The Online Peace Science Colloquium (OPSC), founded by Dr. Emily Hencken Ritter and announced at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the Peace Science Society (PSS) (International), celebrates the excellent research that happens both before and after the annual meeting. The OPSC advances the research of peace studies by encouraging all scholars, both new and established, to submit manuscripts to be discussed by prominent members of the field. The OPSC also facilitates and encourages participation of a larger audience by broadcasting sessions live. Authors thus receive substantial feedback from the discussants as well as from a wider audience. A major goal of the OPSC is to support junior scholars whose work focuses on peace and conflict areas. This contribution to the Spotlight presents support strategies and the ways in which the online format is well suited to implement them. The article describes our efforts to support junior scholars by enhancing access to the research community and by providing feedback to improve research quality.

A major strength of the PSS annual meeting is its relatively small size. In contrast to larger, discipline-wide conferences, it is a gathering that showcases research on the causes of conflict within and between states, conflict resolution, and promotion of sustainable peace. The smaller size and focused substantive scope allow for meaningful interactions among participants, with experts in the field providing targeted feedback. However, a drawback of this format is that access can be limited, and the conference locations are not always accessible to everyone who wants to attend. The OPSC fosters community beyond the in-person annual meetings by creating an intimate, online, participatory space for scholars in all career stages. Community building and providing feedback are core goals of the OPSC, and support strategies have been incorporated in our implementation to emphasize these goals. We believe that these strategies highlight the unique strengths of a virtual format.

Support for junior scholars begins with our call for proposals and the selection process. We invite applicants in all career stages of the discipline but prioritize holding half or more of our events for presenters who are approaching the academic job market. So far, this has been successful: since inception of the OPSC, 55% of our sessions featured the work of ABDs or postdoctoral scholars and 79% featured untenured scholars. These patterns of representation are fairly consistent with the overall pool of submissions that we receive, which is evidence of a substantial demand for virtual workshops among early-career scholars.

Our selection process for discussants also aims to provide access to the community for junior scholars by fostering connections between junior scholars and senior scholars with relevant expertise. Therefore, for each event, we emphasize input from presenting authors by asking for their list of preferred potential discussants. This provides junior scholars with an avenue to meet and form connections with scholars in their research area that otherwise might not occur “naturally” due to social, institutional, or financial reasons. This is especially true for those scholars whose institution does not provide funding for travel costs.

It is important that we also aim to include one to three senior scholars in each session. Because junior scholars might be hesitant to forge connections on their own, the online format is uniquely well suited to facilitate relationships between junior and senior scholars. Furthermore, compared to in-person conferences, the travel overhead involved in virtual workshops and seminars is almost nonexistent. Senior scholars often have significant time constraints and must balance multiple requests, and this makes it easier for them to participate.

Our virtual format also serves junior scholars by providing easy access to observe and participate as an audience member. Interested scholars can attend to listen to the discussion. Undergraduate and early-stage graduate students also can benefit from the sessions by learning how discussions ultimately play a role in academic discourse and publication. Importantly, the OPSC format means that this participation is not merely passive. Rather, the audience has an opportunity to be actively involved in the discussion by submitting questions, which are communicated to the presenters by the host. This demonstrates a unique strength of the virtual format: participation is not restricted by geography or availability of travel funding. Because funding often is scarce for early-career scholars, we believe that this is an important benefit of the virtual format.

Finally, recording and posting our sessions on the OPSC website also supports our goal of bringing junior scholars into the research community. As a result, the research that the workshop features reaches a much wider audience than would be achieved at a typical in-person seminar or conference presentation. To illustrate this, during the course of one year, our sessions accumulated an average of 123 views. The virtual format also is well suited for recording and dissemination of the sessions. Recording makes it easy for participants to advertise on or share sessions with their networks after the event. In addition, authors can view their presentation at a later date to consider what went well and what could be improved in their presentation style. They also can revisit questions that may have been omitted from their notes, which allows them to improve their paper. Although it is possible to create and circulate recordings of traditional in-person workshops, there is almost no additional cost to do so in the virtual format. Most virtual-meeting software includes a “record” option; therefore, recordings can be created and shared with little overhead. By exploring other formats like this one, we look forward to the future of virtual workshops that provide support for junior scholars.

Overall, our experience with the OPSC suggests that virtual workshops afford numerous ways to support junior scholars. As this article suggests, in many respects, the virtual format is uniquely well suited to remove barriers, including a lack of travel funding, which disproportionately affects graduate students and early-career scholars. We also see room for growth in these suggestions, with potential new formats that leverage the strengths of virtual workshops. Looking toward the future, we aim to expand the OPSC by the inclusion of workshops that bring together several junior scholars with one tenured expert to discuss early work that may not be ready for public presentation.