Regular readers of the blog will have noticed that things have been a little quieter than usual with me posting a lot less.
The main reason for this is that I have for the last week been attending the JISC Innovating e-Learning Online Conference 2010 which has been taking place in… well online as you might expect. I am going to write a more evaluative piece on the conference later.
I was the conference blogger at the conference so as a result I was posting a lot of blog entries there instead of here… Most of the blog entries on the conference blog (which is not available to non-delegates) were about the conference itself, however some were on more general web and e-learning issues. These will be expanded upon and published later on this blog – so you won’t miss out.
Running a conference blog has been fun, if exhausting, but I’ve had a lot of nice positive comments back from people, so well worthwhile.
A conference blog is something that you sometimes you see at other conferences, but I certainly would recommend that other conference organisers think about having a conference blog for their conferences.
Re: the conference blog being closed
It’s interesting (to me) that JISC choose to make their annual f2f conference free to delegates yet their annual online conference is always closed and paid for. Do you know why this is the case?
From an innovation and environmental angle, it strikes me as being back to front.
At the very least, I’d expect the conference blog to be open.
As it stands, the online conference generates almost no noise in the wider community (unlike, say, the ALT-C conference) – it is largely invisible, except to delegates. This seems bizarre.
Well not speaking for JISC, but I would think that part of the issue is that the main JISC Conference is organised by a different part of the JISC to the part of the JISC that organises the online conference.
I know one of the reasons for charging is to ensure that people actually attend, JISC RSCs for example have found when putting on free events people would sign up and then not attend (taking places that could have gone to other people).
By introducing a nominal charge there is an “incentive” to attend.