Executive Summary

The Regional Conference in Civil Engineering & Sustainable Development Goals in Higher Education Institutions (RCCE & SDGs) engaged attendees virtually using Whova’s all-in-one event management platform. The University of Teknologi, Malaysia, leveraged Whova’s tools to distribute training credits and facilitate quality networking online during their event. Attendees joined from all over the world to network, share groundbreaking research, and listen to distinguished engineers, professors, and diplomats speaking at the event. 

About RCCE & SDG

The University of Teknologi is a premier public research institute, ranked 187th in the world by QS University rankings. The purpose of their event was to showcase global research in civil engineering to implement Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) towards Higher Education Institutes (HEIs). Another RCCE & SDG priority was inviting attendees to share SDG related papers and facilitating a peer-review process. The organizers achieved these goals using Whova’s Artifact Center to present oral and paper presentations for over 20 presenters.

Challenges

• Distribute continuing professional development credits 

The conference was a unique opportunity to earn professional development (CPD) credits from the Malaysian Board of Technologists (MBOT) and the Board of Engineers Malaysia. The organizers needed an efficient way to track attendance and dispense credits to participating attendees.

• Manage presentation information and facilitate peer review 

Interested attendees had the chance to submit paper abstracts about topics in civil engineering during the conference. They needed to upload papers or recorded videos to the platform and provide feedback to their peer’s presentations.

• Encourage networking on the app 

The conference was a significant opportunity for attendees to expand their networking circles in the European Union and around the world. They could connect online from anywhere in the world and needed a platform to help them share ideas and engage in opportunities to meet face-to-face.

• Share event information online 

The organizers wanted to spread the word about their virtual event through online web pages and detailed descriptions of session and speaker topics. They wanted any changes in Whova to automatically update in the webpages.

Solutions

• Uniquely offer training credits through Whova’s Attendance Gamification 

Instead of manually tracking attendance to distribute training credits, the organizers took advantage of Whova’s attendance gamification feature to offer CPD credits when attendees met contest rules. Sessions that were a part of the contest were specially marked with orange tags for attendees to identify and easily add to their personal agendas. When attendees stayed in these sessions for at least 20 minutes, they earned a stamp and could continue joining sessions until they gathered ten stamps to “win” a training certificate. Whova automatically compiled a list of attendees that met the winning requirements; the organizers simply announced and distributed the CPD certificates in Whova’s in-app announcements.

Sessions participating in the contest were specially marked with orange tags in the app’s agenda

• Submit abstract papers through Whova’s Artifact Center

Interested participants from academic and professional industries effortlessly submitted papers onto the Artifact Center using personal links sent by the organizers. They could include pre-recorded videos of oral presentations, upload PDFs, add additional photos, and include speaker biographies. The organizers could monitor profile completion and send one of Whova’s pre-made email templates to remind attendees to add missing elements. 

• Facilitate the peer review process with the Artifact Competition

The Artifact Competition was a great way to facilitate peer review and encourage all attendees to engage with and vote for the best posters. Attendees could like presentations and chat with the presenters directly in the app.

Attendees voted for best posters in two different categories, and the top presenters received special prizes from the organizers. The organizers viewed the results at the end of the competition and announced the winners through the in-app announcements. 

The best presentations in the Poster Competition earned a prize from the organizers, announced in the app

• Seamlessly display agenda and speaker webpages on the event website

Whova’s pre-made speaker and agenda web pages were a great way to show off event information without requiring any coding experience. The organizers simply chose from the multiple designs automatically filled with the speaker and agenda details uploaded in Whova’s platform. They could customize the colors of each page to fit their branding imagery, then copy a single line of code to embed them effortlessly onto the event website.

Whova’s web pages were easy to customize and embed to the event website

• Motivate networking through gamification features

The app’s Community Board, an online networking forum, was a great way to connect attendees through the discussion topics and video meet-ups. The organizers activated the Leaderboard contest to provide incentives for participating on the Community Board.  Attendees earned points when they posted new discussion topics, shared articles, participated in meetups, and more. They could also earn points by answering surveys and sessions feedback forms. At the end of the conference, the top five attendees with the most points earned a prize from the organizers.