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IT Unconference

Virtual Conference and Event Tools

Proposed by Megan S. Miller and John Yu

Are there virtual conference and event tools you have experience with either as an organizer or an attendee? Come join the conversation as we look for a common set of tools to recommend for Stanford.
Notes

Link to slides

Virtual Discovery at IT Unconference  

12/8/2020 

Proposed by: Megan S. Miller (IAIS) and John Yu (GSE)

1. Overview of Virtual Conference and Event Convening Technologies Discovery Project by Megan S. Miller, Jo-Ann Cuevas, and Sam Fairchild 

2. John Yu’s experience with GSE

  • Virtual expo hosted using gather.town (not accessibility compliant)
  • Use avatar to navigate a prebuilt map. Used google maps data with proximity chat for setup
  • Almost 200 attendees, and the platform was stressed by the load
    • Offered a unique experience  
    • Students presented papers- used discord to create channels for each poster session 
    • Mozilla hubs: VR experience integrated with Discord. Attendees could virtually chat, share their screen. Approx 400 attendees used this approach
    • Discord/Zoom hybrid has been used successfully in the past, makes registration and participation easy as it is open to all with link 
    • Michael Rouan-Excellent experience with Nooks 
      • Won't cover the registration piece  or what Christina Cusack needs to see for conferences, but impressive nonetheless

3. Desired features

  • Users should be able to select their own breakout sessions by topic
    • Avoid the issue of two Zoom instances when someone clicks the link to join a  new room and encounters audio echo
  • Sound quality has been inconsistent across platforms other than Zoom- make sure our solutions have good sound quality. 
  • Platform should be easy to use, should integrate with existing registration systems
  •  All-Zoom option: Needed a moderator to run the sessions. We need a way to support the speakers in our solution 
  • Does reporting tie in to SUNETS? Should be an option as a unique identifier
  • Are these solutions a going concern? We need a long-term solution. 
  • Sign language interpreters and accessibility compliance 
  • Can we share slides and do whiteboarding at the same time? 

 

How is registration being handled?

  • Desired to have automated calendar invites available.  

Idea: Recommend a "toolbox" and "recipes" for how to combine services to match use cases