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How to Use Barcodes at Conferences (and Why You Might Want To)

June 21, 2011, 3:00 pm

By George Williams

eter Organisciak giving a talk entitled 'When to Ask For Help: Evaluating Projects For Crowdsourcing' at the 2011 meeting of the Digital Humanities conference.Audiences for oral presentations and poster sessions at academic conferences often want more information about a particular topic. One way to provide this, obviously, is to create printed flyers or brochures and hope that you’ve brought enough copies for everyone who’s interested. But what if your printed handout doesn’t make it all the way back on your audience member’s trip home?

During the 2011 Digital Humanities conference at Stanford University (currently underway) some people are making use of QR codes, a specific kind of two-dimensional bar code (also known as a matrix code).

For example, Peter Organisciak gave a talk entitled “When to Ask For Help: Evaluating Projects For Crowdsourcing,” and on one of his presentation slides–as you can see in the photo at the start of this post–he displayed this QR code:

An example of a QR Code.

Those of us in the audience with smartphone apps that can read (and interpret) QR codes were able to snap a picture using the camera and then visit the associated page online. (Those without such apps, by the way, could instead use the URL shortcut http://bit.ly/dh-crowd, also displayed on the slide.)

For our poster presentation–entitled “Applying Universal Design Principles to a Digital Humanities Project“– we also used a combination of QR code and shortened URL. Some people who came by our poster wrote down the URL (http://bit.ly/ud-dh11), and some of them used their smartphones in combination with the QR code.

I’ve also seen a few (but only a few!) other presentations and posters make use of such a visual code. I use a free and user-friendly iPhone app called Scan to read and interpret QR codes, but there are plenty of other apps to choose from for iOS devices as well as for Android and Blackberry smartphones.

If you’re interested in creating your own QR code, it’s not hard to find an online service that allows you to do that. I’ve found this one particularly easy, for example.

QR codes are not the only kind of matrix codes in use today. Other possibilities include SPARQCodes, Semacodes, and Microsoft Tags. However, I don’t have enough experience with the different options to be able to discuss their relative strengths and weaknesses.

How about you? Do you use matrix codes? What has your experience been like? Let us hear from you in the comments!

 
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  • unsworth

    QR codes were also in evidence in this paper: http://bit.ly/l9zWUr
    The context is attaching web-based information to architectural and archaeological sites in Jamaica.

  • drnels

    I’m worried this is going to become another issue of the haves and the have-nots.  Those with smartphones (and the money to buy them and pay the monthly data plans) get access to more.  Or are people using these in addition to other things?

  • heathermwhitney

    Definitely needing to put one of these on my next conference poster.

  • http://ProfHacker.com George H. Williams

    I think that should always be a concern, Nels: are we embracing practices that exclude people?

    However, in what I’ve seen here, people are using both QR codes and shortened URLs. So you don’t need to have a device that can read QR codes to access the additional information.And you don’t need a phone with a monthly data plan: iPod Touches and other non-phone mobile devices can also interpret such codes.

  • unsworth

    Interestingly, according to one co-author of the paper on Jamaican architectural history that I mentioned above, the QR codes were more accessible to the locals than plain URLs: they don’t have internet at home, but they have smart phones with data plans.

  • tengrrl

    I just wrote about using QR Codes in the classroom last week. Nice to see a piece on using them at conferences. My advice on access was to make sure you included a URL (something nice and shortened). I managed to get things working on my three-year-old phone, but there are always going to be people without the right software or phone. Best to have more than one way to get to the info.

  • iredale

    QR codes are an EXCELLENT idea for poster presentations, but I haven’t used one during a live presentation, and would never do so except at the very end of a presentation. If you do it earlier, you’ll divide the room into two groups — those who are actually present in the room, and those who aren’t paying attention because they’re looking up something online.

    It’s bad enough that we have to fight this battle with our students … I’m not going to do it at a conference. Those who want to be online during a conference presentation should stay at home and save their school’s travel money for times when they truly want to BE somewhere else.

  • http://twitter.com/derekmueller Derek Mueller

    There may be minor solutions for this, Nels.  I used QR codes in my CCCC poster in early April. The codes linked to audio files I’d hosted in YouTube, and YouTube allowed me to provide the full transcripts of the audio clips using closed captioning.  So, while the poster “spoke,” there was a full-text script available.  And as an alternative to the codes, for folks who couldn’t scan the codes with their smartphones (or who couldn’t pick up a hotel wifi signal), there was a direct link on the poster, so those materials would be available another way. Granted, it’s not perfect, and it doesn’t answer every one of the accessibility concerns, but there are reasonably robust solutions that require of QR-users only a few additional steps.

  • http://twitter.com/gurulibrarian Diana Moore

    Libraries are increasingly using QR codes to provide enhanced information to students. It has not yet replaced information, as we don’t want to limit the “have nots,” but it does enrich the library experience for the “haves.”  I just did an online presentation on how we are using QR codes in our library yesterday.

  • jeana

    We’re using a QR code as a way to give out information during freshman orientation. Instead of giving them stacks of paper of information that they won’t probably read, and isn’t required reading (contact information, helpful info for academic advising after school starts, maps, etc.) we gave them a bookmark with a QR code that linked to a mobile friendly database of that information. The URL was also printed, along with our twitter account handle.

    Orientation is still happening, so it’ll be interesting to watch the analytics as the weeks go on.
    One piece of feedback that we have received so far is that one of the ‘pages’ we created was an ‘address’ book of sorts that had links to the phone number and email for key staff new students would need to contact. All ready students have responded well and with appreciation to having the contact information at their fingertips…. literally. 

    I see the QR code as a visual bookmark in the real world that links to the virtual world.

  • bethanyvsmith

    I also like to add these to my business cards.  On the back of my “official” cards I now put my blog and twitter info and also add a QR code. It makes it just a little bit easier to get in contact with me, but if they don’t have a smartphone they can still get to the info.

  • jkm210

    We had one on a poster I presented with a colleague in April.  It just went to the poster website, which was also listed on the poster.  We saw it as a matter of promotion and convenience most of all.  A person may not take the time to listen to your poster spiel, but if they can take a moment to snap a photo of the QR Code, they may follow up with you later.  We tried to make it subtle, but findable.  If you want to check it out, go to: http://www.duq.edu/library/presentations/_images/Proactively_Supporting_Promotion_and_Tenure_2011-0328.pdf

  • irnmtn25

    We are starting to use QR codes in our library.  My colleague and I just did a presentation to some folks who are visiting us from Nigeria and they were really impressed with the QR Code demonstration.  We linked the QR Code to their website on my cell phone, which has a barcode reader app (that came with the phone).  I am also planning on using QR codes this upcoming school year as an addition to my workshop flyer that I distribute to the University community.  When they see the QR code on the monitors around campus, they can scan the code and go to the webpage with the workshop schedule right on their cell phone.  I think that are many capabilities for the QR Codes, and we just need to be mindful of what we put out there and consider privacy concerns.

  • psaliga

    For the past two years, the Society of Architectural Historians has been using QR codes to create self-guided architectural tours of the city in which our annual meeting is taking place.  Our Chicago 2010 meeting was the first and the system has been well received.    http://www.sah.org/clientuploads/PageGraphics/Resources_BuildingTagsChicagoMap.pdf  

  • proftucker

    Here is an interesting application of QR Codes in a public service / political context…

    Reporters without Borders “The Voice” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mx48zKeJxlQ)

    You could so the same sort of thing for a conference poster. If you have a picture of your team of collaborators (say), the QR Code points to a YouTube URL and the collaborators’ voices / images are seen in the context of the poster. I like the ingenuity of the approach…

  • http://www.briancroxall.net Brian Croxall

    This is an interesting point, John. (I was in another panel and missed Bethany and Wayne’s presentation.) I’ve often thought of QR Codes as a bit of a strange beast. It’s a whole lot faster in many ways to enter a short URL–even on a smartphone–than it is to boot up a QR code-scanning app, take the picture and wait for the URL to resolve.

    At conferences, then, smart phones don’t make much sense. But in the wild and in different situations they might make much more sense.

  • raza_khan

    I am sorry…. but someone has too much time on his hands!!!

    Raza
    _________________________
    Raza Khan, Ph.D.
    Dr.Raza.Khan@gmail.com

  • 609zr

    1.  This story is almost 4 years old.  See it on the Colbert Report.
    2.  Profiling should be legally and widely approved.  The person being profiled, however,  must be worthy of profiling.  I.E.  No 70 year old white ladies in wheel chairs.
    3.  U.S. professors are grossly underemployed or unemployed.  Why does the University of Maryland and the previous employer San Jose State University recruit artists from Bangladesh?
    4.  Education in Bangladesh is of very poor quality at best, yet,  Mr. Elahi was able to make the well trained and educated FBI look like the keystone cops.
     
    1.  Perhaps the various intelligence bureaus could learn to identify the real criminals small and large.  I have 2 illegal immigrant families living on my street.  They both have jobs in spite of the fact that they are not legally allowed to work or live here.  And, in the last twenty years they have produced about 10-15 anchor babies.
    2.  Perhaps American universities might place a higher priority on jobs for Americans.

  • http://twitter.com/kmoosley Keith

    There is a million of different ways to use QR code and seems like people come up with creative ideas every day. By the way, if some one interested there is interesting infographic about what is QR codes : http://www.systemid.com/qrcode/

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