Covering Scientific Conferences Online January 29, 2010

Through Webicina.com, I’ve covered many conferences online such as the Medicine Meets Virtual Reality or the World Congress of Gerontology. Though, covering scientific conferences online needs some guidelines. Here are two recent articles focusing on this issue.

• Social Networking and Guidelines for Life Science Conferences

Those of us who spent a large proportion of our time live blogging were asked to write a paper about our experiences. This quickly became two papers, as there were two clear subjects on our minds: firstly, how the live blogging went in the context of ISMB 2009 specifically; and secondly, how our experiences (and that of the organisers) might form the basis of a set of guidelines to conference organisers trying to create live blogging policies.

• Live Coverage of Scientific Conferences Using Web Technologies

While traditional publishing-house journalism has broadly remained unchanged, many scientists are now publishing their notes on the Internet, accelerating the spread of information to interested audiences. With the increasing popularity of live blogging, conference organizers need to consider how such techniques relate to existing policies. While publication of information at some level is a primary goal of all conferences, there are diverse technological, political, and social factors associated with live blogging that organizers should consider.