Running a virtual conference: Lessons learned
George IvanoffFormerly: Virtual Conference Project Manager
Open Learning Australia
Running a virtual conference: Lessons learnedGeorge IvanoffFormerly: Virtual Conference Project Manager Open Learning Australia | |
This paper will examine the organisation and running of Open Learning Australia's first virtual conference in March 1998. The focus will be mainly the negative aspects -- what went wrong, why, and how the problems could have been avoided. It will also examine why certain decisions were made and how they impacted on the organisation of the conference.
Run between 16-27 March 1998, OLA's first virtual conference was titled "Online Development: Issues for Authors and Students" [ http://www.ola.edu.au/virtcon]. Conference Topics were as follows:
It is now certainly a cliche to claim that the Internet is dramatically transforming scholarly publishing. The most obvious change is in the printing and distribution of scholarship. It is now within the reach, both technically and financially, of any scholar through the World Wide Web (WWW or Web) to make high quality "print" available to tens of millions of potential readers. [Noreault & Watson, 1996, p.305]
If the Web can remove, or at least ease, the burden (financial and otherwise) of printing and distribution of scholarly publishing, it has the capacity to end the tyranny of distance (and finance) that precludes so many scholars from attending conferences. Whereas the cost and time of travel can be a deciding factor in the attendance of a standard 'physical' conference, a 'virtual' conference can be attended from anywhere in the world so long as the delegates have access to the appropriate equipment.
Developers of virtual conferences attempt to create a stimulating and supportive learning environment without forcing participants to congregate at a particular location or time. [Anderson, 1996]OLA's virtual conference was initially conceived of as a small event to foster communications between OLA's provider institutions. As such the publicity was kept to a minimum. The first step was to create a website containing the details of the conference. Letters, accompanied by publicity material containing the URL of the conference site, were sent from the General Manager to policy-level contacts at shareholding institutions and to operational-level contacts at all provider institutions.
The secondary aim of the conference was to demonstrate OLA's involvement with innovative learning technology, through the post-conference publishing of the papers on its website. OLA's position was explained by Tony Pritchard, Chief Executive Officer at the time, in his introductory message to conference delegates:
We are increasingly focusing on the development of high quality online educational products, to be widely accessible both nationally and internationally. [Pritchard, 1998]
The OLA conference did not have a budget. It had to be organised and run using existing resources. This put severe limitations on the conferencing system to be used [examined in detail below] and also resulted in mooted aspects of the conference, such as the proposed product demonstrations of course delivery systems, not proceeding.
Aside from budget, the other important influence was OLA's commitment to access and equity. The ideals of access and equity have been an important aspect of OLA since its inception and this was to be reflected in the conference. In fact, a conference topic titled "Access" was specifically chosen for this reason and a paper presenting OLA's views on the subject, Technology and Access: Open Learning's Complex Equation, was prepared by David R Jones (consultant to OLA at the time).
In keeping with OLA's commitment to access and equity, the conference needed to be widely accessible to delegates without the need for software or plug-ins beyond a standard Web browser. Therefore elements such as audio and video were discounted. It was also for this reason that a simple, low-image design was chosen for the site.
It is true that if the proposed product demonstrations had taken place, some would have required a java-enabled browser for delegates to view them. This would have been noted, and the access and equity implications discussed as part of the conference.
The deadline for papers/posters was Friday 20 February. With the conference beginning on Monday 16 March this left only 3 weeks in which to have the papers/posters refereed, amended if necessary and then put up onto the site. This would have been an adequate amount of time without the refereeing process, but with papers/posters being refereed the process was extremely rushed. It was exacerbated by late submissions as well as some referees taking longer than their allotted time to review submissions. Anyone looking at running a similar event would be well advised to leave approximately two months between the close of submissions and the beginning of the conference.
The number of papers/posters submitted for the conference was disappointing. Many delegates indicated their interest in submitting a paper/poster when they registered, but few actually followed up. The total number of presented papers/posters was only 12, with no submissions being received for one of the five conference topics ("Legal and Cultural Issues").
Much of the blame can be attributed to the timing of the conference. The beginning of a new academic year, when lecturers are preparing for their courses, was an inappropriate time to hold such a conference. Investigation of your target audience is required to avoid such a problem. Also a longer lead-in time to appropriately advertise the conference and the contributor's guidelines is advisable.
Interest in submitting a paper/poster should be followed up. On the OLA conference registration form delegates could indicate their interest in submitting a paper/poster. Reminders should have been emailed to these delegates at regular intervals leading up to the deadline letting them know how much time they had. Several delegate apologised for not submitting a paper/poster as intended, claiming that by the time they had realised how close the conference was, they had run out of time.
If there is any doubt about the number of likely submissions, it would perhaps be prudent to target respected individuals in the field of your conference and make personal requests for paper presentations. This would ensure at least a minimum of high calibre submissions.
Online discussion forums were also set up for each of the papers/posters and run for the two week duration of the conference. The use of these forums was disappointingly low (only 24 messages were posted). Some of the blame can be levelled at the conferencing system which was used (discussed below). Much blame, however, must again fall to the timing of the conference. Numerous email messages were received from delegates during the second week of the conference apologising for the fact that they had not even had the time to look at the papers, let alone contribute to the discussion.
Also, more could have been done to stimulate discussion. Reminder email messages about the conference should have been sent out with greater frequency prior to the conference. This could have allowed delegates to have better planned for the two weeks of the conference. Email messages should also have been sent at regular intervals once the conference had begun, encouraging them to participate. In this case reminders were not sent until the end of the first week.
The power of reminder messages from conference organisers is demonstrated by those that were sent. After the first two messages were posted to the forums without resulting in any responses, email messages were sent to the persons whose papers/posters were commented on with a suggestion that they might like to respond. This did indeed work. From then on, each time a comment was posted to one of the forums, an email message was sent to the author of the paper/poster or previous posting. Some discussion thus ensued.
Given that this may be somewhat time consuming, especially with a larger conference, an automated system would be recommended.
The fact that HyperNews was not particularly user-friendly contributed to the lack of discussion, especially with some academics being unfamiliar with the technology to begin with. Certainly there were numerous email messages expressing confusion regarding the working of the conferencing system.
The system had its own optional set of passwords and IDs which could be used. We chose not to use them because delegates would otherwise have had to remember two sets of passwords and IDs (those for the conference overall and those for the forums). There was, however, no way to circumvent the conferencing system telling delegates that they were not entering a password. This resulted in confusion as illustrated by the following email message received during the conference:
When I go to post a message to the Conference I get the following message:There were numerous other aspects of the system which simply made it difficult and unfriendly to use as illustrated by the following email:Warning: [email address] is not a member or an email address.
Which is not true. It even happened when I put in my conference ID.
... I suggest that the message input page is too fussy. I haven't checked out how much or how little you might need to enter before the message will be accepted, but surely one is being invited to fill in too many boxes - heading, key words, etc?The major concern, however, is that you HAVE to go through Preview to send the message, but you can't edit the message in Preview if you see the need for a change. You HAVE to go back to the Message page, and then you can't easily/quickly see where to make the correction, because the input form uses a different wrap-around than the Preview. And also, therefore, things like hyphenating or setting out a number sequence don't come out in the finished message the way you meant them to.
At the time, OLA was considering the organisation of further virtual events in the future, so, much of the survey was geared towards gauging the potential interest and the willingness to pay for registration at future events. Results of this survey are not publicly available.
Apart from formal evaluation such as this, the success of a conference can also be measured by the levels of participation. In this case the number of delegates (179) exceeded OLA's expectations, while the number of papers/posters (12) and the level of discussion (30 messages posted to the pre-conference forum and 24 messages posted to the forums specifically attached to papers/poster) did not.
Although it should be noted that the expectation of more papers/posters and greater discussion was based on the early indications of the delegates as they registered. In comparison with other small-scale virtual conferences, OLA's compared quite favourably. The Role of Technology in Elementary Music Education for example, a virtual conference run in 1997 by ArtsEdge, had a total of 10 papers presented, with 12 messages posted to their discussion forums.
Email messages from delegates to administrators, both during and after the event, is another useful evaluation tool. It is in these messages that detailed opinions are often presented, such as the earlier noted comments about the conferencing system. A further example, presented below, pointed out a flaw in the way the paper/poster specific forums were set up.
It's maddeningly impossible to go quickly in to the Discussion Forums to check what might be added. You have to track back every time to the Papers and Posters page and re-load the original paper to get to each forum. Might it not have been better - certainly quicker - to have a Forums link, giving access to the lost?
Payment for conference attendance is a possibility which should be considered as this could help overcome budgetary constraints, possibly even allowing for the purchase of a conferencing system to meet the specific needs of the event. A payment system has been successfully employed by numerous conferences -- as early as May 1995 the International University Consortium ran a virtual conference charging $25.00US per registration. Despite the fee they attracted 225 delegates. [Anderson, 1996]
Sponsorship is another option worth considering, whether it be for the provision of hardware, software, server space or actual funds. The Community Broadcasting Association of Australia virtual conference, held in late 1996, included amongst its sponsors: Bond University which provided onsite network assistance, Wired Audio which provided them with Real Audio serving, Pegasus Networks which provided server space and Merlin Integrated Media which provided hardware.
It is, however, in the mistakes that valuable lessons can be learned. While budgetary constraints will often be beyond the control of conference administrators, timing, preparation and research will go a long way towards making a successful conference.
Ivanoff, George (1997). "Marketing on The Web", in: Dialogue: Student News from Open Learning Australia, Issue 14, July 1997, Open Learning Australia, Melbourne.
Jones, David R (1998). "Technology and Access: Open Learning's Complex Equation", Online Development: Issues for Authors and Students, Open Learning Australia. http://www.ola.edu.au/virtcon/jones/paper.htm
Noreault, Terry & Watson (1996). Bradley C, "Electronic Publishing: Communication in a Scholarly Environment", AUUG'96 and Asia-Pacific World Wide Web 2nd Joint Conference Proceedings, Melbourne, September 1996. pp.305-313
Pritchard, AL (1998). "Welcome", an introduction to: Online Development: Issues for Authors and Students, Open Learning Australia. No longer online
CAMAI's First Virtual Web Conference, University of Alaska Anchorage. http://www.uaa.alaska.edu/camai/conf/
Innovative Instructional Practices, Kapiolani Community College, 2-4 April, 1996. http://leahi.kcc.hawaii.edu/org/tcc_conf96/
Mars "Virtual" Teacher Training Conference, NASA, 20 July, 1996. http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/marsconf/
Online Development: Issues for Authors and Students, Open Learning Australia, 16-27 March 1998. http://www.ola.edu.au/virtcon
Online Instruction: Trends and Issues II, Teaching in the Community Colleges Online Conference, Kapiolani Community College, 7-9 April, 1998. http://leahi.kcc.hawaii.edu/tcc98/
The Role of Technology in Elementary Music Education, ArtsEdge, April 14 - May 30, 1997. http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/vc/vcmain.html
| Author: George Ivanoff was Project Manager for Open Learning Australia's virtual conference, Online Development: Issues for Authors and Students. He is currently on contract to the University of Melbourne as Senior Project Officer on the Website Upgrade Project [http://www.unimelb.edu.au/ExtRels/web/index.html]. The project is scheduled for completion in September 1998, after which he will be available for work elsewhere. Email: ivanova@ozemail.com.au (In 2003 address givanoff@optusnet.com.au) URL: http://www.georgeivanoff.com.au/ Please cite as: Ivanoff, G. (1998). Running a virtual conference: Lessons learned. In C. McBeath and R. Atkinson (eds), Planning for Progress, Partnership and Profit. Proceedings EdTech'98. Perth: Australian Society for Educational Technology. http://www.aset.org.au/confs/edtech98/pubs/articles/ivanoff.html |