What people say about us

The XML Summer School is a great induction into the world of XML and related technologies while also providing for a more experienced audience. For the beginner there are plenty of hands-on exercises during the introduction sessions with lots of help at hand and while you won’t be an expert by the end of the week, you will have a solid understanding of XML technology and its myriad of sibling technologies and how they fit into your industry whether its health, finance, publishing or something else. The extracurricular aspects of the Summer School are definitely worth mentioning. As well as your tuition, you will benefit from a dip into the collegiate world of Oxford University and the rich history of Oxford itself. There’s a very welcoming, informal feel about the whole event and it ranks as the most enjoyable training event I’ve been on in 30+ years of involvement in IT.

—Stewart Smith, Standards Architect, Origo Services

XML Summer School is the best place to learn about XML, publishing and linked data on any level. Here you won’t simply get technical presentations, but you’ll be part of a fantastic dialog with fellow students and teachers in the daytime and also during the evening events (in pubs) for a whole week what I found very inspiring. This school is absolutely unique, a get-together for the XML community. You find the very best experts here from around the world. I attended two times and I’ll come back.

—Barnabas Davoti, Ovitas AS, Norway

After three days in XML Summer School, I returned to work with my eyes opened. Many steps in our production process that had previously been black boxes to me now made sense in light of my new understanding of XSLT. Getting the Summer School foundation hasn’t made me an XML expert, but it’s given me the language and the framework to voice questions about how process refinements can improve our quality and turnaround times, and to engage critically with the answers from suppliers and our internal teams.

—Elissa Hansen, works in academic publishing

Whatever your level of expertise in XML technology, you will greatly
profit from attending XML Summer School. If you have never heard of XML,
this conference will give you a gentle, but thorough introduction to this
crucial technology. But if you have a lot of experience in this field, you
will get an efficient standards update, deal with complex exercises and
witness intriguing debates among first-rate experts where you are welcome
to join in. The discussions and workshops are based on real life samples so
that you may directly transfer the techniques you have learnt to your
professional life.

—Dr. Wolfgang Schindler, General Information Manager, PONS GmbH

XML School is a great environment to learn XML. Highly recommend it to anyone who is not sure where XML can fit into their software solution. My background previously was strictly database oriented. After learning XML/XSLT in the summer school, XML has transformed my raw data into meaningful output fast with hardly any maintainance need.

—Ulas Ates, Software Developer, Grays International

My first XML Summer School took place in 2006, in Wadham College. Since then, I have returned several times. What I like most about the XML Summer School is the informal tutorial style, and the direct accessiblty of the faculty staff. You can ask them any time, and everybody is most helpful, even with tricky questions. The alternating mix of lecture and practical, “hands-on” tutorials teaches new technologies and developments around XML very effectively. And each time I took a lot of new insights and ideas back home with me, some of them were immediately useful for my daily work.

Not to forget the “after work” social activities, which reach from punting on the river Cherwell, a Science Walk through Oxford, to a Pub Crawl. These days, the event takes place at St Edmund’s Hall, a venerable lovely college in the heart of Oxford. It gives you an impression of how intense and effective studying in Oxford may be. Each time, the event was very well organized, accomodation is on the college premises, so there’s no need to walk or drive from a hotel to the conference rooms and back every day, a fact that I consider very convenient. The food is excellent, I always enjoyed dining at the college.

So, all in all, each XML Summer School was a great experience that I enjoyed very much, and I’m looking forward to this year’s event. See you all in Oxford, in September.

—Stephan Burkhardt