I’m chairing a session at #ISLS2023 (the annual meeting of the International Society of the Learning Sciences) next week, a short paper session in the Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning track. As of this morning, three of the four paper presenters, including one of my students, will be unable to be there in person due to delays in visa processing (the conference is in Montreal, Canada). I have heard from other attendees that this is not a problem isolated to this one session, but that large numbers of people have not gotten their visas yet.
An official tweet from the organizers said that “attendees who are unable to travel due to denied visas or personal hardships have been given the opportunity to send a video presentation or a digital poster. If you have this arrangement, please provide these materials as soon as possible.” Given the opportunity. Wow. That wording really says a lot to me. First of all, none of these people had “denied” visas. There are major delays in processing which is out of their control. Also, it makes it seem as if this option to pre-record a video and have me as the chair play it for them is an act of benevolence. Like, they should be so lucky for this option, when for many of them, being unable to attend this conference in person will be a huge missed opportunity for them professionally.
(The fact that this means that the in-person attendees will likely be over-representing privileged countries/backgrounds even more than usual is a slightly different rant for a different day.)
There is no real hybrid option for the conference this year. This was an intentional decision by the local organizing committee. There is a virtual participation option, but that was set up in a way so that those participants will not be able to attend regular paper sessions. The keynotes will be live-streamed and there is an online chat in Whova they can access. I think that’s about it.
When I told my student yesterday that he likely wouldn’t be able to Zoom in to our session he was (rightly) shocked. He attended another conference a few months ago and they (reportedly) had a very robust hybrid set-up, so it was a big surprise to him that it hadn’t been planned for this conference, which is of a similar size and has plenty of technology-focused researchers as members.
The first ICLS conference where I got a paper accepted was in 2008 and I and my co-authors were unable to attend for various reasons (cost, for me). We won the outstanding paper award that year and were also unable to accept that in person. We were allowed to record our presentation and have someone there locally show the video. At the time, this was a lovely accommodation and we were very grateful. It was a little strange knowing that over in Europe some people were watching our presentation and we couldn’t see their reactions or answer questions in real-time, but it was better than having to withdraw the paper. This now is the same option, a pre-recorded video, given to these presenters 15 years later. Due to advances in technology in those intervening 15 years, we do have the ability to have better options for remote participation and hybrid engagement, but those options were not taken this year.
This is not to say that designing for hybrid engagement is easy. It’s not. To do it well takes time and thought and money and people. And rushing it last-minute with inadequate or unknown resources (as I might try to do over the next few days for our session on Tuesday) does not usually end up with a satisfying or supportive environment. Also, it’s not fair to then basically put this extra labor and stress on to session chairs who will not be formally supported to do this if they even choose to do so.
Designing for wide engagement from a wide set of use cases and situations is good for everyone. If the organizers had planned for more robust hybrid engagement for those who a year ago we knew wouldn’t be able to attend, these folks now who are last-minute finding out they can’t go would be able to interact with those in-person in more meaningful ways.
Well, anyway, I have hope that in the following years we will avoid (or at least minimize) these kinds of issues due to more intentional and equitable design around hybrid engagement which is necessary to support our community long term. In addition to delays in visa processing, there are also many folks who are unable to attend these important meetings in person due to disability, family or child care responsibilities, the huge cost of traveling internationally, environmental concerns, or political/identity-related safety issues. There is a new sub-committee in ISLS that is focused on designing and supporting hybrid engagement for the annual meetings, and I’m happy and honored to be a part of that to work for sustainable change in how and who gets to participate in our learning sciences community. If you have any thoughts or ideas around this, please get in touch.
Cynthia D'Angelo 