Dagstuhl Seminars and Perspectives Workshops are on-site events. For organizers of other events outside both of these series, Schloss Dagstuhl offers facilities for hybrid meetings.
Hybrid Meetings
FAQs
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Equipment
Room sound pickup systems with ceiling microphones, sound mixers for switching between the room sound pickup and the speakers headset, cameras for the room and for the speaker, extra projectors for external participants, and so on; as well as an installation of zoom.
Video Conferencing Assistants
The organizer team has to name two video conferencing assistants (VCAs) before the hybrid meeting, for operating the equipment on-site and remotely: They get access to a web-interface where - with just a few clicks - they can control what is shown in the zoom call and whether the speakers microphone or the room-microphones are used.
It has turned out to be optimal if one of the two persons participates REMOTELY: If the remote VCA closely follows the talk or the discussion, the remote VCA will immediately notice if something is not visible or cannot be heard, and can immediately make the necessary adjustments. Thus, the remote VCA is best positioned to decide which camera feed and which microphone feed should be used by the zoom call at any one time and can easily switch the feeds, for example when a discussion follows after a talk.
The other person should be ON-SITE in order to be able to step in, if, for example, something needs to be restarted or a hardware switch has to be turned on, and to make a speaker aware if their microphone is switched off and the like. It would be good if the on-site VCA would have an eye on the zoom chat to be able to make a concern raised there heard in the room.
The video conferencing assistants will also act as liaison persons for Schloss Dagstuhl's IT department. After receiving a short introduction into the technology from our IT-department, no further qualifications are required to fulfil these tasks.
Remote participation
Schloss Dagstuhl kindly asks invitees to use our DOOR registration system to tell us as early as possible whether they will attend on-site, will not participate at all, or want to attend remotely.
We kindly ask you to only pass on access credentials or links to the video conferences to participants registered with Schloss Dagstuhl.
In the event's documentation, remote participants will be listed separately from the on-site participants.
For the time being, Schloss Dagstuhl will not charge the remote participants any event fees.
Notes on the preparation of a hybrid event
The concrete form of the event is up to the organizers. We advise to let the invitees know in advance clearly what amount of involvement is expected from remote participants: is their attendance required throughout all sessions or is their participation only an integral part of the plan for some of the sessions; are they expected to actively participate throughout the whole event as they would if they could be on-site at Schloss Dagstuhl, or do you just require one talk from them and the rest of their involvement is up to themselves; or any other of the countless possible variants.