Interactive Workshops in a Pandemic: The Real Benefits of Virtual Spaces

In this article, we reflect on two virtual workshops that we held during the ACM AutomotiveUI 2020 conference, where we aimed to provide participants an experience similar to in-person meetings, while at the same time making use of digital services for group collaboration. In particular, we elaborate on relevant differences, advantages, and disadvantages of virtual and physical workshops, discuss which important aspects of in-person meetings can be substituted with virtual activities (and which ones cannot), and how they might change collaboration in the future. Further, we examine the impact of virtual workshops on organizing committees who have to deal with issues of different time zones and durations of activities. The lessons learnt through organizing these events provide an outlook that could enrich workshop experiences for both scientific and educational purposes in the future.