for my part, I'd say 'no thanks' but then I tend to be a realist about labor costs, personnel effort, etc. but this seems like it could be done, and no doubt it can. so, I'd say on my behalf if anyone can do it professionally, and show how it would not increase costs either real in terms of networking charges and labor, then I'm sure it would be seriously considered by the exec. else, I must tell you that I'm not enthused about it. primarily because in this case the virtual has a very real referent in terms of labor, and cost. however, if all you are talking about is an online forum, then we already have that. it has never taken off for the conferences in the past though. I think the closest think you'll get to this model from the most recent conference was the blogs, likewise with the 2003 conference, 2002 had an online forum, and on back through time there was always some support for this, either directly or indirectly, but we've never had a huge takeup on it, and I don't think you can do much to change that. I could be wrong and would be happy to be proven wrong. On Oct 5, 2004, at 10:02 PM, meiwu@umac.mo wrote:
As we are all researchers on the "virtual world", why should we still keep to the old, pre-Internet tradition of holding an annual conference in a "real venue," but not in a "virtual venue"? All the technologies to hold a virtual conference are available. What we need is to be more innovative in practising what we have been campaigning in our research: being global and connecting to as many people as possible with the help of the internet. What I suggest is that Aoir 5.0 could select one "real venue," and at the same time, set up a "virtual venue" for those who have registered, but for whatever reasons (be entry regulations, cost consideration, busy schedules, hurricanes, etc..) could not come to the "real venue" to participate, specially for panel discussions. Virtual participants can also organize local panels. Just throw my little thought here. Wu Mei University of Macau _______________________________________________ Air-l-aoir.org mailing list Air-l-aoir.org@listserv.aoir.org http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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