Dealing with technical difficulties

Be prepared!

Many things can go wrong during your event, and, given the many creative, technology-enabled ways to teach others about reproducibility, there’s always room for technical difficulties. The key to dealing with these difficulties is to be prepared for them. Below you’ll find some simple ways to prepare yourself for any technical difficulties that may arise during your workshop.

• Practice. If at all possible, you should do a practice run-through of your event in a way that mimics the actual conditions of the event as closely as possible. E.g. set up presentations in the room you’ll be using and present them from the computer that you’ll be using with all of the necessary software tools running. Practice will show you if something just isn’t going to work and may allow you to solve problems you didn’t realize would pop up.

• Book the room an hour before the event and set everything up early. While you may not be able to do a practice run through of your entire event in the specific room you’ll be using, you should at least allot time to familiarize yourself with the room on the day of the event. Important things to familiarize yourself with and test include:

  • Connections to the projector

  • Ways to change lighting

  • Ways to change microphone inputs and adjust other audio settings

  • Ways to connect to the internet

  • The locations of power outlets

  • Ways to contact technical support for help

  If you notice a technical problem that you have no idea how to fix, swallow your pride and call technical support or find someone who knows how to solve the problem as soon as possible.

• Present all workshop materials from one dedicated computer, but have multiple ways to access those materials. Swapping out computer inputs often leads to the need to adjust projector settings or switch to new adapter cables that can be confusing in the midst of an event. Presenting everything from one dedicated computer can help alleviate this issue but it means you should have a back up plan should something go wrong with this dedicated computer. Making sure you can access all necessary workshop materials from other devices is a great way to prepare yourself for any issues with the dedicated computer. Some things you can do to ensure access to workshop materials include:

  • Email workshop materials to yourself

  • Save workshop materials to a shared Google Drive or Dropbox folder

  • Save workshop materials to your desktop

  • Save workshop materials to a flash drive

  • Email workshop materials to a co organizer and have that individual also save the materials to their desktop

  Doing all of these things will give you confidence that the workshop materials will be available from multiple computers whether you have access to the internet or not.

• Bring extra adapters and cables. Particularly if you’re presenting from a mac, the room’s projector setup may not have the adapter or cables necessary to connect to your computer. Make sure your bring your own adapters. Even if you don’t think you’ll need an adapter for your computer, bring a set of adapters that you think may be useful to others. It is also a good idea to bring an extra extension cord or powerstrip. Some rooms have limited options for access to powerstrips and it may not be easy to plug in a computer from all parts of the room.

• Prioritize. If things begin to go wrong during your event, don’t stress out but first take a minute and consider if the thing that isn’t working is essential to your workshop. Only dedicate yourself to fixing the problem if it’s necessary or if you have free time. For example, if your livestream stops working during the middle of a panel, but you need to go make sure a catering order has arrived, it’s okay to drop the livestream. You should drop a quick note to any livestream viewers so they know what’s going on, but you shouldn’t sacrifice the success of the remainder of your event for something that ultimately isn’t essential to success (of course, if your livestream has thousands of viewers, you may want to prioritize the livestream over the food).

• Be flexible. If you’re having difficulties with your projector, but there’s a session of your workshop that doesn’t require a projector, or someone is confident in their ability to give an impromptu chalk talk, be willing to make the necessary changes to the schedule or presentation format. Quick fixes like this may give you time to call technical support and fix the problem. At the very least, fixes like this will keep the event moving.

• Don’t stress! For any technical problem that arises, there’s almost always a workaround if you pause for a minute, take a deep breath, and think about it. Be prepared, but don’t stress out if something goes wrong. It happens!