When to Attend a Webinar?

Abstract

Objective. To determine the most appropriate delay to start a webinar.

Methods. This cross-sectional study was conducted on weekly general staff scientific webinars held by the Institute of Human Virology (IHV), University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA. 35 observations were made at arbitrary chosen times of three consecutive IHV webinars. After standardizing the number of participants, a 4th-degree polynomial fit was applied to the data. A cost function was defined as the sum of the time wasted for those who attended the webinar early and the lost for those who attend with delay. The cost function was minimized to compute the most appropriate delay to start the webinar.

Results. The model could explain almost 95% of the observed variance in the number of participants. Normally, half of the participants attended the meeting at the webinar set starting time. The cost was a minimum if the webinar was delayed for about 3 minutes.

Conclusion. It seems that the most appropriate time for starting the IHV general staff meetings is around 3 minutes after the webinar set starting time.