Call for Technical Papers and Tutorials

16th Annual System Administrators' Conference (SAGE-AU 2008)
The System Administrators' Guild of Australia
Adelaide, 11-15th August 2008

The SAGE-AU Annual Conference is the premier Systems Administration event in the Asia-Pacific region. The conference offers a premium educational forum for System Administrators of all platforms and levels of experience, and an excellent opportunity to meet, network and learn from acknowledged experts in the field.

This year's conference will start with three days of tutorials followed by the technical program. The technical program will run in two parallel streams covering a wide variety of system administration related talks.

Conference Dates and Location

Early Bird	Friday 18th July 2008
Tutorials	Monday 11th - Wednesday 13th August 2008
Technical Programme	Thursday 14th - Friday 15th August 2008

This year's conference will be held at the Holiday Inn Adelaide.

Holiday Inn Adelaide
65 Hindley Street
Adelaide, SA 5000

Submission Dates

Call for Presentations Issued	12th February 2008
Proposals Due	31st March 2008
Provisional Notification Issued to Authors	28th April 2008
Draft Materials Due	2nd June 2008
Confirmed Acceptance and Contracts Issued to Authors	16th June 2008
Final Materials Due	14th July 2008

We may not be able to confirm acceptance of papers or tutorials where draft materials have not been submitted.

To submit your paper or tutorial please visit our conference management site.

Paper Proposals

SAGE-AU'2008 is hereby calling for papers and topics relevant to the profession of System Administration. Papers should have a technical or managerial System Administration orientation, and should not contain advertising. Possible talks topics include:

Selling yourself/your team
Successful negotiation
Disasters recovered
Security issues
Tools, tricks and tips
Standards

For further inspiration see technical paper abstracts from previous conferences.

We will accept the following types of presentation:

Lightning talks (5 minutes)

You don't need to submit a proposal for a lightning talk. These will be organised from sign-up sheets at the conference. Instructions will be given on the first day. Lightning talks are brief talks that focus on a single example, idea, project or technique. Lightning talks are not expected to cover all aspects of the subject. They're an excellent forum for first-time speakers.

Standard (30 minutes)

This is the preferred format. 20 minutes for talking and 5 minutes for questions (with 5 minutes spare for set-up and take-down). This is enough time to cover a few issues well and allows us to provide a good selection of talks throughout the day.

Extended (60 minutes)

Extended talks are ideal for experienced speakers who want to cover a large topic. 45 minutes for talking and 10 minutes for questions (with 5 minutes spare for set-up and take-down).

If you choose this longer time slot please include include a justification in your proposal. We reserve the right to ask you to change a long talk proposal to be a standard length instead.

Submitting a Technical Paper for Consideration

If you wish to present a paper, please submit your proposal to our conference management site by the closing date (31st March).

Additional questions and inquiries should be directed to:

Paper Submission

All presenters are required to submit all presentation materials by the specified dates. Failure to do so may result in loss of your speaking slot and speaker benefits.

The final paper submission is expected to be a "camera ready" paper for inclusion in the conference proceedings. This final copy must be submitted in an approved format (see "Author Guidelines"). Authors should note that formal papers are required - submissions consisting solely of presentation slides are insufficient.

To assist authors, templates and instructions for use of those templates will be provided in the following formats:

HTML

Final Technical Paper submissions must be made using one of these templates. Templates will be made available from the conference website.

Please ensure that your final submission has had its grammar and spelling corrected and that examples work. Your paper allows attendees who attended your talk a chance to refresh their memories about your presentation, and gives attendees who missed your talk a chance to learn from you anyway. Make sure your paper includes - at the very least - a brief introduction to your subject material and a list of further resources.

Speaker Benefits

People presenting a technical paper (a 30 or 60 minute talk) will receive one full discount on the Technical Program (Thursday & Friday only). In the case of more than one author, only a single author will be afforded the discount. Only one discounted attendance is available per person. If a presenter is also presenting a tutorial, this discount is not applicable.

Note that you may lose both your speaker slot and benefits if you do not meet our due dates. If you find that you need more time, please contact the program coordinator to see if an extension is possible.

Practice

The Programme Committee will issue guidelines to assist authors in planning their papers and presentations. We strongly encourage those inexperienced in public speaking to trial their presentations at their local chapter's meetings.

Tutorial Proposals

SAGE-AU'2008 is hereby calling for tutorial presentations on topics relevant to the profession of System Administration.

Submitting a Tutorial Presentation for Consideration

Tutorial sessions will be either 3 hours or 6 hours duration.

People wishing to present tutorials should submit a 1000 word abstract of the material they wish to present, who their intended audience is, and an indication of whether they require a 3 hour or 6 hour timeslot.

Tutorial presenters are required to submit a tutorial draft to allow the committee to provide feedback and assist with the editorial process.

Tutorials should be run in lecture format.

As SAGE-AU Conferences typically receive a large number proposals for Tutorials, authors of tutorial proposals which are not accepted may be invited to submit a revised proposal for a Technical Paper.

If you wish to present a tutorial, please submit your proposal to our conference management site by the closing date (31st March 2007).

Additional questions and inquiries should be directed to:

Author Guidelines

The Programme Committee will issue guidelines to assist authors in planning their presentations. We strongly encourage those inexperienced in public speaking to trial their presentations at their local chapter's meetings.

It is traditional that no specific templates are provided to tutorial presenters for their materials, but authors are encouraged to use a standard format for their materials (Powerpoint, OpenOffice Impress, Keynote, PDF).

Tutorial Remuneration

Tutorial presenters will receive an honorarium of AUD$600 per 3 hour tutorial and AUD$1200 per 6 hour tutorial.

An additional "bonus" payment of AUD$75 per 3 hour tutorial and AUD$150 per 6 hour tutorial will be paid to presenters who submit camera-ready originals of handout material on-time in accordance with the published schedule.

Tutorial Presenter Benefits

People presenting a tutorial will receive free registration for the Technical Program (Thursday & Friday only) including the conference dinner. In the case of more than one presenter, only a single author will be afforded the discount. Only one discounted attendance is available per person.

SAGE-AU will reimburse tutorial presenters reasonable costs of producing handout materials; materials submitted on-time will be printed by SAGE-AU on the presenter's behalf.