February 2022
As a dual-component meeting—with hundreds of sessions offered on-site in San Diego and hundreds provided virtually—the 2022 AERA Annual Meeting offers exciting opportunities for intellectual engagement, learning about the latest research, professional growth, and networking for those attending in person, virtually, or both.
The dual-component meeting for virtual and in-person attendees will offer all the major programming attendees will remember from past in-person meetings: opening plenary, presidential sessions, major lectures, presidential address, awards ceremony, and much more. Those attending only virtually will have these sessions available to them since a select group of major sessions will be live web-streamed to the virtual platform.
All sessions delivered or streamed to the virtual platform will also be made available on demand for later viewing. Whether you will be in San Diego or will attend virtually, if you happen to miss a live virtual session, you can easily immerse at a later time, during or after the Annual Meeting via on-demand playback using the virtual platform.
The platform will connect with the AERA Interactive Presentation Gallery, which will host and is the home for all poster presentations. Authors of papers presented in symposia, paper sessions, roundtables, or structured poster sessions may use the gallery to host their presentation as well. After the Annual Meeting, the AERA Interactive Presentation Gallery will be available on the AERA website.
Pathable, a known provider of virtual event platforms for associations and other organizations, is designing the platform, emphasizing the functionalities attendees expect in participating in or attending an AERA annual meeting.
The Pathable platform will host the schedule and include information relevant to all the place-based and virtual components of the Annual Meeting. As emphasized in January Highlights, all virtual sessions delivered through the platform will be Zoom sessions, to maximize familiarity to presenters and attendees.
Those attending the San Diego meeting may also be presenting in sessions on the virtual platform. There will be dedicated locations for those attending sessions or presenting at them to do so from the official meeting sites without needing to find sufficient bandwidth elsewhere or return to their rooms.
Whether an attendee is place-based or virtual only, the virtual platform can be used to connect with others regardless of their physical location. The virtual platform will be accessible to all attendees—whether they have registered for the virtual meeting only or are registered for the place-based meeting in San Diego and want to access virtual sessions.
Pathable will also serve as the mobile app for those participating on-site in San Diego and those participating virtually. The Pathable mobile app provides information at a glance on a cell phone, tablet, and so forth. Place-based and virtual sessions will be fully integrated into the schedule.
The virtual platform is scheduled to open the week of March 25, allowing time for presenters and attendees to explore and become familiar with the platform and all that is available. Training sessions for virtual presenters and attendees will be provided in late March. Tutorials and other “how-to” materials will be made available as well.
On the platform, Annual Meeting participants will be able to:
“The 2022 Annual Meeting is designed with the attendee and participant experience as the highest priority, both in person and virtually,” said AERA Executive Director Felice J. Levine. “We are working diligently, systematically, and empathetically to develop, test, and offer a user-friendly meeting that supports and enables the success and satisfaction of attendees.”