automated system for recording lectures,
  creating web lectures (SMIL)
• Local recording, centralised processing, several
  conference rooms can be served
• Start/Stop recording from Indico, then the web
  lecture is directly attached to the Indico event.

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Future Trends and Related Collaboration Tools
Example of a SMAC web lecture
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• QUESTIONS
• Project web page http//cern.ch/indico
• Production_at_CERN http//indico.cern.ch
• Contact mailtoindico-projec
  t_at_cern.ch