International Symposium on DIStributed Computing (DISC) 2021

Hybrid Format of DISC 2021

Please check this page regularly. We will keep updating this information. For any questions related to the information on this page, feel free to contact Fabian Kuhn.

Basic Format

  • It will be possible to either attend DISC 2021 (and the associated workshops) as an online conference via Zoom or as a physical event at the University of Freiburg, Germany. We are aware that many people do not want to travel in the current situation, are currently not able to travel to Germany, or do currently not feel safe to travel. Everybody will therefore be completely free in choosing whether to attend the conference online or in person.
  • We will also try to make online participation as easy and as pleasant as in recent online conferences. There will be pre-recorded video talks for all papers and brief announcements, which will be published on the PODC-DISC channel on YouTube. All the sessions of DISC will take place in the afternoon in Germany (mostly between 3pm and 7pm CEST).
  • People who are physically attending the conference in Freiburg will be able to attend all sessions in a lecture hall at the university. The Zoom meeting will be streamed to the conference room and speakers who are present in Freiburg will be able to give their talk in the conference room. We will also try to enable some interaction between online participants and the participants in Freiburg.
  • Apart from offering the facilities to attend all conference events, there will only be a limited conference organization in Freiburg. We will provide coffee breaks in the afternoons of each conference/workshop day, but we will not provide any lunches, dinners, or other social events.

Conference Cost

  • Online participation in DISC or in the associated workshops will be free of charge.
  • For every full paper and for every brief announcement accepted to DISC, authors will have to pay a publication fee to cover the LIPIcs publication cost and some of the costs of the online event (more details).
  • Participants who attend the physical conference in Freiburg will have to pay some moderate registration fee (more details).

COVID Measures and Restrictions

  • The current rules restrict access to the university (and also, e.g., to restaurants) to people who can certify that they have
    • been vaccinated against COVID-19 by one of the vaccines that is approved in Germany (Pfizer/Biontech, Moderna, AstraZeneca, or Johnson & Johnson). The final vaccination dose must be at least 2 weeks in the past.
    • recovered from COVID-19 (positive PCR test at least 28 days and at most 180 days in the past)
    • received a negative test result from an official test center (rapid antigen tests are valid for 24h, PCR tests are valid for 48h)
  • We will be required to check the above requirement each day. It is also possible that by October, only people who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 or who have recovered from COVID-19 will be allowed. We therefore strongly recommend that only such people will come to Freiburg for DISC.
  • In all university buildings (and also in many other places like public transport, shops, etc.), people will have to wear masks (surgical masks or FFP2/N95 masks or equivalent). At the university, masks are currently not necessary in rooms in which a distance of 1.5m can be maintained.

Location of the Physical Conference