Question #academicconferences:

Do you listen/watch the same, less or more amount of presentations in virtual conferences as you do when attending in person?

Do you register as a delegate/submit a paper to the same, less, more events as you previously did before?

I understand that there are many issues to take into consideration given a pandemic! But I find it really hard to sit through a 3 day virtual academic event (even a full day one) via a computer. I would prefer to listen to a podcast for example.

And as a precarious academic (even though I’ve been an events manager & understand the cost of organising events - even virtual ones), I find it hard to justify a large registration fee for a virtual attendance.

I feel what is missing is more creative ways of organising virtual conferences because let’s face it with COVID it’s going to be a very long time before we may return to large scale international academic events.

@AcademicsClass did a great job of combining art, poems, films.

Essentially, I feel that many virtual events have continued to be organised in the same way physical ones have without taking into consideration screen exhaustion for delegates.

Another concern is that some academics asked delegates not to tweet out certain parts of a presentation & not to be filmed etc as they were awaiting publication or information may be sensitive. Perhaps fear of who’s watching a virtual events may restrict content & discussion?