ETOP: A retrospective study

摘要

The ETOP (Education and Training in Optics and Photonics) meetings have been held for 26 years on a biennial basis since 1988 when the first conference was held in San Diego, California. Since that time it has been organized by various groups and held at multiple venues throughout the world. In this paper we provide a comprehensive survey of the meeting: it's history, locations and participants, and will provide comprehensive data on the meetings held to date. This is the first attempt at providing quantitative metrics for this international meeting that addresses optics and photonics education at all levels (K-12, undergraduate, graduate and vocational education). It is anticipated that this data can help to inform decisions for future ETOP meetings and can guide the collection of additional data.