Frequent attendees of conferences are very familiar with the concept of a poster session. It’s not uncommon to see poster sessions done virtually, where all attendees use Zoom and the poster is presented via screen share. But for the Human Sentence Processing (HSP) 2024 conference, the line between in-person and virtual was blended in a cutting-edge hybrid concept.
LSA Technology Services Media Consultant Lead, Jesse Miller, devised the idea for the hybrid poster session months before finding the perfect opportunity to put it into action. “It’s something I had in my head for a while but hadn’t had the chance to try,” said Miller.
With the HSP conference taking place in the Central Campus Classroom Building (CCCB) and an abundance of Team Based Learning (TBL) classrooms available, it was the perfect time to employ the concept.
TBL classrooms are large classrooms with many student stations. Each student station has a dedicated display to which personal devices can be connected to share content for group work. When a group at a station has something they would like to share with the room, their content can be routed (via a few button presses on the room’s touch panel) to all the other station’s displays as well as large projector screens in the room. Simply put, each student station can effectively be used as its own closed AV system, nearly on par with a standard classroom setup. It gives the feeling of having twenty classrooms in one space!
What makes TBL classrooms special is the innate flexibility in how they can be used. As UM-Ann Arbor was ahead of the curve on team-based learning, the university now has multiple years of data and a list of amazing ways TBL classrooms have been employed across a wide range of academic subjects. This is what ultimately sparked the idea of holding a hybrid poster session in a team-based learning format.
The technology in a TBL classroom is perfect for running multiple hybrid poster sessions in tandem with the in-person poster session just outside the room. The goal was to create a continuous experience for attendees, whether they were speaking to someone about their poster who was physically next to them or virtually thousands of miles away.
Putting this plan into action did take careful planning, proper resources, and a bit of footwork. Miller and his team borrowed ten laptops from the Mason Hall service center. These machines were deployed at each “poster station” to facilitate the Zoom meeting. The LSA Technology Services video conferencing group lent ten Huddlecam webcams to the effort. The Huddlecams provided a wide-angle video image at eye height. They also served as the primary microphone, as their built-in mic has been thoroughly battle-tested by the video conferencing team in many different classroom environments.
There are a few key features of Zoom that allowed this to happen as well. For ease of use, the hybrid session took place in one single Zoom meeting with multiple breakout rooms. Upon joining the main Zoom meeting, users were directed to join the breakout room associated with the poster of their choosing. This method made it simple for attendees on Zoom to move between different poster sessions, just as easily as an in-person attendee would walk to a different poster.
For those physically present at the conference, walking up to one of the stations should feel very similar to walking up to a printed poster. The only difference being that the creator of the poster is on the display rather than standing next to them. A printed version of the poster was placed next to each station, so the in-person attendee could look at the details without relying on the screenshared version. Those joining the Zoom had the standard virtual experience with the added benefit of being able to speak and listen to in-person attendees.
The goal was to make the virtual and in-person experiences as similar as possible. A guiding principle of LSA Technology Services’ is that technology should naturally facilitate conversation. While it’s impossible to ignore the fact that this conversation is facilitated on a computer, the idea was to make the technology disappear as much as possible and eliminate the barriers of time and space.
At 11:00 p.m. in Germany, 5:00 p.m. in Ann Arbor, and 7:00 a.m. the next day in Australia, a rousing discussion on linguistics research took place between two virtual participants and two attendees in Ann Arbor. Having access to discussions like this as an in-person attendee was a nice bonus to the conference. Being able to participate in the conference as a virtual presenter is invaluable. Contacts were made, information was exchanged, and new bonds were formed.
To make this all work (and work well) there were some considerations.
First, the room had to be large enough to allow each station enough space to avoid any crosstalk. While Zoom has improved its background noise filters significantly over the years, it’s still possible to get some unwanted voices in the mix if two poster sessions are right next to each other. For HSP, the technology team determined it would be sufficient to use every other station, with an empty station between each active session. Via testing and organizer feedback this was ultimately determined to be a successful tactic.
Second, the room needed to be close to the in-person-only posters to capitalize on the existing foot traffic. In CCCB this wasn’t a major issue due to the availability of large team-based learning rooms on each floor. In a less accommodating situation, it would be necessary to plan an in-person-only poster session around the hybrid space. Since the in-person portion typically has less space-specific needs, it’s vital to plan early and have your printed posters gathered near your hybrid space. If the hybrid area were too far from the physical poster gallery it may feel too isolated to attendees, or worse they won’t notice the hybrid session at all and potentially create frustration for virtual presenters.
Third, organizers should plan to announce to attendees that the hybrid poster session is available both ahead of the conference and during any plenary sessions. A quick primer on how it all works is also helpful. Until hybrid sessions become a normal part of poster sessions, this concept will inevitably need some explanation. If you have something unique going on at your conference, market it!
Last, for each session it will take a decent amount of time to set up the Zoom meeting on each station’s computer and complete the necessary testing. In these sessions of six to eight posters, it took roughly 30 minutes with one person, or a little less with a few helpers.
Jon Brennan is an Associate Professor of Linguistics and Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychology at U-M. He was in charge of organizing the conference and said, “The hybrid poster session allowed scholars to participate in our conference who otherwise would have been excluded. The technology made it possible to integrate these remote posters into our in-person sessions in a way that allowed for a more seamless and engaging experience for all conference participants. We have heard nothing but positive feedback from the people who participated and we hope this can be a model for future conferences in our field.”
Overall, especially for a first attempt, the concept was proven to be a success. Brennan and his team were more than satisfied with the results as it allowed their conference greater reach and gave participants who weren’t able to attend in-person a voice. And no matter how simple or how complex the technology that facilitates it, having a voice matters.
