The benefits of scientific conferences are well known. Scientists present results of their work, discuss their ideas, and establish personal relationships. Participation, though, is often limited due to costs; for example, to attend a conference in Europe, a US attendee could pay $3000, once fees, transportation, and lodging are included. And financial barriers are even more prohibitive for scientists from developing countries such as India and Poland.
Conferences are not always as effective as they could be. Listening to a dozen or more reports each day for five consecutive days is very demanding, especially at conferences that cover wide ranges of topics. Furthermore, the benefits of listening to reports depend in part on a listener’s being at least somewhat familiar with the topic.
The contribution a conference makes to scientific progress depends on many factors, such as the number and diversity of participants, breadth of coverage, logical sequence of topics, percentage of time devoted to discussion, rigidity of the schedule, and so on. I offer here a suggestion on how conference value might be increased.
I propose dividing a conference into two parts: The first would be an opportunity to read papers online and would take place over several weeks. The second part would be a shortened, two-or three-day face-to-face meeting, rather than the five-day span that is now common.
For the first part, conference organizers could establish a time period for online reading and discussion of a group of papers related by topic. Authors would be asked to make their accepted papers available for download from the conference website, for example, one month before the scheduled meeting. Participants would have time to examine papers carefully and to post questions and comments. Currently, the usual meeting schedule leaves limited time for discussion after the oral presentations. Holding preliminary discussions over the internet could resolve most scientific issues before the face-to-face meetings.
This split approach has several noteworthy advantages. One involves the reduction or even elimination of oral presentations. A conference of two or three days’ duration, consisting mainly of discussions among scientists who have already read the papers, can accomplish more than a typical five-day conference that involves dozens of oral presentations and necessarily limited discussion time. The shorter in-person conferences would be less expensive and less disruptive for the scientists who must travel to attend. Furthermore, the internet-based discussion of papers would allow attendees to better narrow the scope of their attention for the face-to-face portion and therefore make the best use of their time.
Broader participation is another advantage of the internet portion of a restructured conference. Those who cannot afford to attend the in-person meeting can still participate and add their ideas to the online discussions. Today, those who cannot attend the meetings have no way to contribute to them. Personal encounters among scientists are extremely important, but better use of the internet for conferences can reduce expenses all around and broaden the pool of contributors.
