How the conference will work
Our approach has been one in which each presentation will take place at a given date and time as in a face-to-face conference.
Once talks are finished, you will be able to access them from the next day, and they will be available for 6 months after the end of the conference. So do not worry too much if you miss one, you can always watch it at a later point.
We have a wide variety of optional online social activities planned, from short entertaining videos during coffee and lunch breaks, to more interactive entertainments in the evenings, and simple chat rooms available at any time. You can check out our social program here.
What will the experience of a plenary talk be like?
Plenary talks will be very much like the ones at regular face-to-face conference. A moderator will introduce the speaker, the talk will be given, and immediately the Q&A will follow.
The presentation will start at the announced time and you will need to join it by clicking on the "Play button". On the right hand side you will have the chat (where you can leave comments) and the Q&A, where you can ask questions to be addressed to the speaker. Q&A will start right after the talk and the moderator will be responsible for reading some of the questions in the Q&A text box. Questions in the text box that are not answered during the Q&A may be answered by the speaker later on if they wish to.
How will a regular paper work?
Presentations are 20 minutes long and they are pre-recorded. They will be available to play at the announced time. If you wish to attend you will need to click on a given paper and then press "Play". If you join on time, then you will be able to participate in the live Q&A right after the video finishes. If you join the session late and you start watching the video late, you may miss out the Q&A (unless you cut it short). During the Q&A the moderator will give the floor to people who have raised their hand and/or will select questions from the Q&A text box.
If you miss a paper, you will still be able to watch it later on in the conference (starting from the next day), and you will continue to be able to ask questions in the Q&A tab asynchronously. You can also contact authors by searching them and clicking on their name/picture if you have questions that are relevant to their presentation.
What will poster session be like?
Poster videos are 5 minutes long and they have been pre-recorded. The presentation will be available to play at the announced time but you can choose to watch any poster at any time during the session. You will also have access to the poster in its traditional .pdf format. You will be able to direct questions to particular speakers using the text Q&A tab at any time, and the speakers will be able to respond (also in text) at any time. Please check out previous questions so that repetition can be avoided.
The total session time is one hour, so you should be able to visit and watch several posters as you would do in a face-to-face conference.
What can I expect of doctoral workshops?
You can access the session at the announced time. A 15-minute video of the PhD student will be available to play at the announced time. After that the discussant will give a 15-minute response, and then a live general discussion will start. This discussion will be moderated by the discussant who will give the floor to people who raised their hand or will select questions from the Q&A textbox.
Note that although you will be able to go back and watch the doctoral student's presentation later in the conference (starting from the next day), the live response by the discussant will not be recorded, so if you want to hear what our experts have to say, make sure you're there on the day!
Tutorial video part 1: Finding a session
How to take part in a session as an audience member?
Remember - videos are only available during their timeslot. If you want to see a presentation, make sure you're present!
Presentations will become available to rewatch at any time from the day following their original air date, and will be available for several months, so if you miss something, you will be able to catch it at a later date.
Go to the session (e.g. from the program schedule, from your schedule, etc.)
If you are too early, you will see a countdown timer, if you are too late you will see nothing, but if you get it just right you will see a button that says 'Watch Live'.
Click the 'Watch Live' button, click the video to start it, and be warned you may need to click one more time to unmute.
There is a chat function on the side, to talk to your fellow audience members.
There is also a tab called Q&A, where you can pose questions to the speakers (if you can't see your question, it might be in the 'unanswered' section, rather than the 'answered' section)
The last 10 minutes of a talk's scheduled time is for LIVE Q&A. The author(s) will be there and you can click 'join Live Q&A' to get into the live session. If there are several people joining in, please mute and wait for the moderator to invite you to speak. (Make sure to unmute before asking your question!)
For the keynote and poster sessions there will not be a live Q&A. For the posters, only the text Q&A is available, for keynote sessions the moderator will select questions from the Q&A tab to put to the speaker live.
A reminder again that videos are only available during their timeslot! It's like a real conference! Except that from the day following the conference (and for the following 6 months) the videos will become available again.
Written questions can be answered by the authors at any time - so if you are seeing a paper after the Q&A has finished, you can still ask a question and the author will be notified and may come back to answer your question (and if they do, you will be notified)
Tutorial video part 2: Taking part in a session
How to be social at EuroSLA 30?
During talks you can use the chat to talk to other audience members, or the Q&A to ask questions of the presenters. There's even live Q&A for most sessions so you can be seen and heard!
Go to a person's profile and click 'send message' to message someone directly
Click the 'messages' tab in the bottom right (careful, it might be hidden behind the cookies warning) to see all your private messages or to start a video chat.
Also from the messages page you can find the 'Rooms' tab, where you can set up a discussion room for group text/video chats. Some notes:
Everyone can see discussion tables, but people can only join them by being invited - you'll know if there's one you can join because it will have a green background, if you can't join it will have a blue background.
If you see a discussion table you want to join, send a message to someone already at the table - anyone already invited can invite more people.
Once you have been invited to a room you can never be uninvited (or uninvite yourself). If you leave the room, you can always come back to it later.
There is a maximum of 15 people in a discussion room.
Once a room is created it cannot be renamed, so choose carefully!
Take part in the social events and be open to making new friends - there are activities like dancing, self-defence, cooking, and language classes, as well as larger mixer events like research speed dating and a pub quiz! Check the Social Activities page for more details.
Tutorial video part 3: Being social!
If you are stuck and need help with something, we have a helpline with a volunteer on a live zoom call to help you out:
https://ub-edu.zoom.us/j/82446442092?pwd=aVIxZXZYL1B5alRoVG1PV1B5QjI1QT09
And if for some reason that doesn't work, you can email us at eurosla2021@ub.edu