[Air-l] More thought on 'Virtual conference'

[meiwu at umac.mo]

Dear all:

First I’d like to clarify that my suggestion of the “virtual conference” 
is meant only to bring in some new ideas for more participatory Aoir 
conferences; it is not a complaint at all. In fact I’m very grateful for 
all the things provided by Aoir and specifically the contributions made by 
people on this list. Aoir is one of the few academic groups that I 
participate and respect.

As for my idea of something online simultaneously with a “real 
conference,” it is inspired by several conferences I attended in China and 
in this part of the world, where a seminar could be broadcasted online 
(not necessarily to be visual images, it could be text or sound) and 
received text-based response from audience. In the first annual conference 
of China’s Computer-mediated Communication Association last May in Najing, 
some seminars were broadcast through sina.com simultaneously to the 
national audience.

As for costs, to attend a 3-day international conference (in the US or 
Europe) would normally cost me about HK16,000 (US$2,000) per trip 
(including registration fee, airfare, accommodation, etc), plus the time 
factor, over 40 hours on airplane, in airports and other vehicles in a 
return trip. I would rather pay half that money to some virtual conference 
technicians so that I can participate in a conference without traveling. 
Nowadays, we also have to take into consideration the threat of 
international terrorism. It is definitely no point for anyone to risk 
her/his life to go to some places which are always under terrorist attack 
alert just to attend some academic conferences.

For who should do it? I definitely don’t suggest that we ourselves do it 
all the way as such work requires technical expertise and equipment. A 
couple of suggestions:
1.      The most feasible way is to contract it out to a special virtual 
conference company and charge it to those who want to attend as virtual 
audience;
2.      Whoever wants to organize a virtual seminar (virtual panel), be 
responsible for it themselves. 
Of course, virtual volunteers may be needed in the process. I am very 
interested in joining a team to exploring the potentials of a virtual 
conference.

WM