Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A discipline holds its 2025 annual meeting fully online, with regional in-person social gatherings independently organised.
- Is an instance
An ethics committee runs its quarterly review meeting as a virtual conference.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A hybrid meeting with both physical and online attendance is not fully virtual.
- Not an instance
A pre-recorded video archive without live interaction is closer to a webinar series.
Editorial commentary
Virtual conferences proliferated during the 2020-2022 period and demonstrated that scholarly exchange can scale globally at a small fraction of the carbon cost of physical meetings. Benefits beyond carbon include accessibility for early-career researchers, parents, scholars from the Global South, and disabled colleagues. Limitations include reduced spontaneous networking, time-zone strain, and Zoom fatigue. The format remains in active use for technical, methodological, and lower-profile meetings.
References
- Royal Society Climate change and the public good 2022; Skiles et al. Nature Sustainability 2022 on virtual conferences.
Also known as
Online conference · E-conference · Fully virtual conference
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
vocab-term="Virtual conference"
vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/virtual-conference" />{
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