Ad hoc online experiments

Ad hoc online guidelines

The ISLS 2024 conference has three forms of hybridity.

1. Hybrid symposia are “born hybrid” and planned for both in-person and online participants to interact.
2. Reasonable accommodations for remote presenters with needs related to disability, visas, etc. allow presenters to share their presentations remotely with in-person attendees. These two forms of hybridity are supported by the Local Organizing Committee (LOC).
3. Ad hoc online experimentation allows conference participants to experiment with other forms of online participation without such support.

Recognizing that many in ISLS are quite capable with technology and online collaboration, the ad hoc online experimentation scheme allows participants to utilize familiar ways and explore new ways to share the annual meeting experience online.

The Local Organizing Committee can NOT provide IT or logistical support for ad hoc online experiments, and as experiments, they may not always work as intended. Remote attendees who are having trouble accessing these experiments will not be able to access conference IT support. Our hope is that ad hoc online experimentation will allow those with interest and capacity to extend aspects of the conference to remote participants in ways that safely enhance the conference experience without overtaxing the logistical and IT support capacity the Local Organizing Committee can provide.

It is essential, when considering ad hoc online experimentation, that the technological infrastructure be considered. Session rooms may not have webcams or mics. Larger rooms may be too large for laptop speakers, webcams, or mics to be effective. Peripherals such as the meeting owl may require driver installation that is prohibited by campus IT device management. Campus wifi may be heavily encumbered by attendees. While most of our session rooms do have a facility to allow a remote speaker to “zoom in”, most of our session rooms are not configured for the in-person presenters or audience to “zoom out” to remote participants. Session chairs will be provided with detailed information about session rooms. We will not have the ability to answer detailed questions about the room IT or run experiments on particular technologies in advance.

The ad hoc online experimentation scheme has three key guidelines.

1. Consent

Any participant wishing to conduct ad hoc online experimentation needs to ensure consent is given from all who are involved. For instance, if a presenter wishes to livestream their session, they need to have the consent of all the presenters or anyone else who might appear on the livestream. For example, if a participant wishes to post video recordings of breaktimes on a private instagram channel, they need to have the consent of people in the videos, even if the private channel is only accessible to conference participants, since participants may not want their behavior recorded.

2. Safety

All online activities need to adhere to the conference Code of Conduct, and need to ensure those interacting online have agreed to the Code of Conduct. Given the prevalence of Zoombombing and other disruptive online activities, anyone organizing ad hoc online experimentation should either ensure access is only shared with other conference attendees (typically by only sharing access via the Whova platform), or that any outside participants have explicitly agreed to the Code of Conduct and the organizer is reasonably sure they will follow it. For instance, if someone brings in teachers who participated in a research study via skype to answer questions at a poster session, the presenter would need to ensure the teachers had read and agreed to the Code of Conduct. All ad hoc online experimentation initiators should be prepared to mitigate harm due to any violations of the code of conduct in their online activities, e.g. blocking disruptive people.

Under no circumstances should Zoom links or other access be provided on the open internet.

We are not using Whova as a webconferencing platform, so you will need to “bring your own” collaboration platforms, unless you are using a conference-provided zoom account already established for online accommodations in your session. ISLS 2024 can not provide or pay for accounts on other platforms such as gather.town, discord, etc. nor can we schedule special zoom meetings or webinars; any external platforms used should be secure enough to permit adherence to these safety guidelines.

3. Transparency

All ad hoc online experimentation plans must be shared with the Local Organizing Committee in advance (by 5 June 2024). For all experimentation in regular sessions, the initiator must work with the session chair who will inform the LOC. If the experimentation does not take place within a session, it should be communicated directly with the LOC at [email protected]. Any experimentation that invites participation for virtual attendees of the conference who have received remote participation as an accommodation should be flagged in Whova with the “adhoc online” tag and access instructions provided.