"Chemists are a little slow to adapt to technology," asserts Tom O'Haver, a chemistry professor at the University of Maryland. Considering himself something of a proselytizer for the Net among his Pyrex beaker brethren, O'Haver "felt they would need some objective reason to get into it." So he organized last summer's CHEMCONF - an e-mail-only convention of 450 chemists from 33 countries.
CHEMCONF participants could read papers, look up statistics and graphical information, and, most significantly, participate in a lively, ongoing discussion with colleagues around the world. One of the benefits to academics (not to mention their cash-strapped departments) is obvious: a chance to attend a big international conference with no hotel, airfare, or registration expenses.
Access to CHEMCONF was open in other ways as well; as one deaf faculty member of Gallaudet College wrote, "This is the first conference in which I have been able to participate fully and not feel disadvantaged in any way."
Unforeseen changes in conference dynamics may have been the most rewarding. "The length, detail, and care with which people formed their questions was quite striking," says O'Haver. He attributes the "much more thoughtful responses" that filled the conference's Q&A areas to the time frame that online discussion allows: unlike in-person debates, which take place in minutes, or letters to journal editors, which drag out over months, CHEMCONF discussions unfolded over days and weeks - the ideal span of time to consider complex questions, check sources, and give adequate responses.
O'Haver takes care to say that conventions such as CHEMCONF are no substitute for human contact; rather, he believes that the e-forum could become "something unto itself - a blend of written language and the interactivity of conversation." The next CHEMCONF is planned for October 1994. O'Haver's e-mail address: (to2@umail.umd.edu). - Steve Bodow
ELECTRIC WORD
A New Formula for Conferences
Microsoft Burnout Prevention And
