Virtual Conferences

This is a collection of links and information I've put together about virtual conferences.

Why

Here are some ideas that I came up with some time back, in discussions with Robbert van Renesse

There are multiple interaction modes, which may need different solutions depending on the conference size

1-many stored video
- Archival conference record
1-many live video in parallel with many-many text-oriented discussions on the ongoing presentation
- Plenary presentations
1-1 informal hallway conversations leveraging past history of interaction or creating new connections
- Ability to have one-on-ones with ‘heros’
Multiple synchronous small group interaction – e.g. a demo/poster session
- Ability to hop around, like a poster session
- Ability to see demos being done, with VNC-like control
- Find out which demo is popular
- Need a whiteboard, leave a message for others
- Schedule presentations of the poster at a particular time
Asynchronous interaction
- Speaker may give the same presentation multiple times to deal with time zones, or at least have multiple interaction sessions
- Like a MOOC lecture with multiple flipped classroom, on EdX

1-many stored video
- Ed X and ACM DL can store video from conferences for replay

1-many live video in parallel with many-many text-oriented discussions on the ongoing presentation
- Remote presenters can record videos for presentation at conference and answer questions on the phone or in a text-based chat room
- Trialed at SIGCOMM 2016 and worked well

1-1 informal hallway conversations
- Skype/Zoom for audio/video communication and ‘rooms’
- Need to have effective feedback cancellation and muting
- Other conferencing tools include Livestream and ConcertWindow

Poster and demos
- Skype/Zoom for audio/video communication and ‘rooms’
- Maybe can use VNC for remote demos

1-1 informal hallway conversations
- Remote participation robots?
- Herring, Susan C. "Telepresence robots for academics." Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 50.1 (2013): 1-4.
- Tried at CHI with limited success and great cost

How to achieve high quality of the video/audio?
How to re-create informality?
- Can poke head into someone’s office, but can’t do that on skype
- The barrier to entry to interrupt someone is high because people are diffident about interruption
- Conferences reduce options and hence force interaction

How to create conditions that support attendance? In a real conference there is no need to worry about food, where to rest
- Make a commitment, perhaps in writing
- Need to create a social headroom