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I am glad that more attention toward affordability and accessibility of academic conferences is being generated, especially as we consider the climate-related effects of conference-travel. There have been people I have known for a long time involved in this conversation https://twitter.com/PauloBlikstein/status/1385333316115648515
who are among the greatest champions I know for those around them. I am also really proud of the work that the @isls2021 team has been doing in extraordinarily difficult circumstances. While an explanation for reg fees was provided ( https://www.isls.org/news/rationale-for-registration-fees-isls-2021-annual-meeting/) and should be read by
all interested parties, I want to share some of what I have seen and experienced here and for other conferences.
1. ISLS conferences (ICLS and CSCL) are indeed, like most other academic societies, expensive - especially for those who do not have conference funding. However, the price that is set is based on a very challenging guessing game for how many people are likely to register
what percentage are students, what percentage are members, what percentage will be past early-reg deadlines (and even some who register on site the day of the conference). This is highly dependent on several factors, including but not limited to the location of the conference,
its theme, its submission rate, its keynotes, and what/where other conferences are that year. While I am not a conference/program/etc chair this year, when I have been and attended the many organizational meetings, I have seen some of the most famous people in the field
sweating and stressing as they go over budget projections and where registration numbers are and how they are trending. The goal is to simply, as a non-profit event *break even*. That does NOT always happen and having been on the board of a professional society, it is always
*interesting* to need to jump in and find financial solutions for conferences that are in the red when all is said and done. 2020, while not isolated, was really rough for all academic conferences, conference organizers, and academic societies.
2. Just like how state university cost is really complicated, the same goes for conferences - even online ones, and different orgs can do different things depending on whether they have corporate or philanthropic sponsorship, what their membership dues are, how large
their membership is relative to how large their conference is, how long the conference is, how many parallel tracks, whether the conference also supports meetings, whether it supports workshops, whether it has professional development for early career scholars
and so on. Smaller and newer conferences can do a lot of grassroots work and rely on unpaid labor and passion for starting a community, but several conferences have gotten to be so much organizational work, paid personnel have become the norm (sometimes subsidized, sometimes not)
and as anyone knows who has managed a team or research grant, people are usually the most expensive part of your budget.
3. There have been a lot of hard decisions to make given the need this year for all societies to move their conferences online because this model is still new
3. There have been a lot of hard decisions to make given the need this year for all societies to move their conferences online because this model is still new
And while some of us attend several a year (now from home!), we may already know what works and what does not but the organizers who started 1-2 years prior had to make decisions without that data even existing yet. I do think there are ways in which conference organizers
should improve how they tap community expertise and feedback though so that these new models can do the work that everyone wants
4. There are forms of privilege and structural inequities that are embedded in and maintained in conferences that remain largely unaddressed. Many conferences are North American, European-centric. The realities of research and funding from many regions are often unfamiliar
or just ignored. One subtle way that this is often done - assuming that the only people who attend conferences are PhD graduate students and Professors at research universities and that they have research grants, university travel funds, or discretionary accounts to cover
whatever a conference costs. That ignores a huge swath of an academic community, including more and more people on soft-money or contingent positions that do not have these resources. All academic societies who want to be serious about access need to examine this issue.
5. Regarding the @isls2021 annual meeting, I am impressed and 
grateful for the unseen work that organizers are doing. They are working incredibly hard to create a new format (online) event that involves two conference programs (for the very first time) with different
grateful for the unseen work that organizers are doing. They are working incredibly hard to create a new format (online) event that involves two conference programs (for the very first time) with different
needs and accommodate a society that conducts a bunch of business during the conference while working with vendors and responding to every possible email under the sun ranging from "why didn't my paper get in?" to "why isn't person X responding? Can you nudge them?"
"I have a new idea that obliterates all prior decisions, you need to do it" etc etc etc. The team working from Germany who had planned originally on holding an amazing, generative, and aspirational experience in Bochum are being amazing in their pivot to online and
commitment to making the first isls annual meeting with both ls and cscl programs (double the conference!) in coming up with ways to create an amazing generative and aspirational experience without raising costs higher and still coming in much cheaper (really!) than
our typical in-person conferences and in the same reg fee range as other large virtual conferences this year, such as EARLI. They have the full support and gratitude of the ISLS Board.
6. And finally, I have had conversations with many people recently and I can say with total
6. And finally, I have had conversations with many people recently and I can say with total
confidence that there are no "bad guys" here, with everyone trying to do their best given what they have at hand. I could not imagine taking on the responsibilities that the @isls2021 team has, but I am glad we can offer support with the organizers through the equitable access
fund in addition to our usual scholarships ( https://2021.isls.org/equitable-access-support/) that will cover reg costs and if needed, membership. Interested people who think they do not meet all the criteria can still apply and the committee overseeing it will make the call based on resources. And the
new Brazilian LS affiliate is also providing very generous support too, which is terrific and appreciated.
I have about 6 weeks left as ISLS president which translates to one more board meeting prior to the annual meeting and probably 10 zillion emails, but I am going to push
I have about 6 weeks left as ISLS president which translates to one more board meeting prior to the annual meeting and probably 10 zillion emails, but I am going to push
hard in that time to ensure that the incoming board and upcoming conference teams really engage in these tough questions while also making sure our society is an inclusive space that really advances our understanding of learning, learning environments, and learning technologies.
