The EDEN NAP webinar was arranged in cooperation with the Swedish Network for IT in Higher Education (ITHU). CEO of Concept International, Stefan Svicevic Concept, meets Andrea Amft (Swedish Higher Education Authority), Alastair Creelman (Linnaeus University), Birgitta Hemmingsson (Mid-Sweden University), Markus Schneider (Karlstad University). The webinar took place in the e-meeting platform Zoom.
The higher education sector has an extremely large carbon footprint due to intensive international meetings, projects, and conferences. As the climate crisis becomes increasingly urgent we need to cut our air travel radically and one way of doing this is to organize more digital conferences and meetings. There are many technical solutions available and if we can exploit their potential we can arrange conferences that are social, interactive and engaging.
In this webinar, The EDEN team were the present digital experience of organizing online conferences in cooperation between ITHU (Swedish Network for IT in higher education) and the Swedish Higher Education Authority (UKÄ). The first of these conferences attracted over 200 registered participants and included plenary and parallel sessions with group discussion, polls and chat as well as social activities such as online lunches, mindfulness, and aerobics.
We discussed questions
- What are the challenges of online meetings and conferences?
- How can we change our meeting culture from physical to online?
- How can online conferences and meetings contribute to enhanced levels of inclusion and accessibility?
Stefan Concept meets
Andrea Amft
Analyst at the Department of Higher Education Analysis, Swedish Higher Education Authority (UKÄ), Sweden. She has been the project manager for UKÄ’s two successful digital conferences in 2019 and 2020. The conferences tested concepts of providing quality content and being social with 500 participants at the same time.
E-mail: [email protected]
Webpage for the conference (in Swedish)
Alastair Creelman
E-learning specialist at Linnaeus University, Kalmar, Sweden. He is an EDEN fellow and member of the EDEN NAP Steering Committee.
Blog: Corridor of uncertainty – reflections on technology and education
@alacre
Birgitta Hemmingsson
Educational developer at Mid-Sweden University and Chair of the Swedish Network IT in Higher Education (ITHU). Consultant for virtual conferences. I have been involved in the two successful virtual conferences held together with the Swedish Higher Education Authority.
@birgittahem
Markus Schneider
Project manager at Center for Teaching and Learning, Karlstad University and Product Owner of media services at Swedish NREN, SUNET.
@markwschn
The webinar was followed by an #EDENChat at 18:00 CET hosted by Alastair Creelman @alacre. Most of the participants joined on Twitter after webinar using the hashtag #EDENChat!
#EDENChat is an online discussion event on Twitter initiated by the Steering Committee of the EDEN Network of Academics and Professionals (NAP). It is mediated by members of the NAP community and runs for approximately 1 hour. Anyone can join in and contribute to the discussion which is presented in a Question and Answer format and focuses on current issues in distance, open and e-learning. All sessions start at 18:00 CEST.
Featured image by Headway