Call for Ingram Olkin Forum Proposals

About

Ingram Olkin Forums (IOF) aim to promote Statistics Serving Society and bring statisticians into areas of important national interest where they are not already well represented.  Great candidate proposals will envision presentations that encourage future collaborative work. Financial needs and locations can be discussed with the IOF committee.  More information on IOFs is summarized here along with examples of past forums and Tips for Planning a Forum.

Timeline for Submitting and Reviewing Proposals

There are two deadlines per year, March 30 and Sept 30, for submissions via officeadmin@niss.org. The proposal review committee will meet April 20 and Oct 20, and respond within a month. Accepted proposals may be scheduled throughout the coming year; those not accepted may be revised based on feedback and resubmitted for the next cycle.

For the April deadline, online forums could be scheduled for the fall (Sep-Nov) and in-person forums could be scheduled for Winter (Dec-Feb).  For the Sept deadline, the online forums could be scheduled to begin in Spring (Mar-May) of the following year, and in-person forums could be scheduled to begin in the Summer (June-Aug). Hybrid in-person and online forums will be considered. Special consideration may be given to time-constrained opportunities.
 

Please send questions to officeadmin@niss.org.

 

Tips for Planning an Ingram Olkin Forum (IOF)

Choose a topic of interest, and give it a catchy name. Create the rationale: how does the TOPIC fit with the IOF goals.

Tips

  1. Discuss how findings might be disseminated.
  2. Create an organizing committee of motivated researchers invested in the TOPIC. Links to several prior programs are Gun Violence, Unplanned Clinical Trial Disruptions: Session 1 (discussion of the problem), Session 3 (a specific method with formation of working group).
  3. Create a draft program description using this template:

a) Keep online sessions to 3 hours each, and keep in-person workshops to 1-3 days.

b) NISS director or designee will welcome participants and give a few housekeeping rules.

c) Chair of NISS’ IOF committee or designee will give a few brief comments on the history and goals of IOFs.

d) Each session includes motivating talks (three speakers or two speakers and a formal discussant) with breakout room discussions (or roundtables) and time for synthesis.

e) Video tape (press record on Zoom) main talks and make public. Breakout discussions cannot be recorded in Zoom but notes can be taken on google.docs and shared with the breakout group. These notes can be provided to the working groups that form afterwards.

f) Working groups are expected to continue after the IOF. The follow-up working groups prepare a manuscript.