This is a guest post by Jessica Cusick.

The first ever Animal Behaviour Twitter Conference is being held Jan 26-27, 2021, hosted by the Animal Behavior Society and the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour! 

Join us for an exciting opportunity to learn about animal behaviour research. We have an exciting schedule with about 140 presentations and four plenaries from scientists at all career stages from around the world. You do not need to have a Twitter account to attend this conference. Learn more about how to attend the conference below!

What’s A Twitter Conference?!

What is a Twitter conference you might ask? A Twitter conference is completely FREE to attend and occurs completely on Twitter! Presenters “tweet” their presentation (i.e., a thread of 5-6 tweets) at scheduled times on Twitter and they are allocated 10 minutes to answer questions from the audience. You don’t have to register and there is no membership required to attend this conference.

Twitter Worldwide

The Animal Behaviour Twitter Conference promotes effective science communication and makes science accessible to the masses, without leaving a carbon-foot print. A Twitter conference is the perfect way for researchers to communicate their research and for the audience to learn about scientific research occurring across the world. At a Twitter conference, presenters can reach high school students, undergraduate and graduate students, scientists, and the general public. The Animal Behaviour Twitter Conference is an especially great way to connect college or high school students with science! We encourage students to attend and participate in Q&A sessions during class or outside of class (see participation instructions below).

No Twitter? No problem!

You can attend the Twitter conference even if you don’t have a Twitter account. Simply go to the following website on your computer or smart phone and follow the “Attending the Conference” instructions below: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23AnimBehav2021%20&src=typed_query&f=live

Already Tweeting?

Already have a Twitter account? Attend the conference and ask questions to the presenters by following the hashtag #AnimBehav2021. In Twitter, search for the conference hashtag: #AnimBehav2021 and select the “Latest” tab to view the most recent tweets. Learn more by reading the “Attending the Conference” instructions below.

Attending the Conference

At the allocated time for a given talk (link to the schedule: https://www.animbehav2021.org/schedule), a tweet will pop up with the presentation, which will be a Twitter thread (i.e., a series of sequential tweets). Click on that tweet and the whole presentation will display. After you have viewed the entire presentation, you can navigate back to the live conference feed where new presentations will show up. If you miss a talk, you can visit a presentation at a later time. Go to Twitter and simply search for the #AnimBehav2021 hashtag to view any presentations that you could not attend. To see a step-by-step guide on how to attend the Twitter conference with screenshots, please, visit: https://www.animbehav2021.org/attendance-guidance

Have a Question?

Have a question about the presentation? If you have a Twitter account you can ask the presenter! After the presenter “tweets” their talk at the scheduled time, you can start asking questions and the presenter will have 10 minutes to answer them. To ask a question, reply to the presenter’s last tweet in the thread by clicking on the “speech bubble icon” (lower left icon below the last tweet). Even after the live Q&A session, you can still ask a question because the presenters will be available during the conference and afterwards. See a step-by-step guide on how to ask questions with screenshots here: https://www.animbehav2021.org/attendance-guidance

We encourage scientists, researchers, the public, and students at all levels to attend the conference. The ABS and ASAB both believe that making animal behaviour research open and accessible to all is critical to fostering an understanding and appreciation of science generally and the natural world in particular.

Learn more about the Animal Behaviour Twitter conference here: https://www.animbehav2021.org/. If you have any questions please email us at: animaltwitconf@gmail.com

We look forward to seeing you at the first Animal Behaviour Twitter Conference!