Keyword: virtual symposium, guidelines
Event info: Asian CHI Symposium 2020

Due to COVID-19 pandemic, holding a virtual academic event is now a new normal. While most of us already have experiences in conducting online meetings, discussions, and webinars, organising and running a virtual event that involve many participants (50 or more), requires effective coordination and clear communication especially within and among the committees and volunteers. 

In this post, I would like to share some guidelines should you want to run a similar event such as this: https://www.facebook.com/masitahghazali/posts/10158352008829414

Before virtual event

• Like any other program, pre-planning is utmost important (which you may have already performed):
  • Reflect what should be improved by reflecting on previous events
  • Identify several OKR (objective, key-result) as targets
  • Set up committees and specify responsibilities
  • Have regular meetings from time to time to check on progress
    • Take down notes of meetings (appoint a person each time)
    • Use Google sheet or any collaborative document, so:
      • notes of meetings can be compiled into one
      • use bookmarks to set out table of content
      • notes can be seen on the-fly, tagging
• Design the program schedule to suit the number of papers to be presented
  • You may want to opt for 2 days (or more) if there are many numbers of paper
  • Alternatively, you may keep it in one day but with parallel session(s)
• Choose a virtual platform that best support your program schedule. Criteria that should be considered:
  • Number of targeted participants
  • Number of accounts, especially when you have parallel sessions. This is important to allow flexibility so participants can join which session they want to listen to
• As the event is 100% virtual, privacy and security of participants are paramount. Registration form should be publicized at least a week before the event to gather participants’ contacts details
• If your event is participated by presenters from all over the world, you may want to first find out which suggested time slots are most preferred
• Prepare an online voting form, should your event has voting for best presenters / presentations
• Prepare a montage should your event has announcement to be made before closing
• Prepare 3 sets of guidelines, and send this out at least the night before:
  • Guidelines for authors / presenters: rules, program schedule, links to parallel sessions, link to upload videos (in case they cannot present on the day), link to feedback form, link to consent form for recording purposes
  • Guidelines for audience: rules, program schedule, links to parallel sessions, link to feedback form, link to consent form for recording purposes
  • Guidelines for organisers: program schedule with PICs, make known of the specific tasks on the day, details or access to materials, etc. 
• Choose a platform for organisers or committee to best communicate during the virtual event e.g. WhatsApp, Slack, etc.
• Choose a separate platform to ask questions from audience, for e.g. Slido, especially for long sessions such as keynote talk. Set a channel.
• Appoint a session chair as co-host, and a technical committee as host in each session 
• Chair session is advised to download video presentations on local computer 
• Do a dry run at least a day before the event

During virtual event

• Utilise the waiting room as virtual registration. Host and co-hosts to allow participants to join in
• Set to mute for all
• Play a lounge music in the background while waiting for the program to start. It is encouraged to put up the rules/instructions on screen as a reminder
• Participants can use the chat window to meet and greet
• Remind participants from time to time about social media hashtag(s), platform to ask questions, online voting, etc. You may want to use pin message feature, if it is available
• Request to turn video on for group photo
• Presenters to join session at least 10 minutes for session begins
• Chair session:
  • Do roll call before session starts
  • Interrupt presentation a minute before the time is up
  • Play recorded video presentations last
  • To set share audio if using Zoom platform: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362643-Sharing-Computer-Sound-During-Screen-Sharing
  • Remind participants to use chat window or other application to post question
• Use the chosen app to communicate among committees, especially when to ask for help, take cover when want to go for a quick break, remind to speed up etc.
• Technical committee is advised to use more than one computer to monitor the overview of the running event, so to keep alert of participants in the waiting room to be let in
• Play montage or anything similar while you tend the scores
• Allow participants to unmute during results announcement, if they can guarantee no noise in the background. Next best solution is to play a clapping audio clip

Please note that handling this kind of event can be tiring and exhausting. Read here: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200421-why-zoom-video-chats-are-so-exhausting?ocid=ww.social.link.facebook

Hope your event turns out to be successful and enjoyable. 
Credits to the committee members from Asian CHI Symposium 2020 (https://asian-chi.github.io/2020/)  and volunteers for the great and wonderful experience!

About the author:
Masitah Ghazali is an Associate Professor at the School of Computing, a member of VicubeLab Research Group, and an IT Associate Fellow at UTM Digital Department at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). She is one of the founding members of ACM Kuala Lumpur Chapter and currently holds the Chair position. Her research interests lies within the topic of usability and user experience in digital and physical interaction, persuasive technology and mobile BCI.