The post-covid future of virtual conferences

2020

Everything was booked and ready to go for a two-day scientific workshop on education policies in Europe, scheduled for April 23-24, 2020 at the Hertie School in Berlin. The workshop intended to take stock of developments at the European, national and sub-national levels given the European Union’s wrap up of its decade-long Education & Training 2020 strategy (ET 2020), a framework for cooperation in education and training. However, on March 12, we had to cancel the physical meeting on short notice due to the coronavirus crisis. In the following, we share our experiences with the subsequent transition to an alternative online workshop format that took place on April 23, involving 25 participants from 10 countries, and 16 paper presentations. After sketching the workshop’s virtual set-up, we discuss strengths, weaknesses, and challenges related to this digital transition. Furthermore, we explore the prospects of such online formats for future academic conferences and networking.

Challenges, 2022

The COVID-19 pandemic caused many scientific conferences to move online, posing a great challenge for scientific communication. This change offers potential advantages and disadvantages for inclusion, diversity, and scientific advancement. Here, we analyse participants’ experiences of the Why Study Mammographic Density? Conference to explore some of these issues and identify key points of contention between different stakeholders. We found that while increasing participant diversity is facilitated by online conferencing, if the participants cannot interact informally with each other, there is value which is lost. In returning to in-person conferences, it will be important not to “shut the door” on those whose participation was enabled by the online format.

Limnology and Oceanography Bulletin

For many, 2020 was a year of abrupt professional and personal change. For the aquatic sciences community, many were adapting to virtual formats for conducting and sharing science, while simultaneously learning to live in a socially distanced world. Understandably, the aquatic sciences community postponed or canceled most in-person scientific meetings. Still, many scientific communities either transitioned annual meetings to a virtual format or inaugurated new virtual meetings. Fortunately, increased use of video conferencing platforms, networking and communication applications, and a general comfort with conducting science virtually helped bring the in-person meeting experience to scientists worldwide. Yet, the transition to conducting science virtually revealed new barriers to participation whereas others were lowered. The combined lessons learned from organizing a meeting constitute a necessary knowledge base that will prove useful, as virtual conferences are likely to continue in some form. To concentrate and synthesize these experiences, we showcase how six scientific societies and communities planned, organized, and conducted virtual meetings in 2020. With this consolidated information in hand, we look forward to a future, where scientific meetings embrace a virtual component, so to as help make science more inclusive and global.

Canadian Journal of Surgery, 2023

The Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America, 2021

Ecological conferences provide a unique opportunity for scientists in the field of ecology to develop meaningful connections and exchange research in a rapid, multi-day, in-person format. For students and early-career researchers, especially those from underrepresented backgrounds, in-person conferences are challenging to attend due to the burdens on finances and time. However, as COVID-19 continues to restrict scientific societies' abilities to host large, in-person conferences, virtual conferences have increased in prevalence. For students and early-career researchers, virtual conferences present a multitude of benefits, including reduced attendance costs, increased accessibility to a wider range of conference resources, and reduced levels of anxiety. These factors make virtual conferences more accessible to those historically excluded from science. Further, microcommunities, which we define as a small network of individuals in the same career stage, can provide additional support for students via interacting closely with peers of the same identity, constructing workshops, and fostering belongingness in STEM. In this paper, we discuss the benefits associated with virtual conferences (focusing on students of underrepresented backgrounds), and we suggest methods to continue increasing inclusivity in STEM and scientific conferences as the world continues to adapt in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nature Astronomy

JOURNAL OF CLINICAL AND DIAGNOSTIC RESEARCH

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic wreaked havoc on almost all aspects of life and has undeniably altered the landscape of the world forever. In the medical profession, everything from education to scheduling operations was affected. Educational events such as conferences, Continuing Medical Education (CME) and other events had to be converted into virtual conferences and meetings. However, now that the pandemic is slowly coming to an end and countries and borders have started to reopen, the question now remains- should we go back to our old ways or has this become the new normal? This review discusses the advantages and limitations of conducting virtual events and discusses future trends of holding such events in these uncertain times.

AEM Education and Training, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic requires a substantial change to the traditional approach to conference didactics. Switching to a virtual medium for conference sessions presents several challenges, particularly with regard to aspects that rely heavily on in-person components (e.g., simulation, ultrasound). This paper will discuss the challenges and strategies to address them for conference planning in the era of COVID-19.

Journal of European Periodical Studies, 2021

In June 2021, the DFG Research Unit 228 ‘Journal Literature’1 organized the 9t International Conference of the European Society for Periodical Research (ESPRit) on the topic of ‘Periodical Formats in the Market: Economies of Space and Time, Competition and Transfer’. On behalf of the Research Unit, a team from the Ruhr University Bochum (RUB) was responsible for planning and carrying out the event, in coordination with the ESPRit Committee. As the COVID-19 pandemic spread in Europe during the Spring of 2020, the conference team agreed to go virtual with the conference, due to the foreseeable legal and logistical difficulties in planning and carrying it out in person. From the outset, planning the virtual conference was flanked by an intensive process of reflection in which the conference team reviewed and adapted its objectives as well as the methods and processes required to achieve these goals. This process of reflection was significantly more intensive than is the case with on-site conferences, which are based on existing experience and logistical support from the host institutions. The experiences and insights gained are shared in this report in order to assist in planning future conferences.

South-East Asian Journal of Medical Education, 2021