The first workshop on “use of R in official statistics” was held in
2013, in the Ecological University of Bucharest and organized by the
Romanian R team consisting of employees of the national statistical
institute of Romania (NIS) as well as from Romanian universities. Until
2017 the conference had 5 successful editions, which were all in
Bucharest.
Starting with the 6th edition in 2018, the “conference started to
travel” and it took place on the premise of Statistics Netherlands in
The Hague.
The organizers plan to organize the conference every second year at NIS and every other year, it shall be organized somewhere else. The 2021 edition of uRos conference was hosted by Romanian NIS, being organized for the second time as an online event, in November. Therefore, the next available possibility for interested organizations to host the conference is 2026. If no suitable host for the even years is found, NIS will host the event.
The total duration of the conference should be 3 days with a split between the scientific programme and tutorials. Normally one day is reserved for tutorials and 2 (or 1,5) days is reserved for the sessions with keynote and contributed presentations.
Depending on the constraints of the venue, there should be at least enough space for 100 participants in the main lecture room for plenary sessions such as the keynote talks. Especially, the tutorials need separate rooms, so at least 3 rooms should be available, each of them for about a third of the maximum number of participants. For the contributed sessions, it is advisable to also allow for break-up sessions and therefore beside the main lecture room there should also be at least one extra room available and when possible two.
2018 the registration fee was 200 € and it should remain within the
same magnitude. This should cover all or most of the external costs for
organizing institutions, excluding the cost of the venue and the working
hours of the employees.
At the moment it is not foreseen to try to engage private third parties
to sponsor the conference and side or social events. However, public
funding whether locally from the hosting country/city or
internationally, e.g. EU is welcomed.
We have divided the work between two bodies: a scientific board (SB)
and a conference board (CB). Both of these groups are chaired by
Nicoleta Caragea, in the period 2013-2021.
The very well established SB is in charge of reviewing the abstracts for
presentations and tutorials and preparing a decision on the
acceptance/rejection of those. It has also the right of proposal for
keynote speakers. Newcomers to the SB are always welcome, so please
write to us if you are interested and shortly mention your experience in
the area.
The CB is helping the local organizer with all the practical issues of
organizing, such as:
The CB consists of a subset of members from the SB and previous and future organizers.
For the first time in 2018, a side event was planned to accompany the
uRos. The idea behind the event (similar to http://unconf17.ropensci.org/
for R in general) is to bring together useRs from the area of official
statistics to work for two days on concrete projects where enhancements
would benefit many institutes or organizations and present the results
at the uRos conference.
Similar to the idea of the awesome official
statistics software list, this should complement an abstract
top-down approach such as the common
statistical production architecture with fast bottom-up
solutions.
Organizers, speakers, registered participants, and sponsors of the uRos conference and/or unconfUROS hackathon, as well as persons or organizations following and discussing the conference through (social) media or internet are required to follow this Code of Conduct. We shall refer to the combined group as ‘participants’ of the uRos conference.
Privacy: participants respect each other’s privacy. In particular it is not allowed to systematically gather information on organizers, speakers and (registered) participants, including but not limited to personal life, professional position, political views, social media outings, open source contributions, or pictures.
Open: participants are open to collaboration, whether it’s on projects, working groups, packages, problems, or otherwise. Participants are receptive to constructive comment and criticism, as the experiences and skill sets of other participants contribute to the whole of our efforts. Participants are accepting of anyone who wishes to take part in their activities, fostering an environment where all can participate and everyone can make a difference.
Respectful: participants are respectful of others, their positions, their skills, their commitments, and their efforts. They are respectful of the volunteer efforts that permeate the R community. In the case of disagreement, participants are courteous in raising their issues. Participants are attentive in communications, whether in person or online, and tactful when approaching differing views. They refrain from demeaning, discriminatory, or harassing behaviour and speech.
Considerate: participants are considerate of their peers — fellow uRos participants. They are thoughtful when addressing the efforts of others, keeping in mind that oftentimes the labour was completed simply for the good of the community.
In case of violation, participants may be removed from the premises or blocked from communication with the organization. Where relevant, the proper authorities or organizations will be informed of inappropriate behaviour.
This code of conduct is based on the R Community Code of Conduct by the R consortium.
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