Monitoring Academic Conferences:Real-time Visualization and Retrospective

Analysis of Backchannel Conversations

Awalin SopanPJ Rey, Brian Butler, Ben Shneiderman

Human Computer Interaction Lab, Dept of Computer Science, Dept of Sociology,

College of Information Studies (iSchool)

University of Maryland

Conferences

Nice talk.

Should have cited Markov!

Typical Conference Experience • Present our work and get feedback.• Extend our professional network.• Know about others research.

Backchannel Conversation

We can use online social networks, but …

• Identify important people: whose research is getting more attention, whom to connect with.

• Know what is happening on a session.

• What topics are popular.

Focus of Interest in Conference

organizers

participant

• Engage participants in discussion.• Intervene when necessary.

Focus of Interest in Conference

People

Sessions

Topics

Logisticsorganizers

participant

Our Contributions

Conference Monitor: A real-time monitoring tool.

Analysis of the backchannel conversation.

Collected tweets about this conference as backchannel conversation sample.

-Total 4828 tweets over one month.-Total 593 participants.

Real-time Analysis

Conference MonitorA web-based real time monitoring tool for conference organizers and participants.

• Demo

Participation dropped after lunch break

openingmorning

lunch

keynote afternoon

Talks in room d1 was less discussed

Opening Session

Talks in room d1 was less discussed

Opening Session

Keynote speaker and his interviewer gained all the attention

all tweets during the keynote

mentioning keynote speaker

mentioning the interviewer

Remote Participation

All remote participantsMost active remote participant

Increase Remote Participation: Why

Increases overall visibility34% retweets were from remote participants

Increase Remote Participation: How

read tweets, watch live streaming

Allow easy communication with the speakers.Allow questions from the remote participants.Live streaming of the presentations.

Participate Remotely: Why

Followers growth of in-person participants

Followers growth of remote participants

Annotation by the Organizers

Retrospective Analysis

Dynamic Community CreationMention network

Lessons Learned

• Organizers found the tool useful to answer their question.

• Sessions, parallel tracks, speakers - these aspects make academic conferences different from other events.

• Remote participation increased visibility.

We cordially thank:

Catherine Plaisant, Jae-wook Ahn, Ann Rose,

NSF (grant IIS 096852)

Contact:@awalinsopan

awalin@cs.umd.edu