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Happy summer! By now, those of you who submitted a conference proposal should have received your decision letters. Congratulations to those who were accepted to present at the 2021 NCFR Annual Conference—the second virtual conference! The NCFR Conference Program Planning Committee and NCFR staff have been working hard on our second virtual conference.

In a continued effort to document the conference during this historical time for our organization, country, and world, this article details how the virtual planning is currently proceeding. I will share several ways that our first virtual conference was a success and how we plan to build on that success for 2021.

Conference Successes

The annual conference is evaluated each year through surveys sent to attendees. Many questions ask respondents to rate items on a scale of 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent) and to provide comments about what worked well and what could be improved. There were 233 people who responded to the 2020 survey, with a 94% completion rate.

Overall, 75% of respondents rated their overall experience with the conference as very good or excellent, and 82% of respondents rated their experience with the Whova platform as very good or excellent, with an average rating of 4.07 out of 5.

Respondents rated their overall experience with academic sessions at 4.24 out of 5 and rated new and/or emerging research as very good to excellent (4.23). Respondents were also asked to rate the quality of research presented during the 2021 conference (4.28) and the application of research to practice or policy (4.19). Both results were higher than in the previous 3 years.

Anecdotally, 2020 conference participants told us that the NCFR virtual conference was the best virtual conference they experienced. People enjoyed the interaction that Zoom sessions provided such as breakout rooms and the ability to chat during the session. Some participants said they even experienced more interaction than at an in-person conference. Others thoroughly engaged in the Whova discussion platforms—there were over 3,200 posts to the Whova community board, with 58 separate discussion topics!

We had some amazing sessions during the conference that were rated very highly:

• Kira H. Banks, Ph.D., and Amber Johnson, Ph.D., our opening plenary presenters, were rated as having high-quality content (4.43) and being engaging (4.45).
• Kevin Nadal, Ph.D., our closing plenary, was also rated as having high-quality content (4.24) and being engaging (4.44).

Many other sessions, too many to list here, were also rated as very engaging and as providing high-quality content. Each of these sessions can be viewed again! Don’t forget that if you registered for the 2020 conference, you still have access to all the recorded sessions at www.ncfr.org/ncfr-2020/schedule. For those who haven’t registered for the conference, you can access the amazing content by purchasing the recordings at www.ncfr.org/ncfr-2020/registration. 

2021 Conference Changes

One role of NCFR staff is to maintain a high-quality conference experience each year. In response to what we learned from our first virtual conference in 2020, several improvements are already being implemented for the 2021 Annual Conference.

Posters. 2020 survey respondents indicated they would like to see higher attendance at poster sessions, engage more deeply with attendees and other poster presenters through Zoom, and have the posters reintegrated with academic sessions during the day rather than in the evenings (U.S. time). There were also several suggestions on how Zoom’s features could be used differently, such as by assigning a single Zoom room to a group of related posters and using the breakout-room capability for individual poster discussions.

To help increase engagement and overall satisfaction for presenters and attendees, the following changes will be made to the poster sessions this year.

• All poster sessions will be scheduled between 10:00 am and 4:30 pm CT on Tuesday, Nov. 2, through Friday, Nov. 5, 2021.
• Half of all poster presentations will be scheduled on Tuesday, Nov. 2, with the remaining posters being scheduled throughout Wednesday through Friday.
• Poster presentations will occur in Zoom to increase engagement among poster presenters and attendees.
• Up to 10 similar posters will be scheduled during each poster session. This mimics other conferences’ concurrent session programming.
• Each poster presenter can present an overview of their poster for 3 minutes during their scheduled Zoom time. After all posters have been presented, the presenters will be provided a breakout room. Attendees can listen to all posters and have live discussions with presenters in the breakout rooms.
• Attendees can come and go as they please to poster sessions.

Just like in 2020, posters will be available to view throughout the full conference week. Poster presenters have the option to upload a short poster video to appear with their poster all week long. Attendees appreciated these two features of our 2020 conference.

The Resource Exchange Session. The resource exchange session was organized similarly to the poster sessions in that resources were provided online for the full conference week and interaction between participants and presenters was through the Whova chat feature. We found that this session experienced similar problems as the poster sessions and that presenters were unsure of how to navigate the session.

The virtual resource exchange session will use Zoom and its breakout rooms at the 2021 conference to increase engagement between presenters and attendees. The same number of breakout rooms will be created online as the number of roundtables in person. Attendees will be able to choose which breakout room (i.e., table) they would like to attend. Breakout rooms will last for a set time and then attendees will change to another breakout room. This format will mimic more closely the in-person session—presenters will be able to present their resource(s) similarly to an in-person conference and be able to interact with the attendees.

Presenter Instructions. This past year was most definitely an unusual year. The conference had to be reimagined in a way that was never conceived of prior to the pandemic, including rewriting all the presenter and attendee instructions. People expressed, however, not fully knowing what was expected of them for their presentation or for the conference.

We will provide updated instructions to reflect our learnings from 2020, with the most visible changes to the poster and resource exchange instructions. More important, though, the instructions will be provided in an easier-to-digest, written format and, in some cases, in videos. The instructions will also be made available much earlier so that people can adequately prepare for the conference.

Networking. Conference attendees missed the hallway conversations, impromptu lunches and dinners, and the face-to-face interaction that we all love during the in-person conference. We are working toward new ways to increase networking during the 2021 virtual conference. One noticeable change is that we will keep Zoom rooms open for a set time following each academic session to encourage continued conversation. Look for more methods of networking as we get closer to the conference.

Conclusion

The first-ever virtual conference in 2020 was a huge success. Thank you to everyone who participated in the conference and provided us with feedback on ways to improve. Your feedback and specific suggestions are very helpful. We know that the 2021 conference will continue to be a success as we have all learned more about the virtual world since the pandemic began. We are very hopeful to provide increased interaction and engagement among attendees and presenters throughout the conference and specifically within the poster and resource exchange sessions and through networking.