The Philosophers' Cocoon

Submitting to conferences (in the time of COVID) when you're unsure you'll attend?

In our June "how can we help you?" thread, G writes:

I'm curious about how people decide whether to submit to a conference during the time of COVID-19, especially conferences that are planned for in-person meetings. Take the APA meetings for example, esp. the Eastern and Central. I am almost certain that I will not want to travel to big cities like NYC or NOLA next year. But it would be great if (a big IF) I could get a chance to present a paper to others online. Is it okay if I submit to a conference when I know (or am almost certain) that I only want to participate remotely? (It will be bad if this becomes the norm. But was about during the time of COVID-19? I am curious about what others think.)

In response, skyped-out wrote:

I would recommend that you do not submit to a conference if you have no intention of going to it in person. Put casually, it is douchy. Put more professionally, I think it is unlikely you will gain much from the experience. Certainly, if I am at the conference and I have a choice between hearing a person speak, and hearing a recording or skype/zoom talk I would take the former. I spend far too much time on-line now. I do not want any more of it. And at one point I think it looks silly on cvs when people list talks at conferences which they did not REALLY go to. If this is the new reality, and all talks are like this, then, ... But it is not yet the new reality, and I do not want it to be.

I'm not entirely sure about this. I think skyped-out is definitely right for 'normal times' (pre-COVID). Normally, if you're pretty sure you won't be able to attend a conference if accepted, I think you shouldn't submit. But during the COVID pandemic? I mean, things are so uncertain and fluid right now that it is hard to know with any real degree of confidence what will and what will not be safe in 6 months time. I mean, it looks like it may not be safe to travel in January 2021 (when the Eastern is slated), and so G may feel pretty certain now that they would only want to present via Zoom--but who knows? Maybe there will be better treatments for COVID by then that will make travel less of a life-threatening risk. I think it's just hard to say.

So, in this environment, at any rate, I'm not sure there is anything obviously wrong with G's approach. However, one way of perhaps mitigating this issue is to simply ask the organizers prior to submitting, emailing them with something like, "I'd love to attend your conference if it's safe, but since I'm not sure it will be, can I submit anyway and is there any prospect of presenting remotely if I'm accepted and don't feel safe." This seems to me like an upstanding, forthright way to proceed. What do you all think? 

Ways to improve online conferences?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

In many ways conferences moving online is a great thing for increasing accessibility to junior academics who otherwise might not have been able to afford conference travel. But there are some pitfalls to the new medium that I think we should flag for more senior academics and it may be worth discussing strategies to help mitigate such concerns. In particular, I'm thinking about how Zoom meetings make it much harder to approach speakers and more senior academics during breaks. Some conferences I have attended specifically encourage participants to keep discussions going during the breaks, but this is a recipe for academics who already know one another well to form an 'in group' breakout room that might prove doubly hard for relatively unknown academics to break into. When these groups form in an in-person setting, it is easy enough to hover around and find an opportune moment to join the discussion. In a virtual setting, however, there is an additional epistemic barrier, since one may not even be aware that such discussions are taking place. One concrete step virtual conferences could take is to leave Zoom meeting rooms open after talks and encourage those who wish to continue the discussion not to break out into new Zoom rooms. Simply continuing over email is also relatively exclusionary. Minimally it is worth bringing the concern up so that more senior academics can be aware of the way in which virtual settings can rob junior academics, particularly those of us less likely to ask questions in a large Zoom meeting, of a valuable means of low-stakes participation.

I like this suggestion a lot. It's not only online conferences that can be exclusionary in these kinds of ways. In-person conferences can be similarly exclusive, as in-groups can continue the conversation after talks in ways that others might be interested in but feel excluded from. It's not clear what can be done about the in-person case--aside from encouraging people to include others. But in the online case, this reader's suggestion seems helpful: conference organizers can simply remind people to keep discussions during break going in the original Zoom meeting rather than breakout groups.

I wonder what other things might be done to improve online conferences. I haven't been a part of one that uses Zoom myself, but imagine others have. What works well? What doesn't? 

What's happening to spring/summer 2020 conferences?

I realize lots of things are uncertain now, but I am curious about what is happening to conferences you would normally be speaking at, or that you are (co)organizing that were scheduled for the spring of 2020. I am co-organizing a conference at Saint Louis University for June 22-23 2020 that is going ahead. We will do it as an e-conference. This is not only because it is an externally funded project on a grant that cannot be extended (I asked the funder), but also because we are curious about how feasible it is to do this as an e-conference. 

Still, I was supposed to be a paper respondent in one conference which is now deferred to a later unspecified time, and I'm also speaking at a conference that is being moved to next spring (2021). There is one other conference where the organizers have let us know they are closely monitoring the situation, but it seems unrealistic to me that the conference will go as planned (it takes place in the UK). 

This makes me wonder what is happening to philosophy conferences. What are people doing in response to the impossibility of a conventional conference format in spring 2020? Cancellation, deferral, how many will become e-conferences? 

Norms for conference submissions?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

Some questions about views on the norms/ethics of applying to conferences:

1. Is it objectionable to apply to conferences which overlap, such that if I'm accepted by both conferences, I'll have to turn one of them down?

2. If it's not objectionable to apply to overlapping conferences, would it be objectionable not to immediately withdraw an application from one of the conferences if I get into the other conference, even if I would prefer to go to the conference I haven't heard from yet and thus prefer to wait until I hear back? I assume that this depends in part on how long it'll be until I hear from the second conference.

Good questions. Anyone have any good answers?

Using video-conferencing in a workshop: the case of Rethinking Formal Methods in Philosophy

I recently attended the workshop Rethinking formal methods in philosophy  (RFMP) at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. It was organized by Samuel Fletcher and Nathan Lackey. The topic of this conference was unusual and exciting, asking deep metaphilosophical questions about how formal methods might contribute to philosophy, and what place it has in graduate and undergraduate teaching. I came away from this conference feeling energized and with lots of new ideas, and I commend Samuel and Nathan for coming up with this topic and for their organization. 

Here I want to focus on one specific aspect of this conference, namely the extensive use of video conferencing technology and other forms of online augmentation. Three of the invited speakers, Branden Fitelson, Joshua Knobe, and Catarina Dutilh-Novaes, participated with video conferencing technology. The university has a specific room to facilitate this. It not only has the standard technology to stream Skype but also microphones in the ceiling that pick up whenever someone is speaking so the person skyping in can hear questions clearly. These talks worked very smoothly with (except one very minor occasion) no technical glitches. Moreover, the technology also permitted remote participants to sit in on other talks, for example, Joshua Knobe saw my presentation on teaching experimental philosophy for undergraduates.

To give you a sense of how it worked, the image shows Branden Fitelson, Skyping in from what appears to be deep space, and the image at the top (tiny) shows the workshop room. Image credit: Liam Kofi Bright on Twitter. 

In addition to this, Liam Kofi Bright live-tweeted the conference (see here and here), and I also contributed a few twitter threads on some papers (e.g., here).  Moreover, Liam took questions from the Daily Nous initial post on this blog during the roundtable discussion. Overall, technology helped to augment and supplement, and draw in a wider range of people to the discussion than would otherwise be able to participate. For example, following the workshop I asked on Twitter whether philosophy graduate programs should still have a logic requirement and it generated this fascinating discussion. 

In recent discussions I've had with academics, motivated by climate change and the role of flying in it, people have wondered whether we should just stop flying altogether for conferences, or at the very least drastically reduce how often we fly. This prompts the need for more possibilities for remote participation. As Catarina said, "to fly so far for a talk for two days, I can't really justify it anymore." 

Tips on conference logistics?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, Mark Z. writes:

I was wondering if you can run a post describing how to run a conference. I want to hold a conference and I am at a new college (just got a TT job) and I know nothing of expenses, financing, logistics, lodging, room reservations, invitations, keynote speakers, timing, reasonable accommodations, etc. Is there anyone out there with good experience doing this that can share? I realize that some of this is college and location specific, but there must be some general best practices. I am also considering piggy-backing off another conference. That sounds easier, are there serious drawbacks?
Any advice would be appreciated.

Although we recently had a helpful guest-post by Alex Grzankowski on how to organize good conferences (in terms of how many talks there should be per day, when they should start and end, etc.), Alex's post didn't address some of Mark Z.'s central concerns: namely, the nitty-gritty logistical details of putting a conference together (viz. expenses, financing, lodging, etc.). Given how difficult it can be to put together a good conference (like many people, I've been to some really well-organized ones, as well as some logistical disasters), I think it might indeed be good to have a thread on this! Anyone have any tips on these matters?

Organizing good conferences (guest post by Alex Grzankowski)

The following is a guest post by Alex Grzankowski (Senior Lecturer - University of London, Birkbeck College):

I organize quite a few events each year and I go to more talks and conferences in a year than I'm comfortable admitting. Presently I'm the organizer of the London Mind Group but I also typically put together a couple of workshops/conferences every year and I help out on the edges with the London Aesthetics Forum. As a result, when I go to other events these days, I really notice the little things that bug me (like not having coffee in the morning or an overpriced conference meal that isn't very good) and sometimes big things that bug me such as having so many talks jammed into a day that the last thing I want to do by the end is think more and talk shop. I'm sure that I build into the events I organize various preferences of my own that aren't widely shared and that there are preferences I miss by not having them myself. And I suspect this is true for other event organizers. I'd be very interested to hear from readers what sorts of things have made for especially good conference/workshop experiences and what have made for bad experiences. I don't have in mind here huge events such as an APA meeting or a summer school that lasts for many days - those raise many of their own issues. I have in mind what seems to me a pretty typical event - a one or two day affair with a handful of speakers. As far as what makes for not so good experiences, I don't have in mind things that ruin events such as a participant who is a jerk or worse. Of course that's very important and knowing who you are inviting matters a lot, but I think it might be helpful to focus on the nuts and bolts of the event as such with an eye towards general conference/workshop input. I'm sure any feedback at all will be helpful for me (and I hope for others!), but below are some of the questions I've been thinking about.

-what time do you think an event should start and end?

-how many talks do you want to attend in a day?

-how many days should a workshop or conference last?

-how long should a talk last?

-how long should Q&A last?

-do you like it when there is a respondent?

-should a conference reception/dinner be on offer?

-how long should a lunch break be?

-how crucial is coffee/tea at the opening of the event?

-is a conference fee acceptable?

-have you been to an event with an unusual format? How was it?