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REPORT KOSMOS CONFERENCE

Scheduled to take place at CTR, Copenhagen, April 19th to 23rd 2010

Thursday 15 April

Conference host Marie-Louise Nosch, conference coordinator Ingeborg Philipsen and student

helper Vibe Martens have everything ready for the 13th Aegean Conference with 104 papers in 14

sessions. Arrival and accommodation for the 150 or so participants is arranged. Folders, maps,

name tags are set in alphabetical order and 150 printed books of abstract have arrived by DHL

from Brussels. The programme includes a reception at Copenhagen Town Hall, visits at the Na-

tional Museum and Carlsberg Glyptotek, a reception at the Carlsberg Academy with singers, and a

conference dinner for all participants Thursday evening. The final adjustments of the conference

programme is scheduled to take place at a meeting Sunday afternoon, when co-host professor

Robert Laffineur, Université de Liège, arrives in Copenhagen.

Meanwhile Marie-Louise is supposed to go to

London for the 7th ICAANE Conference

where CTR is hosting a one-day workshop on

the topic of textile production in the Ancient

Near East. CTR colleagues Eva Andersson

Strand and Joanne Cutler are already there. But

Marie-Louise’s morning flight to London is

cancelled due to the ash cloud from the Ice-

landic volcano Eyjafjallajokull. She purchases

another ticket for the afternoon flight, which is

also cancelled. She purchases a ticket for the

next morning – which is also cancelled.

Friday 16 April

We realise that Marie-Louise will not be able to attend the conference in London. Even if she did

manage to come to London, we would have no guarantee that she would be able to return in time

for KOSMOS. But how is the situation going to affect the KOSMOS conference? From CTR we

keep ourselves updated about the situation in the Danish and other airports. Participants who travel

from overseas start informing us that their flights have been cancelled or rescheduled. There is still

hope, though, since most participants are supposed to arrive on Sunday. Eva and Jo, who are both

supposed to present papers at the KOSMOS conference, are still stranded in London. They host

the workshop on their own and read Marie-Louise’s contribution on her behalf. One of KOSMOS’

key speakers, Elisabeth Barber, is also stranded in London.

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Saturday 17 April

Crisis meeting in CTR with Marie-Louise, Ingeborg and Vibe. The prognosis is not in favour of our

KOSMOS Conference. Presumably the airports will be closed for several days according to news

reports. More cancellations and reports of later arrivals from the participants. Robert Laffineur’s

Sunday flight is cancelled and he purchases a train ticket to Copenhagen, though only with a seat

reservation to Hamburg.

We decide that we have to postpone the opening of the Conference and start praying to Aeolus

that the wind will turn. The participants are informed by emails and through Aegean-Net that

KOSMOS will take place, but that the opening of the conference will be Tuesday morning or eve-

ning – depending on when the air space opens again. We promise to send further information Sun-

day evening.

Vibe then starts cancelling hotels for Monday night and contacts the travel agencies concerning the

refunding of cancelled flights of the participants. An instruction concerning this problem is also

sent by e-mail to the KOSMOS participants. Likewise, all our sponsors and collaborators, i.e. the

Town Hall, catering arrangements, museums etc. are warned about the situation and the potential

cancellation of the entire conference.

But we also receive good news: Fritz Blakolmer informs us that he will arrive by train from Austria,

and we seriously consider sending out an official welcoming committee accompanied by an horn

orchestra to celebrate the arrival of the first KOSMOS participant…however soon Carole Gillis

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from Lund and Annette Højen Sørensen from Århus announce

that they will arrive (almost) as scheduled as well. Many other

participants inform us that their flights are rescheduled for

Monday and Tuesday.

We make a list of people who have confirmed their participation

to keep up the spirit. There are seven names on the list when we

leave CTR that evening…a few more names are added during

the next days.

We hear that Nancy Thomas and her husband Roger are on

their way through Germany by car. We contact them and ask if

they could pick up Robert in Hamburg Sunday afternoon. Luck-

ily they are in Kiel and accept. Eva and Jo are still stuck in Lon-

don together with Elisabeth Barber (Los Angeles), Joanna Smith

(Princeton) and Marcia Nugent (Melborrne).

Sunday 18 April

The news from the airport authorities are still not in our favour. We have another crisis meeting at

CTR. More participants cancel their participation. Some send their power-point presentations for

us to read if we decide to have the confer-

ence. Unfortunately there is no more space

on the CTR server, so we struggle to save

these large files.

We start to discuss PLAN B more seriously:

Can we turn KOSMOS into a web-based

conference? We need the expertise of the

University’s ITMEDIA crew. Unfortunately,

it is Sunday and the university departments

are closed. Maris-Louise writes an e-mail to

the Head of Department, the Dean of the

Faculty and the Dean of Research, explaining

the situation and asking for immediate and

solid assistance and backup. They respond

positively on Sunday evening and promise to hold an urgent meeting on this matter Monday morn-

ing. We plan to contact the ITMEDIA department first thing Monday morning. At least we now

know that the University will help us transform KOSMOS into a web-based conference.

Eva and Jo are still stranded in London, but fortunately Robert arrives in Copenhagen with Nancy

and Roger Thomas. Marie-Louise hosts a dinner meeting with them Sunday evening in her home.

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Monday 19 April

We get official assistance and backup from the Saxo Institute and the Faculty to turn KOSMOS

into a web-based conference. Academic officers Jane Johnsen and Annette Borrell from the Saxo

Institute join the CTR team to help with the preparations of an internet conference.

Cancellations are still pouring in. However, participants who decide to cancel their participation, are

urged to send their presentation and power points, so that we can read and show their work.

Our first meeting with the ITMEDIA department is not uplifting, however. The department is un-

der a lot of stress due to two other scheduled web-based conferences. And the volcano ash: out of

the team of six in ITMEDIA, two, René Lindekrone Christensen and Lars Palmquist are stranded

in Chicago and the main expert on internet conferences, Annette Pedersen, is stranded in Corsica!

Meanwhile Thomas Schlicting, Steen Linke Larsen and Uwe Wollin are trying to cope with the

situation.

In this agony Jane comes up with a solution: She

suggests that we use the programme Adobe Connect

– a programme which is about to be introduced in

ITMEDIA services. We arrange for an introduc-

tion to the program by a professional Adobe

Connect instructor, Thorkild Jensen from the

Technical University of Denmark. This will take

place Tuesday. This makes us more optimistic

about the whole thing and Wednesday is set for

the opening of the live web conference. We

plan to read the papers sent to us and show

the power points. Also, there will be a chat

room so that the authors of the papers and all

the KOSMOS participants all over the world

will be able to communicate – just as if they

were in Copenhagen. But there are still many challenges: Can we get enough readers to read the

papers? How should we deal with the problem that many KOSMOS participants are not at all fa-

miliar with this kind of new technology? Another challenge is time zones: the more than 120

KOSMOS participants are stranded in Europe, North America and Australia. The confer-

ence has to take place at the time of the day when most KOSMOS participants will be able to fol-

low it – that is between 12-18 European time, which is early morning on the US East Coast and

evening in Australia.

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Meanwhile the first KOSMOS participants arrive: Fritz Blakolmer from Universität Wien (who un-

fortunately did not get a horn orchestra welcome committee after all), and Tobias Mühlenbruch,

Marburg Universität, are greeted with much gratitude. It is a great pleasure to have at least some con-

ference participants on board. Besides, they can help reading some of the papers. First, however,

they are urged to use the day exploring Copenhagen and to meet us outside the Copenhagen Town

Hall later that evening. Carole Gillis and Birgitta Hallager also arrive from Sweden and that makes

our spirit rise further.

Meanwhile, the fate of the KOSMOS conference, the Icelandic volcano, how to reach Copenhagen

by train or car – and which programs to use for making power-point presentations with recordings

of the authors’ own voices – are subjected to intense discussion at the global forum Aegean-Net.

We receive good advice and keep the KOSMOS people stranded all over Europe, the United States

and Australia updated from AegeanNet.

Marie-Louise’s e-mail account is almost blocked due to the many emails with power point presenta-

tions. KOSMOS participants are asked to send them through Yousendit.com. The CTR server is also

enlarged in order to accommodate the many presentations.

Around 20.00 we call it a day. Since the reception at Copenhagen Town Hall has been cancelled, we

decide to invite all the present participants to a nice restaurant in town.

Tuesday 20 April

Marie-Louise and Robert work hard to set up a new programme for the KOSMOS conference and

find readers for each paper, answer all the questions and give instructions. We also have to contact

all participants for their formal acceptance of the broadcast. All accept.

We spend the afternoon getting a successful introduction to Adope Connect.

Meanwhile, however, ITMEDIA had had more time to survey the situation.

They are in contact with the internet conference expert Annette Pedersen in

Corsica and together they come up with a new and better solution. Al-

though Adope Connect is a fine solution for smaller conferences, we might

face difficulties if a large number of people from all over the world wish to

follow our internet KOSMOS conference (which we hope). The ITMEDIA

staff suggests another system, which will be more capable of handling more

than 150 participants in the internet conference chat room. Adope Connect are dropped and the

ITMEDIA solution chosen instead. ITMEDIA call in

three of their students to help in the absence of their

colleagues: Alexandra Buhl, Jeppe Kirk Jørgensen and

Simon Lereng Wilmont join the KOSMOS team.

During the next 24 hours the ITMEDIA staff Thomas

Schlicting, Steen Linke and Uwe Wollin and the student

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helpers work day and night to set up the technical system on the web and in a conference room at

our disposal. Their telephone bills are running up, since they use their private cell phones to com-

municate with their stranded colleagues abroad, who are important sparring partners in the process.

They also help Marie-Louise and Robert record a video message, which is posted on the websites

In the video clip Marie-Louise and Robert announce that there will be a KOSMOS conference, but

that it will be an web-based conference. “The Aegean field is now forced to enter into the 21th century….”

(see below). Some participants e-mail back about audio problems and Ingeborg transcribes the

message and Annette Borrell posts it on the web.

Jane and Annette works together with the ITMEDIA crew to prepare the conference and Annette

makes updates of the CTR homepage, which is now the centre for communication for the KOS-

MOS participants. From Corsica Annette Pedersen has made a visual and very useful instruction to

the broadcast system which is published on the CTR/KOSMOS website and which makes it possi-

ble for everybody to be part of the KOSMOS conference if they have a computer and an internet

connection.

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Encouraged by Marie-Louise’s and Robert’s message still more speakers send their power points –

some of them with the recorded voice of the speaker. CTR colleagues, archaeologist Ida Demant

and Egyptologist Henriette Koefoed, join the team as readers of papers. More participants arrive

during the day: Jörg Weilhartner from Universität Salzburg, Walther Müller from Marburg and An-

nette H. Sørensen from Århus. Eva and Jo are still stranded in London along with many other

KOSMOS colleagues. The busy group of organisers and technicians – and the few guests who have

made it to Copenhagen, and who soon step in as readers of papers – need food and drink as well.

Ingeborg makes arrangements with student helpers and food supplies for the next days, and assists

Marie-Louise and Robert in their preparations.

The few KOSMOS participants who have arrived are asked to come back to CTR by 17.00. We

hope to have a more scheduled plan for the conference by then. But since the CTR staff is still busy

planning the conference, meeting with the ITMEDIA people etc. the present KOSMOS partici-

pants help each other preparing a dinner buffet in the CTR kitchen. In the end we all join in the

CTR conference room. We are happy, enthusiast, and excited about the broadcast – will it work?

Wednesday 21 April

The atmosphere in CTR is tense: will we actually succeed in making something out of what seem to

be a catastrophe a few days ago? Marie-Louise and Robert work on the programme. Ingeborg as-

sists the present KOSMOS participants, and the other CTR employees who are preparing the read-

ing of the first days KOSMOS papers. From Corsica Annette Pedersen gives Jane and Annette

Borell and the IT student helpers instructions to the chat room service while the present IT staff

are fixing the last details and texting the gear. Finally, at 14.00 Wednesday afternoon

The 13th Aegean Conference, KOSMOS, Jewellery, Adornment and Textiles in the Aegean

Bronze Age is launched on the air by Marie-Louise Nosch and Robert Laffineur.

Marie-Louise gives the first paper.

The technique works almost per-

fectly from the start (only some

temporary problems with the

sound). What a relief….

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KOSMOS participants from all over the world do not seem to have any serious problems following

the power presentations on their computers and entering the discussions on the chat function. The

present participants/readers can participate in the chat from the many computers placed in the con-

ference room, while the power presentations are projected onto a large screen.

Annette Borrell and Jane Finnerup are taking care of the chat function and, posting relevant docu-

mentation on the web site to keep all programmes updated. Student helpers Alexandra and Jeppe

monitor the camera and change of pictures between camera and power points. ITMEDIA staff

members, Lars and Rene, fortunately return home from Chicago in the afternoon.

An average of about 50 participants are active on the chat

throughout the first day. The internet participants are able to

answer questions and discuss their paper while it is

read/shown. They are also able to give links to articles, etc.

(Please see paragraph below for full statistics).

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We get positive responses from KOSMOS

participants following the presentations from

all over the world. Sasha Mauel watches and

listen from Köln. Katharina Aslanidou follows

the conference from the United Arab Emir-

ates. Eva and Jo, who are still in London, fol-

lows the conference in company with Elisabeth

Barber.

Marie-Louise receives and controls all incoming contributions and Robert monitors programs and

schedules. KOSMOS participants keep sending new power point presentations. There is no time

for lunch or coffee breaks in the programme – instead coffee and sandwiches are served in the con-

ference room during the broadcasts.

But the KOSMOS participants, who have

managed to come to Copenhagen, take on

a very heavy task: Besides reading their own

papers they help us prepare and read the

papers sent to us. These have to be re-

hearsed; power points looked through and

finally read, which means that they have

less time to actually follow the conference

themselves. Some papers unfortunately

have to be cut: it is more time-consuming

for us to read the papers than for the au-

thors. We are running out of broadcast

time and new presentations with power

points keep coming in.

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Fortunately more KOSMOS participants arrive in Copenhagen: Kristian Kristiansen from Univer-

sity of Gothenburg and George Nightingale from Universität Salzburg and they immediately offer

their help and join the team of conference audience and readers of papers.

Marie-Louise and Robert are very busy planning the programme and finding readers for all the pa-

pers, which are coming in with still more speed, now that people experience how well the KOS-

MOS internet event actually works. It is obvious that we have to extend the programme so that we

start earlier the next days to be able to present all the papers. At about eight o’clock Nancy Thomas

reads the last paper of the KOSMOS Conference’s first day. The team is tired, but very pleased

with the result of the first day of the KOSMOS internet conference, when we finally dine late that

evening at the local restaurant with a beautiful view of the water front.

Thursday 22 April

We urge Robert to take a break in the morning and visit the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, kindly guided

by curator Jette Christiansen. The broadcast starts at noon and we have to broadcast 28 papers, of

which only six authors are present. The present KOSMOS participants are busy rehearsing and

reading papers all day.

Finally, Copenhagen airport is opened and Carlos Varias arrives from Barcelona, Spain. Caroline

Zaitoun arrives from Paris. And finally, in the afternoon, Eva and Jo are able to come back from

London. They bring Elisabeth Barber’s slides and manuscript. Barber herself had to return to the

US while the airports are open. The ITMEDIA room where the KOSMOS internet conference are

located looks more and more like an ordinary conference room with an audience.

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Fortunately, many have now sent their papers with a recorded voice, which is more authentic – and

it gives the present participants a break and Marie-Louise and Robert an easier task with preparing

and adjusting the programme for the next days.

Since the conference goes on without breaks until late in the evenings, student helpers Linn and Liv

arrange a buffet at CTR for all KOSMOS participants who are joined by the team of ITMEDIA

people, and other assistants.

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The last three presentations by Costas Pascalidis, Eleni Konstantinidi-Syvridi and Anaya Sarpaki,

which are recorded by the authors beforehand, are watched on a large screen in CTR’s own confer-

ence room while we dine together.

But there is still a lot to do and prepare for the next day’s broadcast. Eva, Jo and Marie-Louise stay

until midnight to plan and also wait for Abby Lillethun from New Jersey who was stranded in Ath-

ens and arrives in Copenhagen by bus late that night they also manage to arrange a place for her to

sleep.

Friday 23 April

Due to the loaded programme, the conference starts already at 10 o’clock the next morning and will

broadcast until 19:00, Danish time. The CCF team read most of the papers this morning while

some of the present KOSMOS participants get a well-deserved break at the National Museum

where Ulla Mannering and curator Bodil Bundgaard give them a guided tour. Meanwhile the last

KOSMOS participant arrives in Copenhagen: Salvatore Vitale from Pavia.

Since many power points still arrive in Marie-Louise’s mailbox, and 40 power points are still left to

broadcast, Marie-Louise and Robert decide that another day of broadcasting has to be added. The

last day of KOSMOS broadcast is scheduled to be Monday 26th.

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During the period 19th to the 23rd April Marie-Louise has received exactly 900 mails, and she has

written 430 mails within the same week. But the need to prolong the broadcasting is of course a to-

ken of the success of the emergency response plan to turn KOSMOS into a web-based conference.

Robert and Marie-Louise are relieved.

Friday evening everybody meets again at the CTR to a dinner prepared by student helpers Lin and

Mads. They watch the last recorded power-point presentations projected on the large screen before

the conference ends around eight o’clock.

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Although the last papers of the internet KOSMOS conference will be read on Monday, we find it

appropriate to celebrate a successful 13th Aegean conference on Friday evening. Tom Palaima,

Texas University at Austin sends his recorded and very entertaining greetings to Robert. Also flow-

ers and champagne bottles are exchanged.

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The organisers and the present KOSMOS participants can rest on their laurels after days of reading

papers and organising programmes. Funny stories about events from this and other conferences are

exchanged.

Monday 26 April

Only CTR people – and Carole Gillis, who was so kind to offer a helping hand with the last read-

ings – are present when the last 18 papers are presented. Fortunately, more colleagues have sent

their power points with a recorded voice, and this is a great help. There is no more energy for final

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speeches or long remarks. Marie-Louise ends the KOSMOS broadcast with the words “And this was

all from the Copenhagen KOSMOS conference” at seven o’clock Monday evening.

Some statistics:

Unfortunately, due to problems in the university’s main registration system, statistics are only avail-

able from Wednesday evening onwards, but we had more than 1,706 visitors on our KOSMOS live

stream during the entire KOSMOS conference.* The map below shows that the visitors came from

28 different countries.

*The numbers were: Wednesday (more than) 91, Thursday: 741, Friday 491, Monday 377 visitors. The live stream page was

viewed 3229 times all together during the conference.

Source: Google Analytics

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Savings

It is important to emphasise that web-based conferences cannot and should not be substitute for

ordinary conventional international conferences. The success of a web-based conference such as

KOSMOS rests on an already established research community: A well-grounded group of re-

searchers, who know each other from many years of meetings and conferences. On the other

hand, web-based conferences opens the door to younger participants who are not yet established

in the research community, who might not have had the opportunity to participate in conferences

such as the Aegean conferences due to lack of funding. Therefore normal conferences and inter-

net conferences should supplement each other.

Since only very few participants arrived, expenses for the participants’ flights and hotels were of

course reduced considerably (we have asked for refunds of flight thickets and only have to pay

for some of the hotels in some few cases and only for the first night) in connection with the

KOSMOS conferences.

Besides financial savings, we have saved CO2:

According to information in the Times it is estimated that the ash from Eyjafjallajokull has

grounded 63,000 flights in the region (the Times 19th April). And in turn this has saved around 1.3

million tonnes of carbon dioxide from being pumped into the atmosphere. To put this figure in

an environmental perspective, the newspaper explains that this is equivalent to the level of CO2

emitted from a developing nation over an entire year.

In connection with the KOSMOS conference following calculations can be made: We had 21

participants from the United States which can be estimated to have saved about 30 tonnes of

carbon dioxide, 6 participants from Australia are estimated to about 15.6 tonnes, 92 European

participants which is estimated to about 46 tonnes, four participants should have travelled from

Canada which is estimated to have saved 7.6 tonnes and finally one participant came from the

UAE which would have led out 1.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide. All together we saved 100.4 ton-

nes of carbon dioxide.*

*The estimation is based on SAS’s Cabon calculator. (See http://tools.carbonneutral.com/cncalculators/flightcalculator-

SAS.asp) The Scandinavian participants are not included in this equation although some of them might have taken the plane. This however makes up for the fact that some European participants from the continent might have taken the train as well. It should also be noted that the daily emissions from Eyjafjallajokull was 15,000 tons carbon dioxide according to information in the Times, so maybe we should not rely on volcanoes to unleash further motivation for breaking old and less green academic patterns.

KOSMOS’s Internet publicity

http://www.intute.ac.uk/blog/2010/04/21/aegean-archaeology-kosmos-conference/ http://rogueclassicism.com/2010/04/20/conf-kosmos-conference-via-the-internet/ http://environmentalarchaeology.wordpress.com/2010/04/22/kosmos-conference/

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http://ancientworldonline.blogspot.com/2010/04/kosmos-conference-online-beginning.html

http://csanet.org/newsletter/spring10/nls1006.html

http://www.e-pages.dk/ku/368/

The KOSMOS chat are still available here:

http://ctr.hum.ku.dk/conferences/archive/kosmos/chat/

What did we learn?

That Copenhagen University’s ITMEDIA Department has a capacity and an expertise which

promise well for the university’s future.

That an updated and operative homepage (like the SAXO Institute/CTR homepage) is of cru-

cial importance in such a case as the KOSMOS conference, when quick and effective commu-

nication is vital.

Making a video-clip message is useful in a situation when most communication goes through

emails, chat rooms, written acknowledgements, etc. It adds a human dimension to the web-

based conference which is very important.

Certain problems arose for internet participants in connection with the use of MAC computers.

These problems can be easily solved and MAC computers used if the conference organisers are

aware of the problem and send out instructions.

As mentioned above, web-based conferences cannot replace ordinary conferences all together.

The eye to eye conversation over a conference dinner or in the coffee breaks is crucial for the

building and maintenance of a fruitful research community. But to alternate between conven-

tional international conference and web-based conferences – or even better perhaps, a combi-

nation of live audience debate and chat-rooms and streaming – is preferable.