Direct Learn Online Conferencing

Direct Learn ceased operating in 2012, due to retirement. The web site remains up for legacy purposes.

Direct Learn Services Ltd has organised a large number of online conferences, providing conference organisation, hosting and administration services. These services, plus examples from previous conferences, can be seen by selecting the options above.

Does online conferencing work? As one of our delegates said, following a recent conference:

"Just to say this is by far the best run online conference I've
attended. Absolutely. The presentations are excellent, and the ensuing discussions are really engaging and accessible. A real sense of community built up over the whole of the conference. You have mixed the right amount of social and academic interests, and created a very immediate sense of place, of being and of collegiality. Brilliant!"

An academic study (by Lynn and Terry Anderson of Athabasca University) of the massive environmental benefits of online conferences, compared with face to face conferences, is available at: http://www.cjlt.ca/index.php/cjlt/article/view/521/254. This looks at our SDP conferences, and calculates the carbon footprint if they were held face to face. Amongst the findings is that:

"Had the SDP conference taken place in London, England, instead of online, the per capita emissions would have been greater than the per capita emissions of Brazil for all of 2005. In fact, the per capita emissions for this one conference, taking place over three days, would have been greater than the per capita emissions of at least 86 different countries for the entire year of 2005".