This guide is intended for individuals and organizations interested in hosting online conferences. For the purposes of this guide, a host is the administrator or manager of a conferencing system and of the conferences held on that system. Eight sections cover the following important processes for hosting online conferences: (1) determining objectives; (2) assessing the computer system, including the host system and user systems; (3) selecting conferencing software, including sources of information, features to consider, and end-user features; (4) establishing conference site features and design, including conference registration and security, welcome messages, presenting important information/instructions, and resources; (5) planning conferences, including a literature review, formulating a preliminary plan, contracting moderators, partnering, guest presenters, and planning a conference series; (6) promoting conferences, including identifying and targeting the audience, channels of communication, content of promotional materials, timing of promotion, and response; (7) managing administration and support issues, including establishing the roles of the administrator and moderator, deleting/editing/moving messages, summaries, supporting the moderator, and supporting participants; and (8) determining post-conference considerations, including conference evaluation, feedback, useful statistics, qualitative analysis, and archiving conference proceedings. (AEF)