Attending the SCAR 2022 Open Science Conference
It’s impossible now to attend a conference – in person, virtual, or hybrid – without having a conversation about which type is best. If it’s in person, there’s usually a comment about how wonderful it is to be able to meet again, and if it’s virtual, there’s one about how it’s a shame we can’t meet in person.
I’m not blind to the reasons behind this, but as someone who is a bit of a fan of virtual conferences I wanted to write out my defence of them after attending the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) Open Science Conference, a big international conference for polar researchers of any description that takes place every two years, and was held entirely online this year.
First, a few caveats about myself that bias me towards virtual conferences:
I started my PhD in October 2019 and have not, as of now, gone to any in-person conferences (as a PhD student – I have some experience of them from my pre-PhD life). I arguably don’t know what I’m missing and can’t make a fair comparison;
I have never liked networking and I am fortunate in my ready-made network, as I have previously worked for SCAR and my PhD is at the Scott Polar Research Institute;
I live with an engineer, and so despite my total lack of technological expertise I benefit from a fast internet connection and desk with dual screens and a proper office chair;
I have a dog, which is not at all the same as having children, but does make it more complicated to travel on a whim than it was when I didn’t have a dog. Equally, I don’t have children, and in general have very little to pull my focus away from a virtual event;
I’m neurodivergent – I have ADHD;
I am in general a huge fan of staying at home with my dog
The 2022 SCAR OSC took place from the 1 – 10 August. It was hosted by India but held entirely online. I presented in two panels, one ‘live’, and one pre-recorded presentation, which I uploaded ahead of time to avoid having to sound intelligent at 1am. I also submitted a poster. I attended a few different sessions all of which were filled with exciting research or important discussions about diversity and inclusion in polar research. Overall, an enjoyable and uplifting experience.
So, a few pros and cons of the virtual OSC:
First of all it’s impossible to get around the fact that I simply wouldn’t have gone if it had been held in person. SCAR’s research groups are generally excellent at providing financial support for ECRs to attend their conferences, and I’m lucky in having a couple of sources of institutional support to draw on. However, a lot of those pay expenses after the conference has happened, and I have not at any point this year had the funds to pay for a week and a half in India, even if I was going to get it back. As someone who didn’t have a chance to get used to in-person conferences, I am genuinely baffled as to how we were all affording thousands of pounds of travel to give 20 minute talks.
Secondly, conference logistics. To start with, registration was free which was a fantastic advantage. The virtual conference platform was easy to navigate, allowing you to create your own programme and look back at recordings of past events – handy with events strung out across time zones. I liked the eposter platform, which allowed you to search by theme and comment on posters. You could also upload additional documents and a pre-recorded video, which I used to upload a screen-reader friendly version of my poster.
That said, it wasn’t all plain sailing – abstract acceptance happened late in the day, with speaker guidelines, session timings, and the virtual platform itself all appearing with just days left before the conference. The networking platform was not useful, and it would have been better to have a notification system for when you were sent a message, or received a comment on posters. The lack of speaker profiles meant you couldn’t contact people by email either. However, in general the experience of presenting was better than other conferences I’ve attended, and audiences in all the sessions I attended were engaged and asking interesting questions that prompted useful discussions.
Thirdly, conferences with ADHD can be complicated. Conferences can be hugely overstimulating environments. Instead of finishing the day wired and exhausted, I could log off from a panel and have a cup of tea and biscuits in the garden. I could also use whatever tools I wanted to keep focus, because there was no one else around. It’s a very minor disability as far as conference access goes, but I’ve been frustrated seeing people talk about the benefits of in-person conferences as if people with disabilities weren’t often cut off from those long before COVID got involved.
Finally, there’s that recurring issue of networking and whether or not it’s the same online as in person. I have no doubt it isn’t. I didn’t really speak to anyone outside of the sessions in which I presented and there were several times I would have really liked to catch someone after a session to continue talking. But does that outweigh the potential benefits? I suspect the answer will be different depending on who you ask. Personally, I believe that a lot of those networking benefits can be reclaimed at virtual conferences if senior academics (and ECRs) make specific efforts to attend ECR sessions and ask questions, and by reaching out to speakers over email to tell them you enjoyed their talk and found it interesting. And with my ADHDer’s terrible memory for names and faces, I’m far more likely to remember someone who sends me an email than someone I talked to for five minutes over coffee.
Online conferences aren’t perfect. Neither are the in-person versions. Someone is going to get left out in either option, whether because of lack of accessibility, or the inequalities of internet access around the world, or some other reason. But for me, online conferences have provided multiple opportunities to attend conferences I would not have had otherwise, and I hope they continue alongside in-person events for a long time to come.
The majority of sessions at the OSC were recorded and will become available on SCAR's YouTube.
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