How will this virtual conference work?
• Invited Talks will take place in real time (using Zoom Webinar) but will be recorded and posted to the conference website for the convenience of participants unable to join that session. (Note that joining a webinar is the same as joining any other zoom meeting, except that only video and audio from the speaker and moderator will be shown.) Questions will be submitted using the "Q&A" chat mechanism (enabled by clicking that button at the bottom of your screen), and then read by the session chair and responded to by the speaker during their allocated discussion time. Note that you will have the opportunity to “upvote” and comment on any posted questions. Each talk will have a unique zoom link, which has been embedded either on the speaker page (for invited talks), or on the program page (for the opening/closing remarks, and the sponsor presentations).
• Poster Presenters have been asked to prepare three things: a one minute/one slide ‘blitz' presentation video; a five minute standalone poster tour video; and a viewable poster. The blitz presentations, edited together, provide an overview to the session, and together with the submitted abstract, poster and tour will be accessible to participants throughout the meeting, hosted on the conference website (see the interactive program here). An associated Discord chat channel will be used to post questions when the author is not in attendance. Poster authors will interact with participants during live sessions using the Gather.Town platform. A guide to using Gather.Town as a presenter is available here. Each poster session will have two hour-long parts, an ‘early’ and a ‘late’ show. While this potentially makes for a long day for presenters, it is intended to accommodate our participants over timezones spread from California to New Zealand, and has the advantage of providing you with two audiences for your work. Within a time block we ask the authors of odd (session) numbered posters present for the first half hour, and even numbered posters the second half hour to allow those off-duty to circulate themselves.
• Live Interaction: Experience with the Gather.Town software suggests that it is easy and fun to use and successfully captures much of the interpersonal dynamics of an in-person meeting. It provides an interface for directing a personalized avatar through a virtual conference space, interacting through live audio and video with other avatars as you approach within a customizable distance from them. Within this virtual space, posters will be visible within ‘rooms’ with their authors standing by to present them during the live sessions, and available for browsing at any time 24/7 during the conference. Sponsor booths will also be accessible through the Gather.Town virtual space, as well as side rooms supporting informal meetings and socializing. Access to Gather.Town will be limited to paid registrants. A general guide to Gather.Town is available from here. Please click here to enter the ISSP Gather.Town environment (note that it supports only Chrome and Firefox browsers reliably).