Each year ICA conducts an evaluation survey among attendees to the annual conference. This article highlights the survey's main results. The full report can be found on the ICA website.

The survey was conducted from June to August, 2008. 559 people responded, a response rate of 27%, slightly less than that of the previous three conferences. The make-up of the respondents seems to echo that of the conference attendees. Around one third of the respondents were students, another third were senior faculty members, and one fourth of the respondents were junior faculty members. Over half of the respondents were women, a slightly higher percentage than in previous conferences (66% of the student respondents, 62% of the junior faculty, and 40% of the senior faculty).

The distribution of respondents by regions was similar to previous conferences (particularly the San Francisco conference), with a slight oversampling of Asia/Pacific, Europe and Australia/New Zealand and undersampling of North America. Two-thirds of the respondents were from North America, a little more than a fifth of the respondents were from Europe (compared with a little less than a fifth of the conference attendees), and the remaining 12% were from other parts of the world.

The report generally follows the order of the survey questions and compares the answers with those of the past three conferences (San Francisco, Dresden and New York). Introduced this year was the ability to distinguish not only between students and faculty but between junior and senior faculty, and in relevant questions we analyzed the differences across professional ranking, allowing us to compare for the first time the responses of students, junior faculty and senior faculty.

General Evaluation
General evaluations of the Montreal conference were slightly lower than they were for San Francisco (except for the overall quality of the sessions and the social atmosphere), and slightly higher than they were for both Dresden and New York. Like in previous conferences, respondents were, on average, most positive about the conference location. Like in San Francisco and New York, respondents were least positive about the social program, events and outings. There were no significant differences between the overall evaluations of students, junior faculty and senior faculty.

Senior faculty, junior faculty and students expressed different motivations for attending the conference. Keeping up with recent research and socializing with colleagues and friends remained the top motivations for respondents as a whole, followed by improving one's academic record, travelling to an interesting place and seeking opportunities for research cooperation. The job market remained, on average, at the bottom of the list. Improving one's academic record and the job market were, however, more important motivations for students and junior faculty than for senior faculty. For students, improving one's academic record was, on average, the most important motivation. Meeting or socializing with colleagues and friends was more important for junior and senior faculty than for students.

Attendance
The Montreal conference was well attended. With 2,108 registrants, the attendance was typical of recent conferences and only slightly lower than the 2007 San Francisco conference.

As is typically the case when a country hosts the conference, attendance from Canada was three times higher than it was in San Francisco, with Canada replacing Germany as the second largest group at the conference. By contrast, attendance from Germany declined, a trend evident over the past three conferences (297 attendees in Dresden, 102 in San Francisco and only 75 in Montreal). There was also a change in numbers of attendees from East/Southeast Asian countries, including an increase in the number of attendees from Singapore and Hong Kong and a decrease in the number of attendees from Korea and China.

Attendance at sessions varied by session type. The percentage of respondents who attended either the opening plenary session or a mini-plenary was lower than that which attended plenary sessions in previous conferences. There was also a decrease in the percentage of attendees in the theme panels. However, because mini-plenaries were clustered under the more general title of "sponsored sessions" in the program, it is not clear to what degree respondents were able to identify and differentiate between these different types of sessions. In almost all of the conference events (except for the poster session, new members' orientation, and graduate student reception and lounge), a higher number of senior faculty reported attending than students.

The most pronounced differences in the level of attendance were in the opening plenary session, the mini-plenaries, and the ICA business meeting with presidential address, where the number of senior faculty was almost twice the number of students. This suggests that students tended to attend association-wide events less than they attended other kinds of niche-oriented programming. In response, we are presently surveying ICA student membership to ascertain how we might make activities such as the ICA business meeting, plenaries and mini-plenaries more attractive to students so as to better assist them in socializing into association-wide programming.

Attendance also varied by division and interest group. For instance, though the level of attendance at the events of the Mass Communication division declined by 5% in comparison to the San Francisco conference, it remained the most well attended division in Montreal, followed by Political Communication, Communication and Technology, and Journalism Studies (in an equivalent order to the San Francisco conference). The most significant decrease was in Intercultural Communication (called Intercultural and Development Communication in previous conferences), which split last year into two separate divisions: Intercultural Communication and Global Communication and Social Change. Notably, however, the aggregate percentage of respondents who attended the events of the two divisions (26%) was significantly higher than the percentage of respondents who attended the events of the unified division in San Francisco (17%). This suggests that the split has drawn in additional attendees.

Additionally, if responses are any indication, divisional and interest group programming drew interest from individuals who are not members in the divisions and interest groups. In some cases, the difference was pronounced, as when events of the Visual Studies division were attended by more than twice the size of its membership. Other divisions/interest groups that attracted broader audiences than their members were Political Communication, Philosophy and Communication, Popular Communication, Feminist Scholarship, Communication Law and Policy, Game Studies, and Global Communication and Social Change.

Enjoyment
Generally, satisfaction levels with conference events seem to have gone up over the past two years (from Dresden to San Francisco and from San Francisco to Montreal). Satisfaction with the quality of posters, pre-conferences and the time available for audience discussions increased substantially from the San Francisco to the Montreal conference.

For most of the Montreal conference events, the level of enjoyment was equal to or higher than that expressed about the San Francisco conference. Divisional/interest group panels seemed to be at the top of the list of events enjoyed by respondents. They were followed by the ICA business meeting with presidential address, divisional/interest group receptions and university/institutional receptions. The least enjoyed event was the opening plenary session (Filmmaker-in-Residence), followed by new members' orientation and graduate student reception. The most significant increase in enjoyment levels was accorded the ICA business meeting with presidential address, while the most significant decrease in levels of enjoyment was accorded the first night ICA reception. Students also particularly seemed to enjoy the poster sessions and theme panels to a greater degree than did either the junior or senior faculty.

There was general agreement that Montreal was a great location for the conference, but respondents noted problems with the hotel and the costliness of drinks, food and other amenities. The conference was considered better than previous conferences in terms of the layout of the meeting rooms and the ease of following the printed program, less satisfactory than both the San Francisco and Dresden conferences in relation to the special events organized by the local committee, and less satisfactory than the San Francisco conference in terms of the location, the hotel and the comfort level of the meeting rooms. The small size of some of the meeting rooms was the most frequent complaint and was particularly problematic for the presidential address, sessions that took place on the seventh floor and sessions with renowned scholars.

Respondents also complained about the uneven temperature in the meeting rooms (some too cold, some too warm), the lack of adequate public spaces, the high cost of rooms, drinks and internet access, the need to pay for audio equipment, the unavailability of MAC adaptors and the lack of onsite computers. In response to these comments, as of next year ICA has changed its requirements for conference hotels and will no longer use any rooms that seat less than 50 people theater-style. Hopefully, this will help offset the unevenness of room size and the possibility that rooms are unable to accommodate comfortably attendees at a given session.

New Ideas for Programming
Respondents expressed an interest in seeing more of two kinds of programming in future conferences -- cross-unit programming and programming related to professional activities, such as panels on grant-making, fellowships, junior career opportunities, and the like. All of the ideas for new programming were of less interest to senior faculty than they were to students and junior faculty. Thus, for example, 42% of students and 40% of junior faculty were very interested in programming devoted to academic professionalism, but only 28% of senior faculty expressed a similar degree of interest. Similarly, 58% of students and 53% of junior faculty were very interested in programming devoted to grant-making opportunities, but only 38% of senior faculty were. While cross-unit programming was of most interest to all groups, senior and junior faculty were particularly interested in programs on grant-making and students expressed interest in junior career opportunities. In response, the conference in Chicago is being organized around the idea of cross-unit programming, as already implicated by the conference theme on Keywords in Communication. Similarly, the Chicago program will feature a number of professionally-oriented panels to address the interest evidenced in the issue.

 The respondents indicated support for going off-site for receptions, for separating the ICA business meeting from the awards ceremony, and for submitting conference papers in multiple languages (to be then translated into English for presentation). On the latter point, we raised the possibility of submissions in multiple languages, using the respondents as a way to gauge support for the idea. Respondents listed 46 different languages that they know other than English, with 340 participants (three fifths of the survey respondents) listing one language and 10 participants listing five languages. Nearly 70% of the respondents who know another language said they were willing to evaluate a paper in this language, with the willingness to evaluate papers in the indicated language strongly associated with the level of proficiency in reading and writing the language. For example, 86% to 100% among fluent writers of a given language were willing to evaluate a paper in that language. This suggests that fluent writers of a language other than English reported a very strong willingness to evaluate a paper in that language. The most popular language was French, followed by Spanish, German, Dutch, Chinese, Hebrew, Russian and Portuguese.

In response, we will be taking steps to further ascertain how the idea of multiple language submission might work. A task force is in the process of being established to evaluate the workability of the issue and establish a plan for its trial implementation. Additionally, in response to those preferring a separation of the business meeting from the awards ceremony, in Chicago we will try out a separation of the two events. An open business meeting will be held during the latter part of the Thursday board meeting on May 21, in which members can hear about the state of the association and board members will field questions from members. The awards ceremony will take place at its usual time on Saturday, May 23.

In addition, some of the comments addressed the desire to look at the possibility of ICA going green, and our intention is to begin implementing certain actions in this regard already in Chicago. A task force is presently at work on the issue, and we will be reporting more on environmental awareness as we near the conference date.

Summary of qualitative comments:
Participants appreciated the following aspects of the Montreal conference:

• The city. Participants agreed that Montreal was a wonderful location, among other things because of its multiculturalism. As one participant wrote, "I found this a varied, stimulating and informative conference in a wonderful setting, where two cultures are part of everyday life and experience."
• The high (and some say improved) quality of the papers and sessions.
• The "innovative programming like the mini-plenaries." The mini-plenaries were appreciatively mentioned by several participants.
• The pre-conferences. Participants mentioned favorably "The long history of the new media," "What is an organization," and "Analyzing media industries and media production."
• The local organization team, which was "friendly and absolutely competent."
• The top paper sessions.
• The availability of LCD projectors in all rooms.
• The travel grants for international participants.

However, they considered that there was room for improvement in the following areas:

-Hotel and meeting rooms

• Some of the meetings rooms were too small, particularly the rooms on the seventh floor, the room of the presidential address and sessions with renowned scholars.
• Poor public spaces.
• Room quality "was not worth the price."
• "Ridiculously expensive" drinks.
• Hotel was too expensive, particularly for graduate students.
• Uneven temperature in the meeting rooms (some too warm, some too cold).

- AV equipment and internet access

• Internet access was very expensive - should be free.
• People without laptops could not access the internet.
• Participants had to pay for audio equipment.
• MAC adapters were not available.
• ICA should also provide the laptops for the presentations.
• Printing was costly.

Programming, sessions, presentations

• Poster session - too many posters, little discussion, bad layout (some presenters got little traffic), tips for poster presenters were given very late, the label "interactive paper/poster session" is misleading, the decision to accept a paper as a poster is made without consulting the submitter.
• Having one person present two papers in the same session is a bad idea.
• Ten minutes for a presentation is not enough.
• "Unplugged" roundtable sessions (5 minute presentations without AV equipment, repeating the presentation to alternating audiences) - exhausting and frustrating.
• A need for "a session devoted to furthering contacts with the industry and panels aimed at helping job-seekers both in the industry and academia."
• Not enough panelists from outside the academy.
• Not enough plenaries and papers related to the conference theme.
• The sessions are in most cases "advertisements for papers that are already on their way to publication," limiting possibilities for discussions. Consider sessions devoted to works in progress.
• Presentations without visual aids (like PowerPoint presentations) are problematic for participants whose first language is not English.
• The plenary events were less inspiring than in previous conferences.

Receptions, graduate student lounge, social events

• Bring back the reception following the presidential address.
• Bad layout of the graduate student lounge ("set up like a boardroom").
• Not all participants were aware of the graduate student lounge, the graduate student reception, and the new members' orientation.
• Not a well-chosen location for the students' reception.
• Not enough social events like local tours and dinners.
• A need to coordinate and facilitate multi-division receptions for smaller divisions/interest groups.

Submission, review and dissemination of papers

• The different terminology and submissions rules of different divisions/interest groups are confusing, particularly for newcomers or people from non-communication departments.
• Not all of the presenters upload their papers to the conference website.
• The archive search engine is very limited.
• There are often widely disparate reviews; in some cases reviewers seem not to have read the papers carefully.
• Problems with the accessibility of papers after the conference.
• Acceptance rate is too low.

Participants disagreed on the following issues:

• The high-density poster session (5-minute overviews of papers, followed by interaction around posters) - one respondent said that there was not enough time to present and that the "flashier" presenters got more feedback; another respondent wrote that "that was the worst idea that I have ever heard or been part of;" and a third participant said that it was a very good experience, and that ICA should consider having more such sessions.
• Magnetic badges. Some really liked them, others didn't.
• The idea of multiple language submissions, although comments mostly dealt with presentation and not with submission.

Other suggestions:

• Longer registration hours on preconference days.
• Bags. Make bags optional; use less expensive bags, like messenger bags or canvas totes.
• Allow people to choose not to receive the printed program.
• Add a "code of conduct" regarding session audience participation ("discussing the responsibility of every scholar to support and guide others toward the best possible work leading to publication would work").
• Include the new member orientation as part of the registration email confirmation.
• Avoid holding the conference on Memorial Day weekend.
• Have the conference papers on CD or in a printed format.
• Provide babysitting services.
• The 2010 Singapore conference. Reduce fees (because of the other costs); avoid "countries with oppressive political regimes for conferences."