Methods and Effectiveness of Virtual Scientific Outreach at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility

Due to the sanitary restrictions imposed by the global outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, scientific outreach at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility has recently been limited to that which can be performed virtually. In this presentation, several examples of virtual scientific outreach are discussed, ranging from social media highlights of current research to virtual reality tours to interactive workshops which took place via Zoom, and the effectiveness of each method is explored. For social media, effectiveness is measured via the standard metrics of the number of views, likes, comments, and shares per post, as well as unique followers per account. For methods such as virtual tours and workshops, the potential for interactivity and/or follow-up communication is considered, as well as the satisfaction of the audience with the content presented, which is measured via follow-up surveys after each event. These measures of outreach effectiveness are compared with the amount of resources each method requires, including time, manpower, and financial requirements, and the potential for re-use of any materials developed for this purpose.