Anna Giesler
“Increasing access to content shared at the ISEA Engineering of Sport 14 Conference”
I’d like to express my gratitude to the ISEA for supporting this initiative to increase access to the content shared at the recent Engineering of Sport 14 conference. The activity funds were used to cover the expenses incurred to record all the keynote and panel presentations, as well as provide a live stream for the panel session titled “Forging a Career in ports Engineering: How to Find Your Personal Path.”
The live streamed session, held as part of the full conference program, had 36 participants join virtually in addition to the in-person conference attendees (approximately 150). While we do not know the exact affiliations of all who attended online, there were several questions that indicated a large number were either students or recent graduates, which was the population we were targeting with this effort. Attached is a list of the Zoom attendees. This session was moderated by ISEA President, Dr. Jonathan Shepherd, and featured past and present ISEA EC members Dr. Nadine Lippa, Dr. Tom Allen, Patrick Mayerhofer, and Dr. Kim Blair (ISEA Fellow).
The recorded sessions have not, as of 3 August 2022, been uploaded or distributed in any manner. The decision for the best way to distribute and promote was delegated to the ISEA Executive Committee, who has better insight as to the most effective way to share this content and generate more engagement with the ISEA as a whole. At the EC meeting on 21 July 2022, it was discussed that the student-focused live streamed panel session would be shared first and available to anyone. ISEA branding will be added to the video and distributed on ISEA social channels, which should include the website. This video is the immediate focus, with the other keynotes and panel planning on being shared at a later time, after final confirmation is received from speakers that it is okay to share publicly. The distribution of these could be strategically timed with tactful messaging about ISEA membership. Another idea being explored for how to distribute is through the libraries site that the conference proceedings were posted on. The benefit to this option is being able to see more detailed metrics related to how many people are watching, from where, how many times, etc. It’s still unclear whether or not the site will support video content like this.
From the beginning, the goal of this project was to create additional opportunities and means to engage with the ISEA. One achievement has been getting 34 people to attend the virtual conference session (with limited marketing beforehand). Now, the recordings will be accessible to people outside the reach of the conference. The new digital content created could be used to support sports engineering educators, raise awareness of the work being done in the academic and industrial sectors, and inspire students to get involved in sports engineering research. For the impact of the new digital content, the assessment metrics are fluid, meaning that there is not a singular event/day that can be used to analyze whether the target has been met. Over time, the analytics of the interactions with the content will provide information on which geographic regions are most engaged, what topics are the most interesting, and the demographic that is being reached, among other things, which could help inform future strategy for the ISEA.
A summary of the costs is below:
– Technical set up and tear down for all equipment, live stream of one 1hr session, plus 2 technicians: $2000 (£1633)
– Recording of all keynote and panel sessions: $700 (£574)
