Browsing

• How do I browse only physics conferences?

  On the Browse page, click the Conferences tab to display conferences, and click topic to open the topic menu. This also applies the topic filter, so no conferences will be displayed until you start adding topics. Now add physics by clicking inside the "Physics" toggle twice (if you click only once, it means that you want only some of the physics subtopics, with the default being that none are selected). To close the topic menu, click topic again. The topic toggle will now switch between displaying all conferences and displaying only physics conferences.

• How do I browse only talks on a specific topic within physics, like optics?

  On the Browse page, click topic, then click on "Physics" once to open the subtopic menu. Initially no subtopics are selected. Now click the "optics" toggle. (You can also select more than one subtopic, even subtopics from different disciplines. The topics are organized into a structure that is close to a tree, but actually is an acyclic directed graph since some topics have more than one parent.) To close the topics menu, click topic again.

• If several filters are set on the Browse page, what will be displayed?

  Each activated filter as well as the search box defines a subset of all the events, and the events displayed are those in the intersection of these subsets.

• What time zone is used to display talk times?

  Your time zone, displayed at the upper right.

  • If you're logged in, this is the time zone associated with your account, which you can set on the Account page.
  • If you're not logged in, this is the time zone provided by your browser.
  
  Exception (for organizers and speakers): When editing a series or talk, times are displayed in the time zone of the series or talk; this time zone can be set at the "Edit series" or "Edit talk" page, respectively.

• How can I see what has changed since my last visit to the site?

  On the Browse page, click "more" to open a subpage of additional filters, then in "Edited within...hours" enter 48, say, and hit return or click "Apply", to see all that has changed in the last two days. (You will need to remember when you last visited the site!)

• What should I do if I cannot connect to an online talk? What if I need a link or password that is not listed?

  Check the external homepage, usually reachable by clicking "External homepage" at the series' page on this site. Some organizers post passwords just before each talk starts or email them to users subscribed to their mailing list.

  If you are still having trouble, contact the series' scientific organizers; you may need to go to the external homepage to find their contact details.

Registering

• What are the benefits of registering?

  1. Registered users can save series and talks to their favorites. Then on the Browse page they can click "saved" to display only those. Moreover, on the Account page, they can export these to their own calendar app as a single calendar that gets updated automatically as the user changes their favorites or as new talks are added to the selected series.
  2. Registered users can view more links for joining online talks. (Many livestream links are viewable by all, but some organizers restrict access to registered users.)
  3. Registered users, once endorsed, can create their own seminar series and conferences for others to see.

• Will my email address be displayed on the site if I register?

  No. The only situation in which we would display your email publicly is if you list yourself as an organizer of a series and indicate that your name should be displayed and do not provide a homepage URL (if your email address and homepage URL are both provided, we would display only the URL), or if similarly you list yourself as maintainer of an institution without providing your homepage URL as a way for people to contact you. Another situation in which your email address might be shared in a very limited way: Independently of whether you register, if a series organizer enters your email address when scheduling a talk by you, then the email address would be visible also to other organizers of that series.

• Can I register an alias email address for a group of organizers, like prob_seminar@mit.edu?

  No. Our policy is that each registered user must be a person. What you should do is register as yourself, and then list prob_seminar@mit.edu as an organizer when you create your series.

Exporting favorites to a calendar

• If I export some series to my calendar app, do I have to export them again every week to see the latest talks?

  No, once you export a series to your calendar, talks added to that series later will be pushed to your calendar automatically!

• I exported my favorites to a calendar. Why is it showing no events?

  Some calendar services sync external calendars only every 24 hours. Furthermore, some may take even longer for the initial sync. A workaround is to go to the Account page, copy the URL of the "ICS file" link there, and add it manually to your calendar app.

Endorsed users

• What is the difference between a registered user and an endorsed user?

  Endorsed users have additional privileges:

  1. They can make their newly created series visible to others.
  2. They can add institutions to the site, so that series can be later associated with them.
  3. They can endorse other users.

  The endorsement system prevents spammers from ruining our site.

• Should I try to become an endorsed user?

  If you are an organizer for a seminar series or conference, then yes. If you want only to view the content on this site and export it to your calendar, then getting endorsed is not necessary.

• How do I get endorsed?

  After registering, just ask someone in the list of public users.

• How can I endorse other users?

  Once you are endorsed yourself, click on the Account tab, scroll down to "Endorse someone to add content", enter the email address of the person you would like to endorse, and click "Endorse". Make an effort to verify beforehand that the email address is associated with someone who would be adding appropriate content (generally a member of a research institution).

Creating and organizing seminar series and conferences

• How do I create a new seminar series?

  1. Register for an account.
  2. Get your account endorsed.
  3. (Optional, but recommended) Go to the Institutions page to make sure that the institutions associated with your seminar series are there; if not, add them. (Alternatively, add them after the seminar series is created.)
  4. Click on the Create tab. (Note: After creating your first series, the "Create" tab will be renamed as "Manage".)

• How do I create a new conference?

  The procedure is the same as for creating a new seminar series.

• How do I create a talk that is not part of any series?

  Create a series, say with the same title as the talk, and add the talk to that series. It is OK to have a series with just one talk, even if most series have many talks.

• How do I prevent unwanted people from disrupting my events?

  Our site provides several options for minimizing the chance of disruption, while letting in those who have a reason to join:

  • time-restricted: The interactive livestreaming link will be visible only within a set time window before the talk starts.
  • password-protected: The link is visible but requires a password; either the password itself or a hint for it is given.
  • login required: Only logged-in users are shown the link.
  • instant registration: Logged-in users instantly register to access the link, and organizers see a list of all users registered for each talk.
  • manual registration: Attendees are directed to an external URL or email address to obtain access information.

  Organizers who employ none of these measures are advised to make use of the security settings of their livestreaming application.

• My seminar series uses prob_seminar@mit.edu as an alias email address for reaching all the organizers. How do I make this appear as a contact email for my seminar?

  First, do not register a user account with email address prob_seminar@mit.edu; our policy is that each registered user must be a person. Instead, when editing the series properties, in the list of organizers at the bottom, fill in a new row with email address prob_seminar@mit.edu and uncheck "Organizer" and check "Display". You must also add yourself or some other (human) registered user as an organizer, along with name and email address, and check "Display"; if you also provide a homepage URL, this person's email address will not be displayed.

• Is it OK to add a series if I'm not one of the organizers?

  The series organizers will likely be grateful for the assistance in spreading the word about their series. We suggest notifying them that you plan to add their series to this site. When entering the series' properties, uncheck the "Organizer" checkbox to the right of your name; if you then check "Display", the series' page will list you as a curator instead of an organizer, and the organizers (or others) will be able to contact you if there are any errors.

• If someone else added my series to the site, how can I gain the ability to update it?

  Hopefully that person contacted you or left contact information on the series' page. If so, ask that person to endorse you and to add you to the list of organizers of the series; then you can edit it. If you don't want the series listed on this site, please ask Edgar Costa or David Roe to remove it.

• Is it possible to create a draft of a schedule that is only visible to organizers?

  Yes. When you create or edit a series, you choose to make it public (it will appear on the front page and in search results), unlisted (it will not be listed but anyone with the link can access it), or private (visible only to the series' organizers). Also, when you create a talk within a series, you can temporarily mark it as hidden so that it is visible only to organizers. Visibility of a talk is also affected by its series' settings: for example, an unhidden talk in a private series is visible only to organizers. Finally, neither series nor talks will appear until you have been endorsed.

• What should I do if I'm organizing a seminar series that doesn't meet once a week?

  After initially creating the series, you will be editing its properties on the "Create series" page (which is later renamed as the "Edit series" page). Change the "Periodicity" as appropriate, perhaps to "no fixed schedule". This setting determines only the initial layout of time slots on the scheduling grid on the "Edit schedule" page. You will always be able to add talks at irregular times there.

• I added a topic to my series; why aren't the talks in my series listed when I filter by that topic?

  Talks inherit the series' attributes at the time the talks are created but are not affected by subsequent edits to the series. If you want your series' new topic to apply to talks previously added to the series, you need to add the topic manually to each such talk. The same applies to other attributes, such as language, room, livestream, and access.

• How can I avoid having to edit my talk schedule in two places, on both researchseminars.org and the external homepage of the series?

  On the Manage page, click the short identifier of your series in the View column to go to the "View series" page. Then click "Embed this schedule" and copy the HTML code to your external webpage to have it display the talk schedule. From then on, any changes you make to the talk schedule on researchseminars.org will automatically appear on your external webpage.

Miscellaneous

• When was researchseminars.org created?

  The public beta release of mathseminars.org occurred on April 10, 2020, and the site was renamed as researchseminars.org when it started covering subjects beyond mathematics. Development of the site is ongoing, with new features being added daily.

• How many people are using researchseminars.org?

  During the first 28 days after the public beta release, while the site consisted mostly of mathematics talks, the site received 411,015 page views from 83,618 visitors.

• What if I have a question not addressed here?

  Please contact us!