Continuing in our AAAS panel recaps, the CCC hosted a panel titled, “Sustaining Computing Research Communities in a Hybrid World”. The panelists were Brent Hecht (Microsoft), Richard Ladner (University of Washington), and Cristina Videira Lopes (University of California, Irvine), and the panel was moderated by Sujata Banerjee (VMware).

During the hybrid 2023 AAAS conference, there were many issues with virtual capability, culminating in an announcement on the morning of the second day that the organizers made the decision to shift to an in-person only conference. This was a disappointing technological failure, but it highlighted the difficulties that arise from hybrid conferences, which these panelists discussed at length.

Dr. Banerjee kicked off the panel by addressing the unique difficulties of holding hybrid meetings. We are adept at holding in-person meetings, having done so for thousands of years, and we have even become quite good at hosting virtual meetings, but we struggle to combine both methods in hybrid conferences, said Dr. Banerjee. She also mentioned the CCC Meta Hybrid Visioning Workshop, which was a hybrid workshop on the topic of hybrid meetings, which she and the rest of the panelists attended in 2021. The three key topics the panelists aimed to address, Dr. Banerjee stated, were Accessibility, Sustainability Impacts, and Hybrid Conference Design Based on Strong and Valid Data.

Dr. Richard Ladner spoke first about accessibility considerations for hybrid conferences. The goal of accessibility design, said Ladner, is to allow disabled individuals to participate in conferences and workshops as equitably as possible. Hybrid conferences can both increase and decrease accessibility in different ways. Not having to travel or disclose one’s disability can allow more disabled individuals to participate, such as those who may be immunocompromised or have a great difficulty traveling. Hybrid conferences can also decrease accessibility, said Ladner. Remote attendees may have fewer opportunities to meet people and engagement is usually much lower from remote attendees whose attention is often divided between the conference and whatever is going on at their home or office.

Dr. Ladner also spoke about the types of accessibility accommodations which are necessary at most conferences, hybrid or otherwise. Ladner stated that 19.4% of undergraduate students and 11% of graduate students have accessibility needs. The number for faculty is unknown, though since this population is aging, they become more likely to require accommodations as they get older. Dr. Ladner used the AAAS conference as an example to talk about accessibility accommodations that the event provided, and those which were missing. Several sign language interpreters were present at the event and the AAAS app had a “hop-in” feature, which allowed attendees to meet and have quick chats with other virtual attendees of the event. The doors to the venue, Dr. Ladner pointed out, did not have the ability to open automatically and were quite heavy, meaning attendees in wheelchairs or with some other physical disabilities would need help moving from room to room. There also was not a ramp up to the stage, which would have proved problematic had one of the panelists been in a wheelchair. 

Dr. Ladner wrapped up his presentation by saying that our attitude towards accessibility is very important. Accessibility is not always achieved in every case, because there is such a wide range of disabilities which require very different accommodations. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and other laws require conferences and venues to be compliant to a list of some necessary accommodations, but mere compliance is not enough. We need to strive to go above and beyond when it comes to providing disability accommodations to ensure that all disability needs are met at every conference.

Dr. Cristina Videira Lopes then turned our attention to the sustainability impacts of hybrid conferences. She began with an example of meetings held hundreds of years ago, where attendees would travel by horse and buggy and stay at friend’s houses or small inns, consuming very little resources. Dr. Lopes then juxtaposed this example with the reality of today’s large conferences, where thousands of attendees fly and drive to enormous conference centers and stay in hotels. “We have gotten used to the idea that polluting is very cheap”, said Dr. Lopes. During the pandemic, far fewer people traveled, and we saw a huge decrease in travel-made emissions, but virtual events did not solve every problem. Dr. Lopes discussed the “energy” created by in-person events that is missing from virtual ones. Advancing scientific research requires a social aspect, where researchers can bounce ideas off of each other and have long conversations after presentations. Virtual meetings do not allow for these social interactions to occur naturally, and social interactions that do happen online are rarely of a similar caliber to in-person ones. 

Dr. Lopes then turned to the issue of hybrid conferences. Putting together a virtual and an in-person conference at the same time and expecting participants of both to mingle is unrealistic, she says. Hybrid conferences also result in double the work for conference organizers and the cost skyrockets, since both a physical venue and AV equipment for every room are needed. Dr. Lopes instead argues that we should not hold large hybrid conferences as they are being conducted today. Instead, she argued for several alternative methods.

• Firstly, Dr. Lopes said a conference could either host lots of large online events with a few smaller in-person events or host lots of small online events with a few larger physical events. This way both in-person and online attendees are prioritized, but the events are not expected to run at the same time and interact, complicating planning for the organizers and worsening the overall event for in-person and virtual attendees. 

• Secondly, for conferences which are held annually, such as AAAS, the conference could switch off each year from a physical conference one year to a virtual one the next. 

• Another solution is hosting a physical conference which is live streamed virtually, but virtual attendees cannot interact with in-person ones. This solution allows for virtual participants to still listen to and attend the conference, but doesn’t worsen the overall conference by trying to implement hybrid capabilities. 

• Finally, Dr. Lopes proposes that virtual and physical conferences can be held at the same time with the same agendas, but not interact with each other. 

Any of these solutions, Lopes stated, would improve the conference experience for attendees, speakers, and organizers without eliminating either physical or virtual conferences.

Dr. Hecht then addressed the problem of conference design by focusing on the problem as a research question. First, Hecht suggested goals for conferences, including new and impactful collaborations, career success from junior scholars, and overall sentiment about the conference, to name a few. Hecht also proposed designing experiments to test which conference designs best achieve the goals listed above. 

According to literature on hybrid and remote work, hybrid work is the best modality for most people. Hecht states that the same may apply to hybrid conferences. A problem that arises from hybrid work and conferences is that some people are more likely to try to attend in-person than others. Junior researchers, for example, tend to attend lots of conferences and usually in-person. This is because junior researchers have much to gain from socializing and building connections with other junior researchers, and often more importantly, with senior researchers. The problem here is that senior researchers are less likely to attend conferences in-person, because they have less to gain. This means that junior researchers have fewer influential people to network with who might be able to further their careers, which can be detrimental.

Dr. Hecht concluded by stating that there may be irreplaceable elements of in-person events. If this is the case, the carbon impact will be significant in perpetuity, but stopping conference travel isn’t the most effective way for us to address this. Instead, we should treat the climate crisis like a crisis and redirect more of our research efforts to addressing it (and other major problems), rather than lesser research challenges.

After the panel presentation, the discussion opened up for Q&A. Dr. Banerjee, the panel moderator, kicked off the discussion by posing the question below: 

• Dr. Banerjee: When should we travel and when shouldn’t we? There are trade-offs to consider, such as accessibility, sustainability, and cost, so how do we rationalize our decisions while considering all of the factors?

Dr. Hecht responded by saying more data on the matter is needed, especially to inform the general public so that well informed decisions can be made. Dr. Lopes agreed, but also stated the importance of experience based knowledge in making these types of decisions. She also mentioned some meetings may not be worth having in-person, such as meetings that are shorter than a full workday. For smaller grant projects, Lopes suggested having virtual meetings instead. Dr. Ladner added that hybrid meetings increase the diversity of and equity for participants. For those who don’t have the funding to travel to conferences, hybrid meetings allow them to attend when they otherwise would not be able to go to a physical meeting.

Dan Lopresti, CCC Chair and professor at Lehigh University asked the first question once the Q&A was opened to the audience.

• Dr. Lopresti: I would love to see hybrid conferences be successful, because it is important enough to enough people to try to perfect the design. I am worried, however, about the next generation of leadership in the research community. How have hybrid conferences affected their abilities to build connections and have meaningful conversations with people in current leadership roles?

Dr. Lopes replied saying we must design online mentorship programs intentionally. Programs which were developed during the COVID-19 pandemic to pair junior and senior researchers were beneficial, though they lacked the ability to hold informal conversations over dinner, which can be extremely beneficial for young researchers. Dr. Hecht said he had the same concerns as Dr. Lopresti, that young researchers may have become disenchanted with leadership roles through virtual and hybrid meetings, but Hecht said that at several conferences he attended young researchers still seemed very “gung-ho” about keeping hybrid conferences.

Dr. Maria Gini of the University of Minnesota and the CCC, next asked about changing the conference model.

• Dr. Gini: It is very important for young and junior researchers to attend conferences to build their networks. What if we changed the rules so that only junior researchers and students could attend research conferences in-person, and everyone else had to attend online?

Dr. Hecht responded, saying that while he understood the desire to optimize the people who attend and make sure that junior researchers have the opportunity to do so, he thought the benefit of interactions between junior and senior researchers outweighed the benefits of junior researchers just interacting with each other. A good conference would allow for plenty of both kinds of interactions to take place, Hecht added.

The next question was asked by Jay Brodsky, Chief Information Officer at AAAS.

• Mr. Brodsky: I won’t comment on the virtual program at this year’s meeting. At another company where I used to work, we would hold larger hybrid and virtual meetings, with around 20,000 attendees. At a particular hybrid event in 2020, when we polled attendees, the in-person attendees (on average) responded that they believed the virtual attendees were having a better experience and the virtual attendees responded that they believed the in-person attendees had a better experience. How do we make all attendees at hybrid meetings feel like they are having the best experience?

Dr. Lopes responded first, by saying that virtual and in-person attendees experience two almost entirely different meetings when they attend a hybrid event, so it is difficult to compare their experiences. Also, people tend to think the grass is greener on the other side, so it is a common issue that one group may perceive the other as having the better experience, but if both groups have a good time, then she would consider that to be a success. Dr. Ladner agreed, and said that surveying attendees after hybrid events is exactly what we should be doing, and he hoped there would be a survey after this year’s AAAS conference. For remote participants, the technology was clearly not up to the task this year. Ladner said his experience at a recent remote meeting was a disaster because some presenters did not have high enough bandwidth on their internet and were kicked out of the meeting, which brought up an equity issue. The wifi at the conference itself was also fairly spotty. Dr. Hecht stated that this discussion comes up a lot in reference to remote and hybrid work. Remote workers usually see their experience as second-class. Equity issues can also be more complicated than we think, Hecht continued. Sometimes those with the most money have the second-class experience, such as CEOs who take meetings from their ski chalets while everyone else is in office. In this case, this is the equitable outcome.

Dr. Banerjee concluded the Q&A with a closing question.

• Dr. Banerjee: What is one thing each of you would suggest to improve our hybrid experience?

Dr. Ladner responded, saying we need to collect more data. Surveys are a great way to do this, and having the right questions on surveys allow us to figure out the gaps in equity and experience. Over 250 companies provide virtual and hybrid conference capabilities, and there are no standardized practices between these companies. Ladner advised that a central guidance be created to advise companies on best practices for hybrid events. Dr. Lopes advised against having hybrid conferences at all, and suggested that most annual conferences split 50-50, having physical conferences one year and virtual ones the next, to ensure meaningful conferences are held each year while keeping equity measures in mind. Dr. Hecht agreed with Dr. Ladner on collecting more data and increasing surveys after hybrid conferences and also advocated for driving down the cost of attending physical conferences, such as holding more conferences at universities to minimize the inequities of pricey conference tickets. Dr. Banerjee reiterated that it is difficult to know what the best option is, from an organizer and attendee standpoint. She stated it is important to take into account who the attendees are and what their needs may be, to create conferences which are as equitable and accessible as possible.

Thank you so much for reading, and stay tuned for next week’s panel recap on Improving Mental Health and Supporting Self-regulation with Technology.