My first online conference
All the way back in February, when the world was a different place and social distancing was not a familiar term, I had submitted a couple of abstracts about my work on marine litter and public policies (PEMALM project) and science communication to the 6th International Marine Conservation Congress (IMCC6). I was excited to participate. I attended IMCC4 in 2014 in Glasgow, Scotland, and found the program so different from other conferences!
The IMCC is the most important event in the agenda of the Society for Conservation Biology’s Marine Section. It is held biannually and has some particularities that really make it stand out. In addition to being concerned with accessibility and promoting inclusion, such as accepting abstract submitted in languages other than English (the official language of the event), all IMCCs follow a code of conduct and have a security official looking out for the well-being of participants. The programs are also always packed with interesting topics. In IMCC6 these ranged from plenaries about social approaches to fishery studies to using science dance as an engagement tool for marine conservation.
The congress was planned to be held in Kiel, Germany, between 22 and 28 August 2020. However, once the Covid-19 pandemic came into the picture, things had to change. The organizers were very thoughtful to participants and kept us informed by e-mail about what they were planning. I was worried the congress would be cancelled or postponed, as so many others have been this year. As detailed in this post by Nina Kaiser and Giovanni Ávila, these disruptions can be particularly negative for early-career researchers.
By the end of April, the organizers had decided to cancel the in-person event. They sent out a survey to participants to check if an online format would be a good option. As stated in this correspondence, they saw this as “an opportunity to test technologies and formats that may improve the accessibility and inclusion for the marine conservation community and to reduce our carbon emissions and environmental impact”. Also, by holding the event online, they were able to significantly decrease its cost and, thus, the price of registrations. (I’d like to highlight that this has not been the case for all online conferences. In fact, I have seen some extremely expensive conferences being held virtually!)
I can only imagine the herculean effort of the organizers in transitioning the whole event to this new format. It’s important to note that an online event cannot be simply a replication of the original program. For example, the in-person program was scheduled to happen over 7 days in Germany whereas the online version was now extended across 14 days. This way, they reduced the amount of talks happening at the same time and also, as a participant, I was able to include a few hours of conference presentations alongside my everyday work, instead of having full dedication to the event.
IMCC6 ran using two main platforms: Zoom and Whova. Most of you have probably used Zoom over the past few months (Zoom fatigue, anyone?). For those that are unfamiliar, Zoom is a teleconference platform where you can have lots of people joining into a meeting or webinar. You can talk to other participants through your microphone or the chat box, sometimes there is a Questions & Answers (Q&A) area, and you can even add fun backgrounds to your camera. The Whova app is probably less known, but I was a great tool! The platform runs either as an app on your phone or on your desktop computer. Whova has lots of interesting features: access to the conference’s program (from where you can add things to a personal agenda so you don’t miss anything), a list of all attendees, a messaging system that allows you to write to a single person or create a group, a community board (very useful for organizer announcements and for setting up happy hours meetings), and access to all recorded presentations. The app was designed to be used for in-person events but since it can connect to Zoom, all presentations could be watched there. I only experienced a couple of glitches with this Zoom + Whova system. All in all, I’d say it was a great combo.
So, can online events replace in-person conferences?
The short answer is that is not the point. Each format has advantages and disadvantages. Online conferences can be cheaper, easier to include in a busy work schedule and reduce the carbon emissions of attendees. In-person events allow greater immersion, more organic human interactions, and are an opportunity to get to know new places and cultures. However, I do hope to see more hybrid options in future conferences.
Have you attended a 100% online conference? What about a hybrid format? I’d love to know what that was like!
