Reflections from PERC members on the experience of hosting an online conference have been published over at the LSE Impact Blog:
“While the sharing of online video is often discussed as a solution to questions of access, even as that format overcomes barriers, it introduces others.
For instance, whereas access to video-making tools and software is widespread, it is far from universal: digital divides persist, including access to an internet connection stable and fast enough to upload and stream high quality video. Potentially even more important in this instance, is who has the skills and confidence required to produce a video they believe is of sufficient quality to share with their academic peers? Video production is foreign to many academics, and this is particularly true for many older scholars.
Online conferences also have to negotiate time in a way that is quite different to place-based events; because participants are not located in the same time zone, having synchronous events becomes complex.”
Read the full blog here.