The SIGCSE TS committee has selected Webex Events (formerly Socio) as the symposium platform for 2023.

Webex Events includes a web and mobile app to enable participants a smooth interaction with the symposium content and agenda. The platform enables participants to watch the live streams directly through the event platform, use the chat feature, and present questions to the speakers and panelists. In addition, participants can access the videos of all the paper presentations before, during, and after the event.

For the sake of transparency, this blog post will explain why we chose Webex Events.

What went into the decision?

After the experience with Pathable for the last two years, we decided to consider other options. The fact we decided on a different platform was fortuitous since Pathable is discontinuing services before our symposium.

There is a lot that goes into the decision process for selecting a platform for SIGCSE TS. The symposium and hybrid committee spent months selecting and reviewing different platforms to choose one that would work for an event of this size. The selected platform should make hosting a hybrid event easy and allow us to deliver a polished, hybrid interactive experience with videos, agenda items, Q&A, and messaging to engage our participants. We also considered features for supporting online participation, such as the ability to host Authors’ Corner, online Posters, BOFs, Lightning Talks, online hangout rooms, and live polling. For hosting a symposium as large as SIGCSE TS, with many online participants, we needed to ensure that the platform has the capacity to host +1,000 users.

Some of the considerations in making the platform decision include, but are not limited to: - The agenda view and navigation experience - Integrated Authors Corner session, online Poster, BOF, and Lightning Talk sessions - Live captioning capabilities - Hybrid keynote experiences - Hybrid sessions experiences

Why Webex Events?

• Chat, Messaging and Q&A
• Live stream
• Video Hosting
• Online Hangout rooms
• Ensuring only registered participants attend

While the committee acknowledges that no platform has all of the desired features and we needed to make compromises, we selected Webex Events because the user experience was better compared to the alternatives that we reviewed.

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Delaram Yazdansepas (Hybrid Co-chair)
Kristin Stephens-Martinez (Hybrid Co-chair)