Page 73 - Summer 2021

ASA Outreach in an Online World
L. Keeta Jones
As many Acoustics Today readers know, my role within the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) is to support and expand acoustics education and outreach initiatives. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, I had to quickly pivot ASA outreach programs to better suit an online world. I know many readers have also transitioned to virtual platforms so I am sharing what I have learned. Although it has not been a straightforward process and I am still learning, I think my experiences can help others in their online outreach efforts.
In my experiences with in-person outreach, the connec- tion between facilitators and participants is critical for meaningful experiences. This became even more obvious in the shift to virtual events where meaningful interac- tions became difficult. In September 2020, the ASA took part as a virtual exhibitor at SciFest All Access, a Virtual Expo featuring STEM activities for K-12 students (avail- able at bit.ly/2Pu4lPj). At this online event, booth visitors could view our digital content and submit questions to our representatives. However, because everything was asynchronous, we weren’t able to build relationships or rapport with the students. For example, there was no way to guide visitors through experiments or demonstrations and they simply had to do them on their time. Although being able to access digital content asynchronously is great, it actually limits our ability to nurture that spon- taneous spark of interest that happens when a child is doing an experiment or exploring a new phenomenon.
I took what I learned from SciFest to heart when other events offered virtual booth opportunities. In October 2020 at the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/His- panics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS; see bit.ly/2MMIMbX) national meeting and at the National Society of Black Physicists (see nsbp.org) national meet- ing in November 2020, we had live video-conferencing hours along with digital content that visitors could peruse at their own leisure. Even with this improvement, people still had to be encouraged to interact with us. At an in-person event, a person walks past the booth and I make eye contact and ask them if they would like to learn
©2021 Acoustical Society of America. All rights reserved.
https://doi.org/10.1121/AT.2021.17.2.73
about acoustics. But in an online world, I can’t see that person and they can click around the booth in secret. To overcome this moving forward, I plan to develop a game, activity, or prize system to actively encourage people to not just come to our booth but to also talk to us. I have also learned that what works well in a virtual space may be something we bring to in-person physical meetings. For example, having a standing Zoom room is great so that attendees could meet more ASA members who could share their thoughts and experiences.
In addition to attending outside online meetings, the ASA also hosted outreach events. In July and August 2020, we featured three virtual presentations using Zoom in cel- ebration of the International Year of Sound (IYS). With Zoom, we had more control over some options, capabili- ties, and interactions than we did using the platforms of other meetings. We were able to encourage viewers to use the chat feature to talk to one another and to submit questions. We were also able to schedule practice ses- sions to test systems and give instructions. Zoom also has a built-in recording feature that meant we were able to save each presentation for later dissemination. One major downside was that, at the time, Zoom did not have a live transcription option, and so speakers were encouraged to use PowerPoint automatic captions (see bit.ly/2MTnhq0) or Google Slides captions (see bit.ly/30fPLgK) to ensure that the talks were more accessible. Several attendees reached out to thank us for providing this feature and even asked for instructions on how to use them.
Ultimately, our hope was to feature scientists from a range of backgrounds to stimulate the understanding of the important role that sound plays in all aspects of our society. We even wrote press releases for each speaker to encourage media, scientists, audio enthusiasts, students, educators, and families to tune in. Based on our target audience, we tried to be clear with our speakers that the intended audience was the public and not acousticians, and we gave them examples of acoustics talks from the 2016 World Science Festival (see bit.ly/3kLAz4r) to fur- ther illustrate this.
Volume 17, issue 2 | Summer 2021 • Acoustics Today 73