EAGE student webinars

 A webinar allows the lecturer to deliver his/her presentation from home or from the office anywhere in the world!.

As lecturers (industry professionals) sometimes have limited ability to travel because of their employment, EAGE introduced the Student Webinar format.

One of the major benefits of a webinar in comparison with other digital lectures is that through a live connection interaction is possible on the spot between lecturer and audience.

For lectures with a large audience, the lecture might want to decide to have a Q&A session after the lecture. With smaller audiences, it is possible to agree that viewers may interrupt the instructor during the presentation.

In this way, EAGE can fulfil its mission to serve the international geoscience student community worldwide and move along with the time by making use of digital means to reach out to student audiences. The hosting University is ought to invite the local audience and to take care of the equipment.

Steps to host your student webinar

Step 1: establish topic and format

Find a topic of interest and try to determine what kind of delivery would fit best for your needs.

A significant benefit of a webinar, is that the webinar allows students and the lecturer to interact with each other. For lectures with a large audience, the lecture might want to decide to have a Q&A session after the lecture. With smaller audiences, it is possible to agree that viewers may interrupt the instructor during the presentation. We leave this decision up to the lecturer and the host.

The standard language of the lectures is English.

Step 2: Contact EAGE

Any university (universities with EAGE Student Chapters are given priority) with the right equipment can host one of the EAGE webinars. Please note that the host is responsible for the equipment, as well as to promote the webinar within the university. Before applying to host a webinar, please carefully read the webinar guidelines.

Have you read the guidelines and would you like to host one of the student webinars at your university? Send us your request via email, including:

• Your personal details (full name, country and university)
• How to best contact you (email, phone number)
• Student Chapter name
• Preferred date and lecturer

Step 3: Scheduling the event:

As soon as we have received a confirmation from the host to participate, we will contact both the lecturer and the host to schedule a date for a test session and the lecture.

Step 4: Hosting the event

When organizing a student webinar for a group, make sure to provide the following:

• computer with fast internet connection
• webcame
• large screen or beamer
• phone landline of microphone

  You can host the webinar on any modern computer with a webcam. Previous sessions have taught us that calling in with a phone landline works best for the audio connection. However, if your internet connection turns out to be very stable and fast during the test session, you can use a microphone connected to the computer.

Step 5: Schedule your Test Session and Software

For the webinars we use software from WebEx. It can run in your browser without the need to install additional software (Temporary Application) or it will be installed as a separate add-on to the system. Therefore, it is important to check if all firewall and administrator settings of your computer are compatible with the application.

Since the technique relies on good connections, we will plan a test session to check if everything is working according to our standards. Moreover, it provides everyone with the possibility to explore the software and to discuss any relevant details. It has been proven that most technical issues on the day of the lecture can be prevented by checking them beforehand. Ideally, there will be at least two weeks between the test session and the actual lecture.

Step 6: …and we’re live!

During the delivery of the webinar, please ask all other students to mute their phones and mute the connecting microphone when you (or your audience) is not talking. This way the noise in the connection can be reduced.