Source: University of Canterbury
22 April 2020
Director of UC’s HIT Lab NZ, Professor Rob Lindeman, is part of an ACM Presidential Task Force formed to provide advice to conference organisers on navigating the virtual conference landscape during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Professor Rob Lindeman is part of an ACM Presidential Task Force that has developed a practical guide for running virtual conferences of all sizes for conference organisers.
Director of UC’s HIT Lab NZ, Professor Rob Lindeman, is part of an ACM Presidential Task Force formed to provide advice to conference organisers on navigating the virtual conference landscape during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“With the pandemic making traditional face-to-face meetings impossible, conference organisers around the world are experiencing totally new challenges. They need to be able to quickly adapt the format of upcoming conferences and events,” Professor Lindeman says.
The task force has developed a practical guide for running virtual conferences of all sizes for conference organisers. It covers a range of topics including technology requirements, planning, accessibility, fostering social interaction and finances, and would be helpful for both newcomers and conference organisers who already have some experience with virtual conferences.
“It was a real sprint to pull together such a comprehensive document, and also to keep it focused enough to be useful for people under pressure to come up with conference alternatives,” Professor Lindeman says.
“My main contribution was on how various aspects and activities at academic conferences, such as paper sessions, panels, key note addresses and poster sessions differ, and how each might be supported by various different technologies.”
In addition to helping conference organisers navigate the virtual conference landscape during the COVID-19 pandemic, the taskforce hopes the guide will also encourage them to think about reducing reliance on traditional face-to-face meetings in the future, with a very clear desire to reduce the impact on global climate change.
Read Virtual Conferences: A Guide to Best Practices here.
