Organising and Running Online Workshops

Questions

What are the steps for organizing an ENCCS workshop?
What can I learn about running my own workshop?
What have we learned from running large online workshops?

Objectives

Become comfortable in organising large online workshops

General workshop arrangements

Select a coordinator, recruit instructors and helpers (at least 3 is important),
In-person workshops: Find a good lecture room (requirements)
Decide on a maximum number of participants based on number of instructors and helpers
Set up workshop webpage
Advertise the workshop
Communicate with registered participants

Registration

Use a powerful registration platform (for example Indico)
Open registration well in advance of workshop
Assume 25-30% no-shows
Use moderated registration (registrations need to by approved)
Set autoreplies
- upon registration: inform that registration needs to be approved, currently on waiting list
- upon approval: inform that registration is now completed
Maintain a waiting list, e.g. by moderated registration
- set maximum number of registrations in registration platform to 50% above intended number
- accept 25% above your intended number
- as you receive cancellations, accept from the waiting list
- in communication with registered participants, request participants to notify of cancellation asap

Online workshop approach

Basic preparation

You need more breaks than in in-person workshops
People have a way of doing too many things and not focusing.
“How to attend an online workshop” guide to prepare learners

Basic platform: Zoom

Zoom (not the most ethical, but worked well and was available)
Zoom mechanics: instructions for students.
- Mostly things that are known

Breakout rooms, bring your own team

Breakout rooms are
- Static: same people across whole workshop
- Contain one helper per room (see below)
Team registration: accept a “team” field when registering, people on the same team are put together.
- Gives motivations for learners to bring their colleagues and learn together.
- More than one person learning together greatly increases update
You need a powerful enough registration system to assign rooms and email them to people!
We ask people to name themselves “(N) Firstname Lastname” or “(N,H) Firstname Lastname” for helpers. Then it is fast to assign them to their designated breakout rooms.
See also: Breakout room mechanics

Helper training

Each breakout room has a helper
Helper should be a little bit familiar, but not expected to be able to answer all questions.
Special, custom helper training since helpers make or break the workshop
Helper recruitment:
- Our networks
- Team registration: if a team registers with their own helper, then they are guaranteed to get in together. “bring your own breakout room”
- Former learners, ask them to come back.
Two helper trainings the week before the workshop.

Staff roles

To reduce stress on any one person, we clearly define the different roles and try to avoid overlap. We actually have enough people for all of these, so it works well.

Workshop coordinator
- Registration, etc.
Zoom host
- Handles registration, breakout rooms, recording, Zoom chat.
HackMD helper
- Dedicated to watching HackMD and answering questions quickly.
- Host on manuals
Instructors
- Teach, they shouldn’t overlap with the above roles (but serve as expert helpers other times).
- Usually also improve the lesson a bit before teaching
- General staff intro in manuals
Workshop preparation meeting
- Get together, introduce roles, kickstart instructors
- Workshop prep meeting in manuals

HackMD

We’ve been using it here
Chat doesn’t work when large, written document does.
HackMD can just about scale to ~100 person workshop. Recommend learners keep it in view mode while not editing.
Voice questions are still allowed, but might be recorded. Staff raise important questions from HackMD to the instructor immediately.
HackMD also allows communication when in breakout rooms.
You can get multiple answers, and answers can be improved over time.
HackMD mechanics and HackMD helpers.

Installation time

People have to be ready once we start, or else everything fails.
Consider having installation help times the week before.
Every email emphasizes that you have to be prepared, and “requires” you to attend workshops (but really it’s only)
Installation instructions include steps to verify
Design to be easy to install and get set up.

Other notes

Make breakout sessions as long as possible: 10 minutes is really too short. 20 minutes is a good minimum time.
Be very clear about exercise expectations
Keep HackMD updated as a log.
Don’t combine breaks and breakout times.
The more people you have, the more diverse audience you have and the more people overwhelmed and underwhelmed.

Getting/giving feedback on learners’ progress

Feedback is an essential part of effective learning. Feedback is bi-directional:

To be effective, instructors need feedback on their learners’ progress. Learners can also check their progress and ask relevant questions to get clarification.
Instructors also need feedback on their teaching. For instance, this can help them to adapt the pace, add/skip optional exercises and improve their teaching.

ENCCS uses different instruments to get feedback from learners:

Surveys: Discussed below
Plus one, minus one: After each day of a workshop (or after a module), ask participants to name one thing they liked and one thing that could be improved.
Formative assessment (exercises and quizzes): we have many exercises during ENCCS workshops and also use polls to keep participants engaged and to obtain quick feedback on their progress.

Post-workshop survey

Immediately after a workshop finishes we ask participants to fill a standardized post-workshop survey. Survey results often contain valuable information which can and should be used to improve future workshops. ENCCS post-workshop surveys contain the following questions:

Overall, how would you rate this training event?
- scale 1-10
How did you like the online format compared to an in-person event?
- Better than in-person, Equivalent to in-person, Worse than in-person
What did you like best about the lesson material, exercises and teaching? Where should we improve?
- Free-form answer
What topic did you find most interesting, relevant or useful?
- Free-form answer
What topic did you find least interesting, relevant or useful?
- Free-form answer
What did you like best regarding event organisation? Where should we improve?
- Free-form answer
Would you recommend this training event to colleagues and friends?
- Yes, No, Maybe
Will what you learned at the event be useful to you in the near future?
- Yes, No, Maybe
Length of course was
- Adequate, Too long, Too short
Depth of content was
- Adequate, Too superficial, Too deep
The pace of teaching was
- Adequate, Too slow, Too fast
The lesson material was well prepared
- Agree completely, Agree, No strong feelings, Disagree, Disagree completely
Hands-on exercises and demonstrations were
- Adequate, Too few, Too many
Which topics would you be most interested in learning about in future training events?
- Free form answer
Any other comments?
- Free form answer