Remote conferences raise issues of equity, surveillance, unpaid labour: Opinion

Nolan Higdon and Allison Butler of Inside Higher Ed write that there are three key limitations to online academic conferences that often go unaddressed. First, they state that such conferences are not as equitable as they are said to be, since many lack access to a reliable internet connection. They further argue that many conference providers rely on third-party companies that monitor users and collect data on their behaviour to sell to other companies. They also point to the additional labour needed to create and manage online conferences and how this tends to go unpaid. Butler and Higdon ultimately ask what the point of an academic conference is, and whether there is more harm in the isolation of online conferences than in the exclusivity of in-person ones. Inside Higher Ed Note: Archived stories may contain dead links or be missing source links.