Online conferencing in the midst of COVID-19: an “already existing experiment” in academic internationalization without air travel

Abstract

Academia, as many other sectors, has faced wide-ranging disruptions due to COVID-19, with teaching and research activity conducted entirely online in many countries. Before the pandemic grounded travel, academics were often hypermobile, some traveling more than 150,000 kilometers per year for conferences, board meetings, collaborations, fieldwork,seminars, and lectures. It is no surprise then that academic flying is among the leading causes of universities' greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions. Despite growing awareness surrounding GHG emissions from flying and calls for reducing aeromobility, academics have continued to travel. The COVID-19 pandemic, in equitably stopping all flying, offers a unique opportunity to study emerging low-GHG modes of academic internationalization. In this article, we look at academic internationalization, inspired by digital ethnography, to explore how the academic landscape has adapted to meet internationalization goals within the context of a sudden grounding of travel. By investigating flight-free academic internationalization, we illuminate some of the implications and discuss potential opportunities and challenges of achieving less GHG intensive academic internationalization.

The Long-Term effects of COVID-19 on travel behavior in the United States: A panel study on work from home, mode choice, online shopping, and air travel

“…These findings are well in line with our descriptive analysis in section 5.1.4. where we showed that the most influential factor in decreasing business air travel was reported as “the ability to conduct meetings through videoconference” by the respondents during the pandemic. This finding also can be supported by the previous research ( Jack & Glover, 2021 ), and not surprisingly, our model suggests the effect of adopting virtual meetings is likely to transcend the pandemic era.…”

“…They used the PLS-SEM approach and showed that trust, habit, social norms, and perceived risk are the significant antecedents of travel intention. Moreover, Jack & Glover, (2021) reported that online conferencing amid Covid-19 remarkably reduced air travel among academics who were frequent travelers, and some of them used to travel more than 150,000 km each year to attend conferences and workshops.…”

Reducing academic flying beyond COVID‐19: Drivers, alternatives, and avenues for change

“…They also find it difficult to start collaborative projects in a digital environment without having met in person before. However, Jack and Glover (2021) observe that digital tools can allow for networking opportunities when event organisers make a deliberate effort to facilitate by design. For example, by matching participants by research interests and letting them meet in break out rooms or a one‐on‐one video call.…”

AbGradCon 2021: lessons in digital meetings, international collaboration, and interdisciplinarity in astrobiology

“…The conference schedule was thus divided into three major regions based on time zone (an oversimplification driven by necessity to fit within the Japanese time zone of the organizers (Japan Standard Time, JST)): East Asia/Oceania, Middle East/Europe, and The Americas. Each scientific session was scheduled to include two of these regions, so as to not marginalize attendees from specific time zones (which is an issue of noninclusivity of many digital meetings (Jack and Glover, 2021)). Optimally, this meant that the conference would consist of three sessions spread out over the 24 h day, but the decision was made to optimize for the organizers hosting and running the event who were based in Japan, resulting in two scientific sessions per day (Tables 1 and 2).…”