As part of our commitment to provide resources for hybrid engagement in the ICA conference, the ICA Executive Committee has worked with the headquarters staff spending the past three years collecting data on engagement, viewership, remote attendance, and attendee and planner feedback. The complexity of the hybrid conference in its most recent form had become a massive and unwieldy process and, as a result, not only a strain on the resources of our small staff but too heavy a burden for planners, reviewers, and chairs, whose input must be respected as those who give so much of their time in service work to the association. After careful consideration, this year we are honing our hybrid offerings to make the conference submission, reviewing, and planning experience simpler, and attendance more affordable.
For ICA25, we will focus on offering the types of hybrid sessions that have garnered the greatest interest from our remote viewership in the past based on three years of viewership data, in the hopes that having fewer hybrid sessions to choose from will lead to larger in-person audiences in hybrid rooms as well as more robust remote attendance, both broadening and deepening the hybrid experience for all. This simplification will also allow us to lower the registration rate for remote attendance in order to further increase accessibility (exact rates TBA in the coming months).
While there is no "perfect solution" that will meet all needs, we hope that these changes will focus our technological capabilities and our resources on doing fewer hybrid sessions more efficiently, leading to more meaningful inclusion and less stress and confusion for attendees.
You will soon receive the full CFP from headquarters, including the individual CFPs from each of ICA's 33 DIGS. The submission window will be open from 3 September through 1 November, 2024. Please see the details for the ICA25 conference format below.
ICA25 CONFERENCE FORMAT
HYBRID SESSIONS FOR ICA25
Hybrid sessions offered at ICA25 will consist of all ICA-wide sessions, including:
- Opening Plenary;
- Fellows' sessions;
- Presidential Address, Awards Ceremony, and Fellows' Induction;
- New Member Orientation;
- Student & Early-Career Business Meeting;
- Scholars at Risk;
- the REACHing Out Session;
- the Steve Jones Internet Lecture;
- the Affiliate Journals session;
- all theme sessions;
- presidential sessions selected to specifically appeal to a global remote viewership;
- and a new type of hybrid-format interdivisional sessions that accommodate panels and paper presentations cutting across ICA divisions and interest groups.
IN-PERSON SUBMISSIONS
Those who will attend in person can submit their work in any format. Please note that Blue Sky Workshops, business meetings, receptions, and division and interest group sessions will be in person only. If you attend in person and have submitted to an interdivisional or theme session, your work may be accepted for in-person presentation as part of a highlighted hybrid session combining both in-person and remote presentations and audiences.
REMOTE SUBMISSIONS
Divisions and interest groups (DIGs) will not accept remote submissions independently but will collaborate to create interdivisional hybrid sessions from work submitted to that category. The theme committee will create hybrid theme sessions from work submitted to the theme. Those who may need to present remotely should therefore submit to one of the four following options:
- The conference theme (as a pre-formed panel),
- The conference theme (as an individual paper),
- The interdivisional section (as a pre-formed panel comprising three or more DIGs), or
- The interdivisional section (as an individual paper).
In the submission system's drop-down list, the interdivisional section and the conference theme are separate options from the names of the 33 divisions and interest groups. Papers and panels submitted to the theme will be reviewed by the theme committee. Papers and panels submitted to the interdivisional section will be reviewed by a committee made up of select reviewers nominated by each of the 33 divisions' planners, reviewing the submissions in their areas of expertise. Individual papers approved in the interdivisional section will be grouped into sessions (based on a unifying topic) by Thomas Hanitzsch, ICA President-Elect and ICA25 conference planner. Individual DIGs will not host hybrid sessions for ICA25, and "DIY" Zooming-in to present to an in-person DIG session will not be permitted.
We hope that this will be a welcome change and we look forward to welcoming an ever-broadening base of attendees to ICA25, whether remotely as individuals, via regional Hubs, or in person in beautiful Denver.
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Tom Mankowski
ICA
Washington DC
United States
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