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  • 1.  Zoom Conference Experience

    Posted 05-11-2020 08:52:00 AM
    Edited by Min-Seok Pang 05-11-2020 11:53:00 AM
    Reposting from my Facebook page

    I attended a Zoom conference for the first time last weekend, which I enjoyed a ton. (It's not an IS conference.) Overall, it went much better than I expected, and I learned a lot. Here are a few takeaways.

    Q&As

    The conference organizers asked audiences to use chat functions to ask questions during talks, without interrupting speakers. So, they were broadcasting their questions by chatting to "Everyone." It was not a good idea. Zoom constantly sent out chat notifications to everyone, which were very distracting to both presenters and audiences.

    At one talk, around the 4th slide, one person asked "What is really new? What are we learning?," which threw the speaker off the rock, and he/she struggled for the rest of the talk. This wouldn't be happening in a face-to-face session, unless the questioner has a very thick skin.

    Perhaps a better approach is to have audiences send questions privately to a session chair, and the chair asks those questions to the speaker at the end of the talk.

    Slides

    If you're preparing for a virtual talk, reduce texts in your slides as much as possible. This is usually a good idea for in-person talks as well, but it is even more so for Zoom talks. It is hard for anyone to concentrate on screens, which makes it difficult to read seven or eight lines of texts.

    Social Events

    An integral part of any academic conference is social events, and as you can imagine, Zoom is not ideal for this function. But it was surprisingly okay, and I would say it is still better than not meeting at all.

    In this conference, there were two types of events. Lunch tables, in which each of a few well-known program committee members created private Zoom rooms and we could go around wherever we want. In evening happy hours, the organizers created random breakout rooms with 4-5 people each, where we could meet any random people and get to talk with each other. Each breakout room lasted for 10 minutes, after which the organizers cleared the rooms and created new random rooms again.

    Like I said, this was not an IS conference, and so I was a newcomer who didn't know anyone. So, these Zoom sessions worked out quite well for me. In face-to-face conferences, people tend to gather around and talk with others who know well with each other, which makes it difficult for newcomers or introverts to mingle. In Zoom happy hours with random breakout rooms, everyone had a chance to talk with any random people. It was like a speed dating.

    A caveat was that things could go awkward when people don't know what to talk about. Oftentimes there was a silence for a few seconds. So a good idea for organizers would be to create some structure in breakout rooms. It could start with each introducing themselves, and it would be great to have a topic to talk about. It could be about teaching or specific research topics, like "how is your teaching going?," "what's going to happen in fall?," or "how can we do research about COVID-19?." Another possibility is to create mentoring sessions between faculty and students or between senior and junior faculty (like doctoral consortiums but in a speed dating format).

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    Min-Seok Pang
    Associate Professor of MIS
    Fox School of Business, Temple University
    Associate Editor, MIS Quarterly and JAIS
    minspang@temple.edu
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  • 2.  RE: Zoom Conference Experience

    Posted 05-11-2020 11:38:00 AM
    A great posting, and given that we have three regional online  conferences fast approaching, some excellent fodder for presenters and organizers.  What I particularly like were the ideas to not only replicate, but to enhance, the social interactions - essentially making it easier for newcomers, doctoral students, and new faculty to interact "socially" with more established scholars or with others who share their interests.  

    I hope others will share what ever lessons they may have drawn from their own online conferencing experiences.

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    Blake Ives
    bives@mac.com
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  • 3.  RE: Zoom Conference Experience

    Posted 05-12-2020 02:17:00 PM
    Although not a conference experience, I have reflected on a peer review activity (commenting on essay plans) we had to move from face to face to online - some possible ideas for conference peer review / feedback https://info.lse.ac.uk/staff/education/Assets/Documents/COVID-19-planning/Examples-from-LSE/MG4G7-Moving-peer-review-of-essay-plans-online.docx

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    Edgar Whitley
    Dr
    London School of Economics
    London
    (44)2079557410
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  • 4.  RE: Zoom Conference Experience

    Posted 05-13-2020 11:10:00 AM
    Excellent information!  Thank you so much for sharing!

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    Matthew Nelson
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  • 5.  RE: Zoom Conference Experience

    Posted 05-20-2020 02:36:00 PM
    Hi Min-Seok, 

    thanks for your post and your insights! 

    Many conferences are not planning to have live presentations but ask presenters to record their presentations in advance to upload them. Do you think that's more sensible? I'm not sure if it is planned that the videos will be shown during the sessions or if participants are expected to watch videos in advance. I'm curious how it will impact discussions.

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    Philipp Staudt
    Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
    Karlsruhe
    +49-15114989395
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  • 6.  RE: Zoom Conference Experience

    Posted 07-14-2020 11:26:00 AM
    I have attended by now 3-4 conferences online and really enjoyed them!  They are much more friendly, less intimidating and respectful.  There is no running around between rooms, queues on front of rooms, sitting in stuffy rooms.  I also liked the fact that there is no waste in food, stationary, brochures etc.  There is no need to apply for a budget and worry about about finding reasonable ticket in a good time.  It actually saves all the time spent planning the travel and make it more productive in reading the actual papers and giving authors feedback.  There is always the warm Hi to the people you know and a good opportunity to get to know others in a relaxed way since we are attending from our living rooms!

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    Amany Elbanna
    Dr.
    Royal Holloway, University of London
    Egham
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  • 7.  RE: Zoom Conference Experience

    Posted 07-14-2020 04:36:00 PM
    While online conferencing might not have all the frills and opportunities of FTF conferences, there is one important way that it is better - it is far more egalitarian.  Money, distance, and parochial travel policies essentially all disappear as barriers to entry.  This may be particularly important in the next several years, as travel budgets will be tight or even nonexistent   Nevertheless, while you may not get to see the world, the intellectual world of IS/IM/IT will come to your living room and your voice will be heard throughout the world.

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    Blake Ives
    bives@mac.com
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  • 8.  RE: Zoom Conference Experience

    Posted 07-19-2020 06:00:00 AM
    Cannot agree more, "it is far more Egalitarian".  Delighted that ICIS 2020 took the decision to go online.  This is excellent news to all PhD students and researchers.  Finally, I will be able to attend without the burden of travel, the concern about things at work and home, and without jet lag! :)  Of course, it will be challenging to find time that suits us all and expect that some slots will be at some odd time for some of us.  But overall, expect a vibrant scientific event and great ideas.  Looking forward to it.

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    Amany Elbanna
    Dr.
    Royal Holloway, University of London
    Egham
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