Needs tweaking to use for an academic conference, but what else is there?
November 13, 2021
Needs tweaking to use for an academic conference, but what else is there?
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Whova
We used Whova to run a triennial conference held in person as the COVID situation was shifting. It allowed us to accommodate remote attendees who could give papers and attend some. It offered some options for connecting people before and during the conference. Despite some glitches, the dedicated work of two people on the planning committee who learned Whova's ins and outs and helped the rest of us made a hybrid conference possible.
- Sharing photos
- Allowing uploading of related materials
- Connecting people via community boards
- It's not well adapted to uploading conference programs. It made it hard to see which speaker was giving which talk.
- Much is not spelled out until people try to use a feature - eg, uploading pdfs only, not ppts, and the 10 MB limit.
- Terms are often misleading - saying slides, when you mean pdfs; agenda for program. It took a lot of translating to make it comprehensible to the 300 people using it.
- It's annoying to receive an email saying there's something waiting for me on Whova. I realize that you want people to go back to the platform, but often it's a waste of time.
- It's not always clear what will be public and what is an individual message.
- Makes it possible to have a hybrid conference
Do you think Whova delivers good value for the price?
Not sure
Are you happy with Whova's feature set?
Yes
Did Whova live up to sales and marketing promises?
I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process
Did implementation of Whova go as expected?
Yes
Would you buy Whova again?
Yes