Online Conferences: Pro-D for a Networked Era: April 11-22, 2011

Hi Nellie,
As I was writing the chapter that described some of the technologies that were being used, I was very worried that much would change before the book was even published, and some has. For example, we speculated on how Google Wave may be applied in future online conferences and as you know, Google Wave is no more.

I think a wikibook would be a great way to stay on top of the technologies used to promote and deliver online conferences. A wikibook would also be a great way to share experiences. As you mentioned, feedback from organizers and participants would be very helpful to future conference organizers. One of the chapters in our book argues for more innovative approaches to conference evaluation, and we provide a couple of examples. Both of these examples promoted sharing the evaluation results amongst all stakeholders - organizers, presenters and participants. If these results were openly posted on conference websites, or in a wikibook - imagine what we could all learn!

As much as I really like this concept, I am a little concerned about the process of a wikibook. I am not up-to-speed on this. For example, can anyone contribute, or would the original author have some control over the contributions? My concern is that the book would become advertising space for all of the companies that are now providing networking platforms.