Another SAAHE has come and gone and once again, it was an absolute pleasure to attend. The conference was well organised, the presentations were interesting and informative and I think everyone was able to go home having received something of value. I’ll try and share some of my notes and reflections over the course of the next week or so (although I’m going on a faculty academic writing retreat on Monday and will be caught up with that for 3 days).
I have a few suggestions for next years conference organisers (being held at Wits):
Record all the presentations (audio only, to make it less complex), collect all the presentation slides, and together with the accepted abstracts, zip all three and make them available for download as soon as possible after the conference ends. I’m constantly amazed that we aren’t doing everything we can to make sure that all the experiences and innovative practices can’t be accessed by anyone who didn’t attend. Make all delegates aware that their content will be shared in this way, but give them the opportunity to opt out if they prefer not to share.
If possible, provide all attendees with temporary access to the internet. It’s frustrating when you want to tell the world about what’s happening in your little corner and you can’t.
Register a Twitter account (how about “saahe”?) and provide regular updates about how the planning process is going. Use the conference home page to inform visitors on how to follow your updates. You could use it to alert people about abstract submission, which ones have been accepted, dates, etc. This way you’ll regularly keep us informed and hopefully get us excited when the time comes.
These are just a few simple things that might help to raise the profile of the conference and of South African health education in general.