attendees
virtual sessions
abstract submissions
By the time the virtual congress started, World Congress of Applied Linguistics (AILA 2021) had more than 2400 registered participants. The scientific program had more than 260 thematic symposia, in which participants could interact during the talks via audio, video, and text messaging. All sessions can be accessed and viewed later again until the following year.
AILA Used Dryfta for:
- Abstract submissions & peer review
- Online/Offline registration and card payments
- Email campaigns – sent over 150,000 emails
- Event website with custom content and event information
- virtual live meetings
- Interactive and searchable event schedule with personalized agenda
- Collecting & processing Pre-recorded videos
- Online community for attendees, speakers and moderators
- Live chat, private messaging and video calls for attendees and speakers
- Event app for iOS and Android
- Design & distribute certificates
1700+ Abstracts submitted & 1400+ Pre-recorded videos uploaded
AILA asked its accepted authors to submit their abstracts and upload their pre-recorded presentations via Dryfta. During a live symposium, participants would watch the pre-recorded presentations uploaded by the speakers and then join the live Q&A session to discuss the papers in the symposium. We also recommended it because had they been presenting the papers via screen sharing in a live meeting, the video quality might not have been as good for some participants due to slow internet connections.
270+ Virtual sessions
There were two types of virtual sessions in the AILA Congress: Live Meetings (for symposia) & Livestreams (for keynotes). There were around 260 symposia with 25 parallel sessions at any given time during the conference. In each live symposium, there would be about ten papers with pre-recorded videos. Participants would watch a presentation and then join the live Q&A to discuss the paper and then watch the next presentation. We used embedded Zoom SDK for live meetings.
Since each keynote session was expected to attract more than a thousand participants, we had to use Livestream for keynotes. Speakers would present via Zoom, and then the Zoom meeting would be live-streamed on to Dryfta, where participants can interact with the speakers and ask questions via live chat and Q&A.
25,000+ Private messages & session chats
Private messaging was a huge aspect of social interaction. Most of the 2400 attendees used the messaging tool to send text messages and make video calls. They also used the Matchmaking tool to find attendees with similar interests and schedule meetings with them. Also, under each symposium and keynote session, people used the live chat to post comments and replies, making sessions more interactive and engaging for all participants.
Testimonial from AILA 2021
We can only recommend them with the highest scores. Excellent service and friendly & outstanding support for their top-notch platform! Many thanks to Zeb and his team.
– Marjolijn Verspoor, Prof. Em. English Language and Second Language Development, University of Groningen, Netherlands
