Improving academic conferences–Criticism and suggestions utilizing natural language processing

This study focuses on the evaluation of academic conferences and ways of improving them. The study includes a case study of one university in Israel. Sixty two academic faculty members from varied departments completed a questionnaire, incl uding 61.7% women and 38.3% men. The research participants were asked a single open question: "What do you think co uld be improved at conferences?" In addition, age, seniority, and the number of times the respondents had initiated or served as a partner in initiating a conference were also examined. The main findings are as follows: Age predicts seniority. Seniority ha s a positive effect on the number of times the respondent organized or was a partner in organizing a conference. Seniority has a negative effect on time, i.e., the more senior the faculty member the more he or she would like conferences to be short and to the point. Moreover, the amount of initiatives to organize a conference or to be a partner in establishing a conference has a negative effect on interaction, i. e., the more initiating the faculty member the less he or she is interested in interpersonal int eractions at conferences. The wish to space out sessions and lectures has a positive effect on the need to improve the quality of the lectures.