Scientific Conferences as a Medium of Academic Communication - a Case of INFuture

Scientific conferences provide opportunities for both formal and informal communication of academic insights among conference participants and make possible the sharing of those insights with the wider academic community as well as the wider public through the publication of conference papers in both print and digital form, and owing to all this they may be considered a significant medium of academic communication. Every system of communication consists of three basic elements: source of information, information user(s) and mediums or channels used for disseminating information. We analysed the system of academic communication using this basic structure, where we approached scientific conferences as a medium used for the dissemination of information. However, it is important to emphasise that in this basic scheme researchers represent the source of information and information users at the same time. Our analysis of academic communication includes both the dissemination and assimilation of scientific information taking place at conferences. Standard forms of activity and interaction at scientific conferences, ranging from oral communication during the giving of presentations, through written communication involved in the publication of papers as part of conference proceedings to one’s very presence at a conference, should carefully be evaluated in terms of their effectiveness as mediums of academic communication. We will present the results of our preliminary research through demonstrating correlations between the number of authors and number of papers presented at previous INFuture conferences, classifying authors by country, co-authorship, etc., and thus provide an introduction into a more detailed research into the communication space created as a result of scientific conferences and the role of that space in the communication within a particular academic community. A more extensive research project will include scientometric and bibliometric analyses, interviews and comparative analyses that should provide us with insights into the significance of conferences as a medium of academic communication and their impact on the academic community.