ASIS&T 2020 Conference News From Travel Award Winner, Rong Tang
ASIS&T 2020 Annual Meeting: Global Connections & Virtual Synergy
By Rong Tang
Overview
The ASIS&T 2020 Annual Meeting was unprecedented in the history of ASIS&T in holding its annual meeting virtually using a platform called bigmarker. The platform was quite effective which supported participants in different roles (attendees, moderators, speakers/presenters) quite well. The sessions were recorded and during the conference, participants were able to visit the platform and view the session recordings.
Thanks to the NEASIST conference award, I was able to participate in multiple sessions including ASIS&T Business Meeting and SIG USE Business Meeting, moderating two paper presentation sessions, producing & presenting a iPoster, and attending two workshops (SIG USE symposium and grant workshop). It was a very productive conference for me.
I truly enjoyed the keynote by Houman Haddad on “Depoliticizing Information Through Blockchain.” A good number of participants asked great questions after the presentation, below in the screenshot was the question I posted to the speaker.
![](https://growthzonecmsprodeastus.azureedge.net/sites/2036/Tang_Picture1-a971fc0b-0f7c-49e6-a85c-cce19211f530.png)
In the year 2020, ASIS&T was very successful in increasing its membership base and maintaining a healthy financial balance. Here is the screenshot of the ASIS&T Annual Business Meeting on 10/29/2020.
![](https://growthzonecmsprodeastus.azureedge.net/sites/2036/Tang_Picture2-45fa0bbf-eb3e-4054-9f6b-9a97b08da43b.jpg)
Paper Session Moderated
I served as a moderator for two paper sessions. One on October 25, 2020 with the topic as “COVID-19.” One on October 26, 2020 on the topic of “Data Management.” Below are screenshots of the two sessions I moderated.
![](https://growthzonecmsprodeastus.azureedge.net/sites/2036/Tang_Picture3-ba0ae5f1-3ba5-4d4b-850d-04f6ed6b8b85.jpg)
![](https://growthzonecmsprodeastus.azureedge.net/sites/2036/Tang_Picture4-f108d978-0a72-49bb-80a9-546c5eeea258.png)
Highlights of Conference Sessions
On 10/25/2020, I attended the “”President’s Opening Program and Welcome Reception: Information, Immunization, and Infodemic During the COVID-19 Pandemic” session. It was a very interesting and thought provoking session which discussed infodemic and information vaccine.
![](https://growthzonecmsprodeastus.azureedge.net/sites/2036/Tang_picture5-b6016eaa-6a64-4c6a-89d7-f1bebcb0736a.jpg)
On 10/27/2020, I attended the “Supporting Open Research Data Practice Through Data Curation and Discovery: A Global Perspective” session, which was also very interesting and informative on global open data practice.
![](https://growthzonecmsprodeastus.azureedge.net/sites/2036/Tang_Picture6-0eb73ec5-83f4-4240-804f-b523b787e3b3.jpg)
I also attended the Attending the “Opportunities and Challenges of Self-Tracking Technologies: Understanding Information, Technology, and Users” session. One of the teams presented a conceptual model of tracking information, which is very useful.
![](https://growthzonecmsprodeastus.azureedge.net/sites/2036/Tang_Picture7-dd47e9e5-641f-4794-92cd-ecdeada73859.png)
On 10/28/2020, I attended the “”From Cooperation to Collaboration: Developing and Implementing a Research-Based Framework for Information Organizations” session. Presented by Laura Saunders from Simmons University and Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe from UIUC. They presented a collaboration framework based on their empirical data. Very interesting.
![](https://growthzonecmsprodeastus.azureedge.net/sites/2036/Tang_Picture8-952f3f19-03c4-4e37-975e-a4ce555f3832.jpg)
On 10/28/2020, I also attended the “Racism Isn’t Just an American Problem: International EDI Issues in Information Science” session. There were very enlightening talks and Q&A session.
![](https://growthzonecmsprodeastus.azureedge.net/sites/2036/Tang_Picture9-07213140-af3e-4255-945c-9c2386a4d628.jpg)
On 10/29/2020, I attended a paper session “Paper Session 22: Affective Domain and Mental Health” session. Very interesting papers. Simmons faculty Naresh Agarwal presented their paper on non-response.
![](https://growthzonecmsprodeastus.azureedge.net/sites/2036/Tang_Picture10-614039ab-778d-4dfa-999b-9624ba3e8eb0.png)
Poster Presentation
On 10/28/2020, I also presented a poster on behalf of my team. The title of the poster was “”The State of Practice of COVID-19 Tracking Systems: An Inventory Study” by me, Sanda Erdelez, Yishan Zhan and Emma May. The last two co-authors are SLIS students.
![](https://growthzonecmsprodeastus.azureedge.net/sites/2036/Tang_Picture11-5b6d84a0-2b26-4342-87a9-b9178d24c6de.jpg)
Workshop
On October 30, 2020, I attended an all-day workshop “Best Practices for Grant Proposal Development.” A very helpful session.
![](https://growthzonecmsprodeastus.azureedge.net/sites/2036/Tang_Picture12-a5671e74-5615-452f-95c0-4ae3c0089389.jpg)
Conclusion
Overall, ASIS&T 2020 Annual Meeting was an extraordinarily productive conference. I appreciated the wonderful opportunity to virtually attend all sorts of sessions and workshops. I am thankful to NEASIS&T support.