VLDB 2021: Whova Instructions
General Instructions for All Attendees
Accessing Whova
- All attendees who have registered for the VLDB 2021 conference would be automatically registered on Whova with the same email address used for conference registration.
- Attendees will have access to the Whova conference portal before the conference begins. They would receive their access credentials to Whova via an invitation email.
- Attendees can sign into Whova portal at https://whova.com/portal/webapp/vldb_202107 after receiving the invitation email with the access credentials.
Whova profile creation
For better user experience and networking opportunities registered users can create a Whova profile with the following information if they so desire:
- Profile picture
- Interests
- Affiliation
- Location
Whova mobile application
Whova also has a mobile app which the users can download from Apple’s App store or Google Play.
Whova Navigation and user interaction
- The tabs in the sidebar of the main events page can be used for navigating the different areas or events in the conference.
- Detailed Whova guides are available for attendees, exhibitors, sponsors, speakers in a drop down menu at the top left corner of the Whova webapp.
- The Agenda tab in the side bar will show all the session information for the conference under Sessions. The sessions are organized by the date which can be accessed by scrolling the calendar widget. Attendees can search sessions by date or use the drop down menu to filter sessions by track or types such as panels, keynotes etc. Attendees can also do a keyword search for sessions using the search bar at the top of the page.
- The agenda is organized under two sub-tabs: ‘Full Agenda’ which shows the full agenda of the conference for a particular date. Attendees can search the sessions that they are interested in and add to their personal agenda. The sessions so chosen would appear under the ‘My Agenda’ tab.
- Attendees can click the ‘View session’ tab to join the desired session. Attendees will have the option to view the session within the Whova App using their browser or directly on Zoom. We strongly encourage attendees to join sessions directly on Zoom especially if they wish to be an active participant during the session.
- We also encourage all attendees not to share the zoom links with people not registered for the conference as each zoom link has limited capacity.
- Attendees can ask questions using the embedding live stream in the browser or through the zoom client. Attendees can also ask a question by clicking the ask a question button.
- To see Q&A for all sessions attendees can click the ‘Session Q&A’ in the sidebar under the Resources tab.
- To view the list of all attendees click the ‘Attendees’ tab in the sidebar under main navigation. Attendees can also search for specific attendees by name, affiliation or location by using the search bar in the attendees tab.
- To streamline communication, we encourage attendees to use the same full name when participating directly through zoom as they use in Whova.
- The ‘Community Tab’ can be used to interact with other VLDB conference and workshop attendees. Attendees can use the Meet-ups and Virtual Meets feature under the community tab in Whova to create and suggest group meetings with other attendees to discuss any project, work or topic of interest.
- Discussion threads of individual papers can also be created and seen in the community tab. The search bar can be used to search a particular paper and access it’s discussion thread.
- Attendees can look for organizer announcements under the community tab and use the ask anything feature to ask the organizer a question.
- Attendees can send direct messages to other attendees using the ‘Messages’ tab in the top right corner of the web application.
- Attendees can upload photos using the ‘Photos’ tab in the sidebar.
- A list of Sponsors can be found using the ‘Sponsors’ tab in the sidebar under Resources.
- The main Sponsor content is accessible through the Exhibitor tab in the sidebar. Attendees can view Sponsor content, Like and post public comments as well as reach out to the primary Sponsor contact. Attendees can view sponsor content in the Exhibitor center and interact with individual sponsors using any chat and live stream links provided.
Instructions for Authors/Presenters
Presenting in a session
- Authors can join their respective paper presentation sessions within the Whova web application or using a Zoom client. We strongly encourage all participants presenting in the session to join their respective sessions directly on Zoom for better interactive experience.
- Authors would be promoted to panelists within the presentation session which will enable them to present and respond to Q&A after their talk.
- Authors can create a meet-up or a virtual meet to discuss their work presented in the paper with other attendees.
- Authors can answer any questions in the Sessions Q&A for their papers in their own time or in the poster section related to their poster if they so choose.
Poster/Demo presentation
- All posters will be uploaded to the artifact center that can be viewed under the Agenda Tab in the side bar using ‘Posters’.
- Each poster contact author would receive an email with a personalized link to upload their poster.
- The authors are required to upload a pdf of the poster. Optionally they can provide a website address, a cover photo for the poster and a live presentation or streaming link.
Instructions for Sponsors
- Sponsors should use the Exhibitor center accessible via the ‘Exhibitor’ tab in the sidebar to upload promotional material and interact with attendees.
- Each sponsor page can contain the following elements: information about the sponsor in textual form, links to a webpage and promo flyers, photos and videos, as well as the contact information of the booth staff that are designated by the primary contact person.
- Attendees have the option to like the sponsor page, post public comments, contact the sponsor privately or leave their contact for booth staff to follow up at their convenience.
Instructions for Workshops
- Each workshop chair will be provided access to Whova. They can upload/create their respective workshop agenda on Whova and provide any links if necessary.