ABSTRACT
Introduction The Novel Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak forced social events to be cancelled, and academic meetings were no exception. This has increased the need for online seminars (webinars), although, lack of knowledge or experience for hosting such events were prominent. We, “Kansai Global Health”, began preparing a series of webinars from March 2020 under the theme “COVID-19 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)”. We hereby report our experience and tips on what hosts should bearing in mind for academic webinars. Our Event Participants of Kansai Global Health were required to register prior to the webinar on Google Forms, where characteristics of the participants were subsequently obtained. Zoom software was used to create a YouTube livestreaming video for viewing. An online questionnaire was used to obtain feedback from the participants. Data analysis of the livestreaming was conducted with YouTube Analytics. The cumulative total of participants was 2083. Most were Japanese residents, but 69 participants registered from overseas such as Tunisia and Zambia. The majority of the participants were health professionals, with some non-health professionals and students. 85.7% of the participants rated the webinar satisfaction above four on a scale out of five. Comments from the participants were mostly positive, while some participants claimed some errors of the host members prior to and during the webinar. Lessons Learnt The satisfaction of webinars consisted not only of the contents but also of the quality of the hosts. These accidents could be avoided, or kept under control, with thorough preparations and rehearsals of the hosts discussing possible protocols under such circumstances and making good use of communication tools such as message applications. Adequate hosting techniques are essential for feasible discussions online. Global health webinars should improve hosting skills, as well as its contents, to create a future platform to conduct fruitful discussions.