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Why is the ASM online-first in 2024?

An open letter to you, as a prospective attendee of this year’s ASA meeting,

In advance of opening registration for the ASA Annual Science Meeting, we wanted to take the chance to oultine *why* it is online-first this year, and what kind of opportunities we hope it will provide to you, as a member of the ASA community.

The Australian astronomical community has never been bigger than it is today, and it has never been as spread out across the continent as it is right now. The fields of research we are working on, the types of research we do – they’re all more diverse than ever before as well, which was reflected clearly in the abstracts submitted to be part of the ASM. 

Clancy and I were asked to take on this task of designing an ASM that was online-first because the ASA is exploring what it can do to address pressing issues we are all facing in astronomy and beyond: climate change, diversity and inclusion (or exclusion, as the case often is), economic and financial instabilities, an increasingly uncertain future. 

If there were no monetary, time or carbon cost to travel, and if everyone in the community could gather instantly without barriers in one place, and if everyone who wanted to share their work with the community could do so effectively and fairly in a short amount of time – then we probably would never have to consider how technology might augment the ways we interact. 

But there is a cost. If we choose to meet only or primarily in person, we also choose to exclude anyone who cannot travel due to costs, responsibilities, or disabilities (see also: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-021-01067-y). This problem is likely to get worse, not better, as the changing climate puts ever more pressure on our ability to move freely.

So our goal, within the NOC and in collaboration with the SOC, the organisers of hubs on the Hub Day and the organisers of the in-person focused HWSA, is to create a temporary alternate world where members of the community can gather effectively, share their work and learn about what is happening across the landscape of Australian astronomy, and make connections with others – hopefully some of whom they haven’t met before, and some of whom they may never meet in person. 

We’ve aimed throughout our planning to step back from assumptions about how things are normally done, and think about what the purpose and goals of the different components of the ASM are, and how we can best achieve these.

What do we mean by “online-first”? 

The term online-first (or similarly, digital-first) reflects our goal of creating a vibrant environment in which online communication is the primary mode of interaction. Online-first is a shift in meeting philosophy that places the focus on the mode of interaction available to the most people, ensuring that it meets our needs rather than being a second-class solution. As organisers, we are doing everything we can to ensure that the online environment we create has plenty of potential – but a community is built by your interactions within that environment. 

The online-first philosophy extends to how we can all approach this opportunity, and we encourage you to consider doing some of the following:

  • Blocking out your calendar as “busy”, as you would for the time spent away from home at a meeting you travel to in person
  • Avoiding the temptation to check email, add another paragraph to your paper draft, etc. and instead use non-dedicated time to engage with other conference participants online
  • Try out some of the new technologies and platforms we’re offering in advance (using the time you’d otherwise spend travelling to your destination)
  • Take genuine breaks! We have designed the program with breaks in mind, and we strongly encourage you to use at least part of this time to step back and take a break from the meeting in the same way that you would in person

What have we done so far in designing the ASM?

  • Incorporating the persistent and community-wide ASA Slack space
  • Designing the program to be as east-west neutral as possible
  • Including regular and medium-sized breaks throughout the program
  • Redefining the role of Sparklers and poster content, by diversifying the topics and ensuring they are a core and visible part of the program
  • Aiming to use live gathering time as effectively and interactively as possible 
  • Channelling questions through Slack for better legacy and equity of interaction
  • Including self-nominated review talks as part of the submission process 
  • Adopting a cross-platform, VR-enabled platform for more immersive interactions
  • Allocated a portion of our budget specifically to accessibility grants, including VR access
  • Working with the Decadal Plan coordinators to plan effective incorporation 
  • Removing parallel sessions and encouraging presenters to be broad in their outlook
  • Adding time-zone connection sessions as a way of connecting with the global community
  • Building interactive/immersive spaces in VR including poster galleries and meeting areas
  • Collaborating with organisers across the country to offer in-person activities on Hub Day
  • Working with the SOC to co-design a maximally-effective abstract ranking process 

What is the purpose and intent of the local Hub Day?

The concept of a “Hub Day” was included in plans for the ASM as a way to facilitate opportunities for local gatherings of the community alongside the online-first activities throughout the rest of the week. We are immensely grateful to our hub leads for taking on this concept and their work so far in designing activities framed around the benefits of in-person interaction and meeting the needs of their local ECRs. The plans we have heard about so far sound great! The Hub Days are shaping up to be a great chance to further visibility of your work, meet local people across the community who you may not have yet crossed paths with, get to know the ECRs who will shape the future of our field and reconnect across institutions and organisations. We also recognise that not everyone will be able to get to a hub in person for various reasons. Where possible and feasible, hubs will be aiming to share some of their content with those online to provide opportunities to engage with their local content, and we will also have online-only activities running at points throughout the day as an additional source of content. Stay tuned for more to come!

What does this all mean for you, as a prospective attendee?

You’ve probably had a bad online meeting experience, and probably also a bad online conference experience. That’s okay – we all have, in part due to the relative infancy of online forms of interaction. Practical online meetings and conferences are only about a decade old, but we’ve had centuries to work on the ways we meet in person. In planning this year’s ASM, we are learning from the collective lessons of many online conferences over the last several years, to both design and execute the meeting in a way that will hopefully be engaging, effective and productive. 

Designing an ASM in this way is an experiment, not a silver bullet method – so it isn’t going to be perfect. We’re going to try new things, some of which might be great, some of which might not work at all, but that’s the nature of experiments. If you choose to attend, we would love to have you be part of the process of figuring out together what benefits online interaction can bring us as a community, and which parts of this year’s ASM are the most interesting and useful for you. 

Some of the best collaborators I work with were ones I met online first, and some of these I have to date never met in person, but after a while that hasn’t mattered at all due to our shared purpose and collaboration alignment. And some of the experiences I’ve had online, in VR or otherwise, are far more memorable and meaningful than many I have had in person. So I know firsthand that online interaction can really offer us something incredible – and go far beyond being there – if you give it a chance to do so. 

So in short:

  • If you want to find out what is happening across Australian astronomy
  • If you want to experience different ways that your work might get exposure  
  • If you want to make connections with people beyond your physical walls
  • If you want to be part of something new and different 
  • If you want to help us explore the potential of online-first  and assess what works 
  • If you want to learn about how online technologies like VR can improve the way we meet

… then we hope to see you at this year’s ASM!

~ Vanessa (on behalf of the NOC)

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