Thank you for your contribution to the virtual Futures Conference 2021 programme. These general guidelines are given to facilitators of interactive workshops to help planning content and practical implementation of your workshop. Please do your best to follow them to help make the conference a rewarding one for all participants.

The Workshop Sessions will be run by using the Zoom service offered by the University of Turku (UTU). The vulnerabilities and problems that have appeared in media in Public Zoom have not affected the service used at the UTU that is different from the publicly available Zoom service.  

> Further information about the conference platform “Howspace” and Zoom.

Before the event

In order to run your workshop smoothly you need to install separate Zoom software on your computer/device. The individually installed Zoom software provides more functionality for managing and using the meeting.

> Download Zoom software

There will be separate test sessions on using the Zoom organized a week before the event. If you feel that you need support with the system, we strongly recommend you to join one of the test sessions.

All times are Eastern European Summer Time, i.e. the time in Finland.

You may have a lot of experience to facilitate online workshops, but some tips for newcomers from this blog: https://www.howspace.com/resources/how-to-facilitate-a-virtual-workshop

During the event

The length of Workshop Sessions is 80–90 minutes. There will be a technical assistant/moderator in each session to assist if any such help is needed. You can concentrate on facilitating your workshop. It may include a spoken presentation, and you may wish to use a visual aid such as PowerPoint or Prezi to reinforce your presentation and engage your audience. Facilitators or other presenters are sharing their slides to audience in Zoom themselves. Please, feel free to use any online workshop methods and tools that you find useful in your workshop, and clearly communicate that to participants as well.

Each Workshop will be recorded by the technical moderator, and videos will be available after the conference in the conference platform. Note that e.g. Zoom “break out rooms” can not be included in the recordings. If you do not wish your workshop to be recorded or published, please inform the conference secretariat by email futuresconference@utu.fi or note the technical assistant about this before the session.

After the event

There is no submission of full papers to the conference. Instead, there are two conference related special issues published in peer-review journals European Journal of Futures Research (EJFR) and On the Horizon (OTH). It is optional to submit a manuscript to one of these journals. If you aim to submit your manuscript to the EJFR, do send your abstract for a review until 15 May 2021. See more information and details about submission from the Call for Research Papers.