Video Conferencing Costs and Benefits: An Evaluation Report

 Education Development Center (EDC) of the IRAN Ministry of Health conducted a national webinar and evaluated it to know what it achieved, compared to an in-person conference.

 The evaluation was arranged with mixed method design in two quantitative and qualitative parts. In quantitative part, the data was collected through an electronic survey with census sampling. The number and distribution of participants was calculated, the quality of each lecture was rated on a 5-point Likert scale and the cost-effectiveness was estimated by calculating the actual cost. Data collection was done in the qualitative part with formal and informal interviews based on convenience sampling and content analyzed.

 High accessibility, synchronous communication, and wide coverage with convenient diversity indicate proper publicity and well acceptance of the seminar. Increasing awareness, inspiring a new attitude, resolving some ambiguities and 82% satisfaction rate show the overall success of the seminar. Temporal constraints, limited interaction, delay in communication or disconnection and ambiguity of sound were things that aroused dissatisfaction of audience. 0.8% cost of the webinar compare with a hypothetical in-person conference shows acceptable cost -effectiveness. 

 Both in the corona virus pandemic or the post-pandemic era, if the purpose of the educational program is to inform, increasing awareness and motivate the audience, conducting such a national webinar is optimal and recommended and increase equitable access to national experts.