Why I prefer online conferences

We’ve been running online conferences using Webcrossing Community for eight years now. We were the first in the UK to run them, and we still run the largest. These are short (typically four days), but highly intensive conferences. We now run two a year – one series known as Innovating e-Learning, for UK universities and colleges (now in its fifth year); and one called Supporting Deaf People (SDP), aimed at professionals, primarily interpreters, working with the deaf, now in its eighth year. So, why do we like online conferences? Many people would say they aren’t as good as face to face conferences, but we would disagree. Here’s why.

1. For participants, the convenience of being able to attend from anywhere means that you can get to experience events virtually that you could never attend physically. Our SDP conferences in particular have participants from numerous countries – the 2010 conference had 332 participants from 17 countries giving participants across the work the opportunity to discuss with world class presenters, and share their own knowledge and expertise.

2. As I discussed in another post on this blog, they are extremely cheap to participants – not free, everything has a cost somewhere, but far, far cheaper than if they had to attend an equivalent physical conference.

But, and it’s a big but, cheapness and convenience don’t matter if the conference experience is no good. So that brings us on to the next reasons why we prefer online conferences.

3. In our experience, the level of participation in an online conference is far greater than in a face to face one. At a physical conference, you go to a workshop, listen to a presentation, and, if you’re lucky, have time for a few questions afterwards, but, at least in the workshop, very little time for discussion. That isn’t true in our conferences. Our 2008 Innovating e-Learning conference had over 180,000 words of postings in just four days – an incredible amount (and, of course, far too much to absorb at the time, which is why we leave the conferences open, for reading only, for a couple of months after). And a majority of the delegates made some postings, so the level of participation was very high. (More recent conferences have fewer postings, because we now use a model which combines the asynchronous element of Webcrossing, with live presentations using a platform called Elluminate).

4. The user experience is always excellent, with many people saying they get more from these events than from physical conferences. Typical feedback from recent conferences includes:

• This has been my first SDP On-Line Conference. It has been incredibly informative as well as providing opportunity for more thought.
• This is definitely my favorite conference to attend, by far! You can attend in your pyjamas with your own coffee and the discussions are fascinating.
• This was one of the best conferences I have ever experienced – whether in person or online. The calibre of the presentation materials and conference participant posts far exceeded my expectations.
• Clearly, I really enjoy this conference! The flexibility, easy-to-navigate style and non-threatening interaction with fellow delegates keep me coming back year after year. The presentations are thorough and relevant to my work. What an asset SDP is to the learning process of interpreters worldwide!

Are there any disadvantages? 

Well, yes. Not everyone likes interacting online – though with the growth of social networking, this is less and less true. But what is true, up to now, is that the social experience and networking, whilst still there in an online conference, hasn’t been as good as in a face to face conference. There’s nothing quite like sitting in a bar till early in the morning for building up (or, maybe, sometimes wrecking) good relationships. There are plenty of social networking tools now, which we could try to incorporate into Webcrossing, though that would probably involve a lot of work for us. But given the model which we currently use, of short, intense, four days conferences, it’s hard for us to build a space within the conference where people can network socially. Nevertheless, I think this is an issue which we will need to deal with soon, particularly as people’s expectations increase.

Ah, I nearly forgot the real reason we prefer online conferencing! As the organisers, we can do it from anywhere, so we can, literally, sit on the beach in Spain whilst running a major international conference. Brilliant … that is, until the sand blows into your keyboard.