The following is a summary of the issues resolved at the organizational meeting on 9/6.

Auditors

Auditors are welcome at any session, provided they come prepared by, e.g., reading the relevant papers, being an expert in the area, etc.

It was decided that "advertising" to auditors should be done by word of mouth. Might it make sense for the inviting member of the class to take charge of (a) speaking to the listener about deferring (slightly) to members of the class during discussions and (b) introducing a new listener to the class?

Attendance

Consistent attendance, while not mandatory, is expected of members of the class. As a rule of thumb, it was suggested that members should attend at least 75% of the sessions.

Presentation Guidelines

The class prefers a broad view of each topic, rather than details about a single result. Futhermore, the class prefers intuition and basic structure of theorems rather than proofs.

Leader Responsibilities

Aside from leading the discussion on Wednesday, the responsibilities of the discussion leader are as follows:

Week Before:

Drop PDF files of key papers into course locker (Athena: /mit/6.962/). Link (or have someone link) them to the web page. When PDF files are unavailable, bring copies to class. Finally, send email to the course mailing list (6.962@mit.edu) indicating status.

Monday Before:

Distribute outline/summary of discussion to be led on Wednesday. Either PDF on the web, or copies available, e.g., at LIDS office.

Week After:

Submit written summary of problem, results, discussion, and references. It was decided that this writeup should be electronic, e.g., another PDF file, generated in Word or LaTeX