Monitoring Academic Conferences:
Real-time Visualization and Retrospective
Analysis of Backchannel Conversations
Awalin Sopan
PJ Rey, Brian Butler, Ben Shneiderman
Human Computer Interaction Lab,
Dept of Computer Science, Dept of Sociology,
College of Information Studies (iSchool)
University of Maryland
Typical Conference Experience
Conferences
• Present our work and get feedback.
• Extend our professional network.
• Know about others research.
Should have
cited Markov!
Nice talk.
Backchannel Conversation
We can use online social networks, but …
Focus of Interest in Conference
participant
• Identify important people: whose
research is getting more attention,
whom to connect with.
• Know what is happening on a
session.
• What topics are popular.
organizers
• Engage participants in discussion.
• Intervene when necessary.
Focus of Interest in Conference
participant
People
Sessions
Topics
organizers
Logistics
Our Contributions
Conference Monitor: A real-time
monitoring tool.
Analysis of the backchannel
conversation.
Collected tweets about this conference as
backchannel conversation sample.
-Total 4828 tweets over one month.
-Total 593 participants.
Real-time Analysis
Conference Monitor
A web-based real time monitoring tool for conference organizers and participants.
• Demo
Participation dropped after lunch break
opening
morning
keynote
afternoon
lunch
Talks in room d1 was less discussed
Opening Session
Talks in room d1 was less discussed
Opening Session
Keynote speaker and his interviewer
gained all the attention
all tweets during
the keynote
mentioning
keynote speaker
mentioning the
interviewer
Remote Participation
Increase Remote Participation: Why
All remote participants
Most active remote participant
Increases overall visibility
34% retweets were from remote participants
Increase Remote Participation: How
read tweets, watch live streaming
Allow easy communication with the speakers.
Allow questions from the remote participants.
Live streaming of the presentations.
Participate Remotely: Why
Followers growth of
in-person participants
Followers growth of
remote participants
Annotation by the Organizers
Retrospective Analysis
Dynamic Community Creation
Mention network
Lessons Learned
• Organizers found the tool useful to answer
their question.
• Sessions, parallel tracks, speakers - these
aspects make academic conferences different
from other events.
• Remote participation increased visibility.
We cordially thank:
Catherine Plaisant,
Jae-wook Ahn, Ann Rose,
NSF (grant IIS 096852)
Contact:
@awalinsopan
awalin@cs.umd.edu