Unfortunately, we had to postpone EDITINGSCHOOL in-person, due to the pandemic, but we managed to get everything set up virtually. It has been a long and tiring week (with many people attending from a not-quite-convenient timezone) but very rewarding. Feedback so far has been positive, and the level of engagement from the floor was excellent.

Microsoft Teams proved a really great platform, allowing speakers to upload their presentations ahead of time, and to run real-time Q&A’s for each session.

82 people registered to attend, plus a dozen faculty! Given that most faculty were using Teams for the first time, it went much smoother than we might have hoped. Having real-time chat during Q&A sessions really augmented the process - often the main presenter would ask questions live and others could post links to relevant papers in the chat… I suspect we will retain the Teams framework for when we run things in-person!

Dr. Ulrike Dydak from Purdue University, running the Q&A session on Practicalities of Acquisition.

Overall, a great week…. lots of great questions were asked and answered, new collaborations and friendships forged.

Our hotel deposit has been bounced to November 2021, when we will run the GABA symposium (18-21 November) with a special EDITINGSCHOOL re-run beforehand (15-18 November). Registration is now open! Hopefully vaccination will allow us to meet in person again in the fall.

The online format worked particularly well for live software demonstrations of Gannet by Mark Mikkelsen, Osprey by Helge Zöllner and FID-A by Jamie Near (pictured).