Zooming Along Through the Pandemic: Our Experiences with Virtual Biobanking Conferences and Workshops

Experiences as Participants of the University Health Network/International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories and European and Middle Eastern Society for Biopreservation and Biobanking Virtual 2020 Meetings—Fall 2020

In-person scientific meetings are the preferred and most effective mode of sharing new data and perspectives, while stimulating healthy discussions and collaborations. Unfortunately, during this time face-to-face meetings could not be conducted. The primary need identified was to provide a virtual method to be fully engaged with others, during conferences. The solution(s) would help with the feeling of being disconnected to other participants, as well as to help replace the missing face-to-face networking opportunities that happen during coffee breaks or other social activities.

These first meetings had to pivot to a virtual structure with short notice, and thus were coupled with uncertainties of possible connectivity issues of each speaker from their locations around the world. To support the smooth flow of presentations, the resulting symposia and workshops were composed of a mix of prerecorded and live talks. It was not uncommon to have a few short hiccups in connectivity during the days-long events.

The aspects that were noted from the community on forums and in postevent surveys highlighted that the more engaging the speakers were in the sense of greater interaction with the audience (e.g., with interactive tools and polling), the more memorable the experiences. This was in line with prior observations in the design of online courses, as well as the general communication in the digital environment.^9,10

However, it also became clear that an online attendance was subject to competing priorities, especially as it was practically difficult to get away from ongoing local work and often home activities. Keeping the audience's attention was paramount to a successful meeting. Thus, the meeting organizers sought out and used virtual platforms with interesting features, for example, the ability to quickly move between concurrent sessions, download posters, and to socialize with other participants during designated times. Workshop presenters had to be agile to provide several avenues of engagement, including polling, opening discussions, and virtual white board activities. Providing tangible summary handouts at the close of the workshops was highly regarded by participants of workshops. Vendors created virtual booths in the exhibit halls and attempted to engage the attendees in discussions and contests, as they perused the products on display. Although the success of each of these aspects was difficult to quantify and remained largely anecdotal, nevertheless, they provided a useful first feedback to guide subsequent conferences.

Experiences Preparing and Outcome of the Qatar Virtual Meeting—Winter 2021

Ensuing conferences had more time to address the challenges of being fully virtual, such as the 2nd International Biobanking Conference (IBCQ) organized by Qatar Biobank in partnership with the European and Middle Eastern Society for Biopreservation and Biobanking (ESBB) and with support of the International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories (ISBER) and the Biobanking and BioMolecular Resources Research Infrastructure (BBMRI-ERIC). ¹¹ Specifically, although similar scientific program preparations as in previous years were followed, these were coupled for the first time with decisions on virtual platform providers and detailed technical negotiations. These details and negotiations required full engagement of the steering committee members to make the required iterative decisions. For example, the evolving digital environment offered many more tools, such as the tracking of delegates' attendance translating to Continuing Professional Development (CPD) points. To allow presentations from experts from all time zones, while balancing their local work responsibilities, the virtual platforms needed to support seamless symposia of prerecorded talks and live question and answer (Q&A) in each session. The virtual platforms were able to manage this mix of presentation types by this time.

One of the challenges in delivering the 2nd IBCQ was the need to link several tools and platforms in such a way as to provide a sharp professional look and feel for the conference participants. One example was the transition between prerecorded and live segments within the same session, with live bilingual interpretation. These challenges, as well as the general lack of experience with virtual meeting platforms, were addressed by the dedication of additional hours of planning and preparation by the conference staff, program committee members, and the scientific presenters. In the end, the conference was successful both in terms of a smooth uninterrupted delivery, as well as supporting of a large attendance of >2500 delegates. Many of the delegates qualified for CPD points. The number of poster abstract submissions was much larger than expected, which required an additional round of abstract reviews and acceptances. The number of registrants was buoyed by the reduced fee for online participation, CPDs offered, and thus allowed for a greater global reach.

Experiences Preparing and Outcomes of the ISBER Annual Meeting—Spring 2021

As the pandemic was continuing to ravage in late 2020, it became increasingly difficult to predict the capacity and permissions for travel to in-person conferences in 2021. The ISBER leadership grappled with this question for their Annual Meeting was scheduled for the Spring of 2021. Although the scientific program was well in development with a theme and identified speakers, the decision to go fully virtual was held to the latest point, to allow for a potential in-person or hybrid experience, based on the status of the pandemic. Once the decision for a virtual meeting was made, it became clear that the concurrent symposia might have to be programmed in several time zones, to support the broad international audience of the society. The resulting program was creative, allowing participation and viewing in multiple time zones. The structure of the meeting made for very extended days for some speakers and moderators, but the creative approach to programming was welcomed by the delegates from the regions of the world.

The conference was organized through the development of storylines/tracts for the program to provide cohesion and continuity in the concurrent symposia. A key feature of the online platform was the ability for delegates to view each of the recorded concurrent symposia and workshops through watching replays over the course of the meeting week and throughout an extended viewing period. This is a distinct advantage to an in-person meeting, where one is only able to choose and attend one concurrent session. Thus, attendees could follow their thematic track of preference, in the knowledge that the remaining information would be accessible and available for an extended period (in this case a few months postconference). Furthermore, the movement between symposia was easy, as it only required a few mouse clicks.

The evolution of the available tools and virtual platforms enhanced interactions between virtual delegates. The ISBER Annual Meeting employed the Remo™ social platform ¹² to provide small-scale chat session throughout the meeting for vendors and delegates. Virtual poster “office hours” were held to explore the poster topics or catch up with the author(s). Virtual breakout sessions during the meeting's workshops provided an enhanced interactive learning experience. As was noted with previous conferences, the more engaging and interactive the speakers were received, the more memorable the experiences and lessons. Vendor participation within the conference and especially in the exhibit hall evolved over the period, toward more interactive activities, including quizzes, raffles, and office hours, to engage the delegates in their products and services. In general, the more the vendors participated with the available networking tools, especially those who supported discussion and social interaction, the more satisfied they were about the conferences.

Conclusions/Takeaways

In retrospect, the sometimes-frantic nature of the preparation in shifting from in-person meetings into virtual/hybrid meetings, made for more thoughtful experiences during the conferences, as organizers had to more thoroughly discuss the available platform and tool options before proceeding. Efforts to increase engagement through interactive activities and moving further away from a lectern-style delivery, are seen as an evolution that will likely make future conferences and workshops much more enjoyable and provide even longer lasting learning that is shared more widely. Presenters had and must continue to grab the audience's attention through creative and tangible ways, especially, as they are distracted with other duties at home or at their worksites. Providing access to the conference platforms for longer periods of time allowed presenters to view much more of the content presented at the meeting, through replays and poster downloads.

It certainly seems presently that hybrid meetings (i.e., a mix of digital and in-person attendances) will persist in the near future. Some of the reasons for doing so include the following observations: they can be more cost-effective, in particular if there are travel restrictions; they have the possibility to target additional audiences from adjacent scientific fields, beyond the established core audiences; and thirdly, could have a wider penetration in the professional community, through their availability to staff that would never consider traveling. Organizations may opt to use some of the portions of their recorded meeting content in additional ways, perhaps packaging workshops as training bundles or keynote lectures as stand-alone presentations online. These recordings may provide the ability to engage and train wider audiences that have not been reached with the original meetings.

The rapid evolution of virtual meeting platforms and tools has aided the online presence of organizations and companies around the world. Whether the presentations were internal or external facing, the challenge of being present, integrated, collaborative, engaged, and relevant during these challenging times has been met with the use of interactive features of these platforms. We expect to continue to use these and newer tools to share knowledge, teach, and collaborate. The evolution of online and hybrid scientific meetings, aided by technological advancement, has been a welcome and huge benefit of the pandemic challenges over the 15 months and should allow engagement with a wider global community in biobanking.