Instructions for Virtual Attendance

The virtual conference is organised over two platforms - PheedLoop for keynotes, tutorials, paper talks. gather.town for poster sessions and virtual socials. Please find instructions below.

PheedLoop

Please click here to access the event on PheedLoop

Gather town

Please click here to access the CoRL virtual venue.

For the first time gather.town will ask you to sign up. To do so, please use the same email that you have provided for conference registration otherwise you cannot access the virtual venue.

Next you will be redirected to a page with a preview of your character and a preview of your video feed, with the input/output options for your camera, mic, and speakers. When you're ready to continue, click Join the Gathering.

Warning: You must grant permission for Gather to use your camera and mic in the browser. Read more about Browser Settings.

If gather.town provides you a tutorial, you can skip it and directly start with entering the venue. You can only use your camera in one video conference at a time, so if you are still in a Zoom meeting, you cannot use your camera function in gather.town. Furthermore, it is also recommended to use your microphone in one platform at a time. If something does not work, please try to refresh the webpage or restart your browser.

What to do when you have technical problems using gather.town:

• check if you have a supported browser (Chrome is recommended)

• reload the page

• close the browser and open it again

• check if you gave permission to the website

• have a look at the support website from gather.town

At the beginning, your avatar will be spawned in our virtual venue where you can find poster rooms in the far left and far right, the social spaces in the center area close to the brain, and the sponsor area in the bottom side of the venue.

You can move around the space using the arrow keys. As you get close to other avatars (other virtual attendees), your videos will pop up and you will be able to chat.

If you click on Participants at the bottom left, you can see who is currently online. If you want to find someone on the map to talk to them, click on the person’s name and then on “follow” or “locate on map“.

Joining Poster Sessions

For your convenience, we have included coloured line/arrows on the ground to direct you to individual poster rooms and sponsors. For example blue arrows on the floor will bring you to the poster session I.

Once you enter the poster room you can interact with all the posters, presenters, and other attendees. Every poster is labeled with a name like "Booth X" that you can find in the conference program.

You can select a poster, enter the booth and press 'x' to interact with the poster and others in the booth. Every booth has an avatar that shows a video feed from the London venue for in-person attendees.

If you are the presenter of a poster and you are attending virtually, please find your poster session and poster number from the program and join your booth. Please remember everyone at your booth will see the poster and you do not need to share your screen unless you want to show supplementary materials like slides or videos.

gather.town offers "Zoom Tool" and "Presenter Mode" that you can find on right side of your screen when joining the booth. You and anyone else who has opened the poster may use the "Presenter Mode" tool on the right hand side to click and indicate specific areas of the poster that you are discussing. Everyone who has the poster open will see the locations that you click on while in Presenter Mode. The indication will appear as a small coloured circle that will disappear after a few seconds. The "Zoom Tool" option only changes your view, so the poster view will not change for the other attendees in the booth.

Virtual Social Events at CoRL2021

There will be a gather.town social event on Monday starting at 7pm London time. The social event will be held in the "Social Space Left" and "Social Space Right" in the central part of the virtual venue.

Reaching Out to the Sponsors

Every Patron sponsor of CoRL 2021 has a booth at the virtual venue that you can find on the bottom side of the venue by following their corresponding coloured guides on the ground. You can enter sponsor booth and find out more about them and also have a chat with the representative of the company.

Every patron sponsor will organise a virtual event at the virtual venue which you can attend and learn more about them. The schedule of these events will be released soon.