LOGISTICS

Design of the Virtual Conference Series

• Username and password protected
• Each conference session 1 week long. Papers stay open the whole week to allow for considered responses. Additional slides, uploaded in response to presentations, are "opened" as they become available
• Open the week prior to the conference for presentation uploads Session spaced 3-4 months apart from November 2006 through August 2007.
• Several face to face (F2F) conference opportunities between virtual sessions.
• Results of virtual conference series finalized in a F2F conference during October 2007 in Japan.

Possibility of F2F within the Virtual Conference

• One powerful technique is to integrate small F2F workshops into the Virtual Conference
• This allows local F2F interactions internal to the group but virtual interactions between this group and the global virtual conference.
• Such groups can then alternate F2F sessions with virtual sessions getting advantages of both types of interactions.

Roles and Responsibilities of Participants

• Participants: View presentations of interest. Enter into discussions of presentations, session summaries and synthesis summaries through message boards and email.
• Presenters: Upload presentations the week before the conference begins. Spend time throughout the conference answering message boards and email. Participate as described above.
• Moderator: Lead the discussion, keep people engaged, create a friendly and welcoming atmosphere, and integrate interesting new results and discoveries into a summary report updated daily. Clarify, summarize and structure new discussion threads.
• These summary reports allow participants to leave and re-enter the conference when necessary and still keep up with the ongoing discussion. They also provide an overview of major discussion topics within the session.
• Instigator. Participant with the added responsibility of stimulating discussion and participation within a given session

Confidentiality

To encourage frank discussions and make participants feel comfortable enough to pose questions in other discipline areas, the discussion boards will not be archived. The only permanent record of the discussions will be contained in the summary reports which will be available to conference participants for comments and corrections before being archived.

Expected Outputs

• Preliminary analysis of the signatures throughout the Sun-Earth system. Creation of relevant data products and global maps to be shared by conference participants.
• Identification of linked physical processes and system behavior.
• Establishment of interdisciplinary collaborations
• List of Sun-Earth system science topics for the follow-on virtual conference session focused on continuing data analysis, theory and modeling.

What Participants Gain

• Information on time lines for selected conference events
• Use of shared global data products (i.e., AMIE, KRM convection patterns, research-level assimilated 3D ionosphere, global TEC, continuous solar Ha images, corrected and propagated solar wind values, etc.)
• Opportunity to test out selected virtual observatories
• Access to catalogue of data from conference participants
• Operational & Research Model outputs for conference events
• Access to online journal articles relevant to conference topics High level interpretation of observations from sun-to-Earth putting your observations into global context.
• Opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration
• Opportunities to make contacts in the worldwide scientific community

Rules of the Road

Participants are expected to contact, collaborate with, and acknowledge individuals providing observations as well as groups responsible for creating global data products. Contact information is provided with all data products in the Data Commons area.

Technical Support

Available on site through a help button and by phone. Since this is an asynchronous conference, technical help will only be available from 8 am - 5 pm EST.

Closure

The site will remain open for the week following the conference for final comments and additions. The list of interdisciplinary science topics derived from the synthesis summary will provide the basis for collaborations and will help define topics for the follow-on conference session.

Intellectual Property and Copyright

Copyright of presentations is retained by the authors.

Archive

The presentations, conference data products, conference data catalog, session summary reports, synthesis summaries and listings of interdisciplinary threads and topics will all be archived and will be accessible to participants indefinitely following the conference. If a participant does not want a presentation to be part of this archive, please notify Rob Barnes (robin.barnes@jhuapl.edu) and it will be removed.

The list of conference participants and affiliations will be part of this archive. To protect the privacy of participants, contact information will not be included. The content of the message boards, except as described in the summary reports, will also not be part of this archive to encourage a free exchange of information and questions across discipline areas.

How to get the most out of a virtual conference?

1. Set aside time each day to participate.
2. Interact with presenters via private email or comments on message boards
3. Avoid lurking. The most important advice is to actively participate. Otherwise, because of the nature of the medium, you will not get a sense of being a part of the conference
4. Use the interactions to network with other scientists. Your time and energy are the only limiting factors in the number of presentations you are able to attend giving you an excellent opportunity to identify key individuals to contact.
5. On message boards, don't duplicate long sections of the previous message in your replies unless necessary.
6. Identify yourself by adding your organization and field. Hopefully the discussion threads will be followed by individuals in multiple discipline areas.
7. Read all official correspondence from the conference organizers
8. Experiment with the strengths of this new medium. Be open to its advantages. Don't expect the interaction to resemble a F2F conference.
9. Have fun, experience scientific collaboration on a worldwide scale, celebrate the anniversary of the IGY.
10. Keep contact information for Rob Barnes and other organizers in a convenient location. Feel free to write or call if there are questions or if problems develop.

References

Key features of the SEC Online Conference Series were designed taking advantage of lessons learned and documented in the following references:

Wieman, Anneke, Organizing virtual conferences: Lessons and guidelines, International Institute for Communication and Development.

Green, Lyndsay, Online Conferencing: Lessons Learned., Human Resources Development Canada, Hull (Quebec). Office of Learning Technologies, 1998.

Green,Lyndsay, Playing Croquet with Flamingos: A Guide to Moderating Online Conferences, Office of Learning Technologies (OLT), Human Resources and Social Development Canada, 1998.

Shimabukuro, James, The Evolving Virtual Conference: Implications for Professional Networking, The Technology Source Archives, September/October 2000.