Online conferences for better learning

Abstract

A crisis is never welcomed, and we must now rally to innovate how we do science. We need to work harder to make conferences better and not only address the immediate challenges but tackle pre-existing limitations associated with conferences and meetings. Conferences are a profoundly useful mechanism to enable scientific progress as a community. These conventions provide the opportunity to network, collaborate, communicate, connect early-career researchers with new (and established) collaborators, and most importantly co-learn and build community. Ecologists and evolutionary biologists are scientists, citizens, educators, and a collective that can affect social good. Hence, conferences allow us to convene and share and learn in different and extended ways (Cooke et al., 2017). These meetings are typically about more than scientific content and facilitate the identification of research gaps and opportunities (Kochetkov et al., 2020; Oester et al., 2017). In some respects, coming together also helps us decide how we feel about the global grand challenges that we face environmentally and as a species (Acocella, 2015). We build collective strength and cohesion. Conferences in ecology and evolution are also incredibly frequent. A brief search on sites that compile conference listings for ecology and evolution including the Nature Ecology and Evolution website, relevant society sites, and The World Academy of Science, Engineering, and Technology (filtered using the key term "ecology") suggest that there were approximately 400 meetings scheduled for the calendar year of 2020 (Lortie, 2020c). However, as citizens, we have a moral responsibility to flatten the curve of a pandemic through reduced in-person interactions, smaller conventions only for critical needs, and much less travel to mitigate spread and reduce risks for everyone (Khoo & Lantos, 2020; Verma et al., 2020). More broadly, we can reconsider the carbon costs and other impacts including accessibility and the equity of costs to convene exclusively through faceto-face meetings (Julsrud et al., 2014; Neugebauer et al., 2020). In doing so, we have an opportunity to promote equity, diversity, and inclusivity through different planning, by reducing some of the financial costs, and by sharing our insights to wider, more varied com

Moving academic conferences online: Understanding patterns of delegate engagement

“…Therefore, tailoring the format of conferences to suit the preference of delegates should make online conferences more accepted and effective. We suggest that organizers of online events continue to collect feedback from delegates in order to ensure effective and engaging communication within (and outside of) the academic community (also see Arnal et al, 2020;Bilas et al, 2020;Lortie, 2020).…”

“…Therefore, tailoring the format of conferences to suit the preference of delegates should make online conferences more accepted and effective. We suggest that organizers of online events continue to collect feedback from delegates in order to ensure effective and engaging communication within (and outside of) the academic community (also see Arnal et al., 2020; Bilas et al., 2020; Lortie, 2020). One aspect where engagement was high was the quality of scientific exchange (i.e., plenaries and talks); however, the quality of social events and networking may have been compromised (also see Milić et al., 2020).…”

“…This online conference format is likely to be an increasingly normal situation as scientific interest groups and learned societies consider delivering virtual noncommercial scientific meetings to replace established small‐ to medium‐sized real‐world meetings. Recently, papers and preprints outlining advice and guidance for developing an online conference have become available to support future event organizers (e.g., Busse & Kleiber, 2020; Gichora et al., 2010; Harabor & Vallati, 2020; Lortie, 2020; Roos et al., 2020; Saliba, 2020; Seery & Flaherty, 2020), yet few have explored delegate engagement with these online formats or considered if online conferences should differ from their traditional in‐person counterparts. In order to help future meeting planners with decision‐making, we have reported the patterns of attendance and engagement with our meeting, highlighted where loads may be uneven, and used these data to indicate which components were particularly (un)popular.…”

From a crisis to an opportunity: Eight insights for doing science in the COVID‐19 era and beyond

“…The halting of many conferences due to the COVID‐19 pandemic has forced the scientific community to explore online alternatives (Achakulvisut et al., 2020; Holt et al., 2020; Lortie, 2020). Although virtual conferences cannot replace in‐person ones, and lack some of the face‐to‐face benefits (Vekkaila et al., 2018), they do hold many opportunities that could be explored by ECRs and the broader scientific community.…”

“…Indeed, the format and content of online conferences is changing and developing fast as a response to the pandemic. The new online format is allowing useful and impactful interactions that enable better learning in some aspects than in‐person meetings (Lortie, 2020).…”