On August 10-13, the AAA is hosting the 2020 Annual Meeting and Conference on Teaching and Learning in Accounting online!

While moving to a virtual format was a difficult decision for the Board, members made it much easier by sharing information about what’s happening on campus and in organizations. With concern for members’ well-being as our top priority - and 83% of members responding to our survey reporting they would not be able to travel to attend – the decision became clear. Recognizing how valued and highly anticipated the meeting is for our community - and how keen authors and presenters are to share and get feedback on their work - we began planning new ways to convene and network.

Now as always – members are engaged in putting together the content in this new format to offer an engaging 4-day opportunity to learn, present, teach, share, and reconnect – to be in the community even while we can’t be together!

Meeting structure – 4 days of papers, teaching/education sessions, plenaries, and networking

Our new conference platform and presentation gallery lets you participate in sessions in a flexible and personalized way. We had a chance to test it with the June Spark meeting with nearly 300 members attending and 100 papers presented. During the 4-day model for the Annual Meeting and the Conference on Teaching and Learning, sessions will take on some characteristics of a “flipped” classroom, with content available in advance and the opportunity to interact during the synchronous meeting sessions.

• 550 research papers will be presented, most complete with discussants
• The Conference on Teaching and Learning (CTLA) will extend throughout the 4-day program
• Panels and plenary events will highlight timely topics
• Opportunities for Section and Sponsor events will engage and give everyone a chance to catch up

This happens through two integrated components:

Presentation Gallery: This gallery hosts authors’ and presenters’ content for all sessions in the program.

• Infographic summaries, video overview presentations, abstracts, working papers, and handouts
• Gallery content will be available to all registrants approximately two weeks prior to the meeting
• You will have 2 weeks to review sessions and information prior to the program – and for 1 year after the meeting.
• Benefits: Not only can you view content when convenient – the Gallery also provides several benefits to presenters/authors: all submissions to the Presentation Gallery receive a DOI (Digital Object Identifier), providing enhanced credentialing and visibility as a scholarly work, and these materials are archived making them citable and shareable after the meeting (For more on benefits: https://aaahq.org/Meetings/2020/Spark/Presenter-Benefits ).
• Want an example? See the Spark meeting Presentation Gallery byclicking here)

Live Meeting site: Featuring 4 days and a wide range of content, including plenaries, paper sessions with discussants, dialog sessions, panels, education sessions, and opportunities for networking, and for Sections to meet interactively.

• The platform makes it easy to move between sessions in both the Annual Meeting and CTLA.
• All sessions will be recorded so you won’t have to miss anything!
• Presenters and authors can post handouts and other resources in the Gallery to share.
• During the meeting
  • You can engage in Q&A and “chat” with colleagues
  • Earn up to 20 hours of CPE by responding to poll questions
  • Catch up and share during “block parties” at the end of each day
• Section liaisons are in the process of finalizing schedules for paper presentations and the CTLA team is finalizing their program that will run throughout the 4 days.

Registration fees have been reduced to reflect the new virtual model and all of the changes members are experiencing as part of the pandemic impact.

While the AAA held more than 10 webinars in the spring to support faculty taking their classes online (and plans to offer more in the fall), looking to the future, remaining sustainable means meetings being priced to be more reflective of the costs incurred. This decision is made with the growing recognition that virtual meeting components will be a critical part of ongoing meetings – even after we are able to return meeting in person.

Registration fee: The $345 fee (which is reduced $300 from the original fee) takes into account the costs of holding this meeting. We all know that when meetings are virtual there aren’t food and beverage events (you’ll have to provide your own 2 drink tickets!), so it may seem that there are no significant costs to holding a professional virtual meeting. Stepping back though, true costs of hosting virtual scholarly meetings becomes more clear.

Join colleagues for the Annual Meeting and CTLA - help design our future and help presenters strengthen their work. Together, we will experiment and evaluate to redefine AAA meetings for the future. Our goal? That participants agree they were able to grow professionally and interact with colleagues in meaningful ways - and that value exceeds the total cost of the meeting – only $345 – saving on registration, hotel and travel costs. When we meet this goal, we will have the opportunity to engage more members in our meetings, from around the world, enhancing the breadth of their scholarship and strengthening the network of accounting faculty.

This year’s Annual won't be exactly the same as meetings we've hosted before, and we're excited about that. This is an opportunity to leverage the power of digital gatherings and improve on the traditional conference model. We're eager to take what we learn from this event and apply it to our future programming.

We're optimistic that how we set ourselves up now will strengthen our community and celebrate and elevate the practice we're so passionate about. We hope you will join us.