
by Maeve Luthin, JD, Professional Development Manager
Many thanks to all of you who completed your 2013 Advancing Ethical Research (AER) Conference evaluations! We have poured over your feedback, and are pleased to be able to share with you the items you flagged as our top successes and those most in need of improvement. In today’s post, I’ll share what we’re working to fix before the 2014 AER Conference in Baltimore next December.
The Hunger Games: We ran into problems with lunches during the conference: there simply wasn’t enough lunch for everyone. We promise to work more with our food and beverage provider to do better next year and we are grateful for your patience with us.
Mr. Smith Goes to All the Sessions: We tend to schedule multiple concurrent events during any given timeslot, and so far, none of our attendees have been able to successfully bilocate (although PRIM&R staff members have come close). Many of you felt that there were too many breakout sessions to choose from at any given time, which not only made the what-session-do-I-attend decisions difficult, but also left you with a nagging anxiety over your final selections. While we do have constraints in solving the quantum physics side of the equation, we will work on developing some new approaches to this challenge for 2014.

Some Like it Advanced: Some of you shared that breakout sessions labeled as advanced ended up covering basic information, and that you would like presenters in these sessions to focus on applying the regulations, instead of reading them. We will continue to work closely with faculty members to ensure that the descriptions of the sessions match the content presented.
Look for another post later today about what you liked at the 2013 AER Conference, and thanks again for sharing your feedback!