Thoughts on the August 2010 Singapore WASET multi-conferences

On 2010-02-11, I submitted a paper Some questionable web construction approaches and practice to WASET August 2010 International Conference on Internet and Web Engineering.   This conference is one of some ten conferences of the WASET multi-conferences held at the River View Hotel, Singapore, from August 25 to August 27.  I could no longer find the list of the conferences for this WASET multi-conferences, but it is similar to the 2011 International Conference on Information, Communication, Electrical & Computer Engineering in Singapore that consists of eleven conferences.

I discovered WASET conferences from Google search. They looked impressive. I submitted the paper to WASET's August Singapore conference because during the summer months I will be in Taiwan, an easy four hour flight to Singapore.

Before I went to the Singapore meeting, I wrote about WASET in I will be presenting a paper Some questionable web construction approaches and practice at WASET Singapore 2010.

On 2010-08-25, I checked in at the WASET registration desk in the River View Hotel, Singapore.  I was given a lunch voucher, my name tag, a receipt of registration fee, with my name and 600 [sic] handwritten,  a copy of the conference proceeding (WASET year 6 issue 69 August 2010),  and a conference CD.  I read my paper starting around 4:15 PM.  Even though my talk was well received,  it was unclear anyone was interested in the topic.  

Some thoughts on WASET's conference:

1. Paying for WASET conference registration feels more like paying for ransom than paying for a conference.  Wiring 450€ to an unknown account in Dubai, UAE to register for WASET conference is a good source of anxiety for many and will make others think twice about registering.    I was relieved to see that there was really a WASET conference in the River View Hotel, Singapore.  I advise WASET to accept credit card payment like everyone else.
2. WASET must answer authors' messages instead of ignoring them.   Read I will be presenting a paper Some questionable web construction approaches and practice at WASET Singapore 2010 to see how they ignored my messages to them.
   The following private correspondence from IIT Roorkee, India, suggests a general pattern:
   
   

   ... then I wrote this things to  alerts@waset.org. But they did not respond. Finally I send my paper as attachment to alerts@waset.org. But still they didn't respond. ...

3. I wish WASET great success in bringing conferences to such cities as Amsterdam, Paris, Venice, Rome, Tokyo, Singapore as advertised in http://www.waset.org.  This would offer scholars more conferences to choose from, a wonderful contribution.  Judging from my experience with the Singapore conferences, WASET has much work to do to make its conferences useful.  I see the following serious problems:
1. The WASET Singapore multi-conference program lists 257 papers in 11 conferences with an average of 23 papers per conference.  Out of 257, 44 are posters listed in the e-Sessions (page 11 of the PDF program).  There are two parallel sessions in Halls A and B.  The posters are supposed to be in Halls A and B during all three days, but I did not see any in Hall A.  I hope other attendees can share their experience by leaving comments.  Excluding posters, each conference has an average of 19 papers.   The audience is small, around 30,  in the afternoon of 2010-08-25 in Hall A.   That is on average less than three attendees per conference.  With this small number of attendees, the likelihood is small that one will meet people in one's field, or potential collaborators.
2. One way to get a sense whether a conference offers good value is to see how many papers are of interest.  I invite you to read the conference program to decide.  Leave a comment as a service to others.
3. There were no free Internet connection in the conference halls.  I borrowed a hotel Wi-Fi account from a WASET lady staff immediately before my talk.   It worked when I began, but soon started asking for a password.
4. Each talk is 20 minutes.  Yet in session III (see picture below) which went from 3 to 5 PM, there were fourteen talks scheduled, arithmetically could take up a total of nearly four hours. How can this impossibility be achieved?
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. The conference program lists 257 papers, the conference CD contains 245, but the hard copy conference proceeding contains only 25.  Why are 232 papers excluded from the proceeding?  What is the criterion for a paper to be included in the proceeding?
6. I had the misfortune of having a 100 % failure rate interacting with WASET's web (PHP) programs while submitting my paper and while submitting registration.  WASET must fix these web programs right away.
7. Conference programs should not be published as PDF files as they shape up.  Such practice is ineffective and does not engender professional respect.
8. WASET papers are published to the web at http://www.waset.org/journals/waset.  As of today, 2010-09-05, the most recently published papers are those from the April 2010 conferences at http://www.waset.org/journals/waset/v64.php.  Only 8 such papers are visible with the rest labeled under construction.  Assuming WASET had published 2010 April conference CD,  it should be little or no work to also have these papers published to the web.  Likewise, there is no excuse not to publish August 2010 conference CD to the web site immediately.  Not publishing papers timely, WASET hurts its credibility and authors' visibility.

If WASET can improve to offer genuinely useful conferences, I will not hesitate to attend its other conferences in exciting cities such as Paris, Tokyo and Rome.  I wish it success.