TY - JOUR

T1 - Centering inclusivity in the design of online conferences - An OHBM-Open Science perspective

AU - Levitis, Elizabeth

AU - van Praag, Cassandra D Gould

AU - Gau, Rémi

AU - Heunis, Stephan

AU - DuPre, Elizabeth

AU - Kiar, Gregory

AU - Bottenhorn, Katherine L

AU - Glatard, Tristan

AU - Nikolaidis, Aki

AU - Whitaker, Kirstie Jane

AU - Mancini, Matteo

AU - Niso, Guiomar

AU - Afyouni, Soroosh

AU - Alonso-Ortiz, Eva

AU - Appelhoff, Stefan

AU - Arnatkeviciute, Aurina

AU - Atay, Selim Melvin

AU - Auer, Tibor

AU - Baracchini, Giulia

AU - Bayer, Johanna M M

AU - Beauvais, Michael J S

AU - Bijsterbosch, Janine D

AU - Bilgin, Isil P

AU - Bollmann, Saskia

AU - Bollmann, Steffen

AU - Botvinik-Nezer, Rotem

AU - Bright, Molly G

AU - Calhoun, Vince D

AU - Chen, Xiao

AU - Chopra, Sidhant

AU - Chuan-Peng, Hu

AU - Close, Thomas G

AU - Cookson, Savannah L

AU - Craddock, R Cameron

AU - De La Vega, Alejandro

AU - De Leener, Benjamin

AU - Demeter, Damion V

AU - Di Maio, Paola

AU - Dickie, Erin W

AU - Eickhoff, Simon B

AU - Esteban, Oscar

AU - Finc, Karolina

AU - Frigo, Matteo

AU - Ganesan, Saampras

AU - Ganz, Melanie

AU - Garner, Kelly G

AU - Garza-Villarreal, Eduardo A

AU - Gonzalez-Escamilla, Gabriel

AU - Goswami, Rohit

AU - Griffiths, John D

AU - Grootswagers, Tijl

AU - Guay, Samuel

AU - Guest, Olivia

AU - Handwerker, Daniel A

AU - Herholz, Peer

AU - Heuer, Katja

AU - Huijser, Dorien C

AU - Iacovella, Vittorio

AU - Joseph, Michael J E

AU - Karakuzu, Agah

AU - Keator, David B

AU - Kobeleva, Xenia

AU - Kumar, Manoj

AU - Laird, Angela R

AU - Larson-Prior, Linda J

AU - Lautarescu, Alexandra

AU - Lazari, Alberto

AU - Legarreta, Jon Haitz

AU - Lv, Jinglei

AU - Mansour L, Sina

AU - Meunier, David

AU - Moraczewski, Dustin

AU - Nandi, Tulika

AU - Nastase, Samuel A

AU - Nau, Matthias

AU - Noble, Stephanie

AU - Norgaard, Martin

AU - Obungoloch, Johnes

AU - Oostenveld, Robert

AU - Orchard, Edwina R

AU - Pinho, Ana Luísa

AU - Poldrack, Russell A

AU - Qiu, Anqi

AU - Raamana, Pradeep Reddy

AU - Rokem, Ariel

AU - Rutherford, Saige

AU - Sharan, Malvika

AU - Shaw, Thomas B

AU - Syeda, Warda T

AU - Testerman, Meghan M

AU - Toro, Roberto

AU - Valk, Sofie L

AU - Van Den Bossche, Sofie

AU - Varoquaux, Gaël

AU - Váša, František

AU - Veldsman, Michele

AU - Vohryzek, Jakub

AU - Wagner, Adina S

AU - Walsh, Reubs J

AU - White, Tonya

AU - Wong, Fu-Te

AU - Xie, Xihe

AU - Yan, Chao-Gan

AU - Yang, Yu-Fang

AU - Yee, Yohan

AU - Zanitti, Gaston E

AU - Van Gulick, Ana E

AU - Duff, Eugene

AU - Maumet, Camille

N1 - © The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of GigaScience. 2021.

PY - 2021

Y1 - 2021

N2 - As the global health crisis unfolded, many academic conferences moved online in 2020. This move has been hailed as a positive step towards inclusivity in its attenuation of economic, physical, and legal barriers and effectively enabled many individuals from groups that have traditionally been underrepresented to join and participate. A number of studies have outlined how moving online made it possible to gather a more global community and has increased opportunities for individuals with various constraints, e.g., caregiving responsibilities. Yet, the mere existence of online conferences is no guarantee that everyone can attend and participate meaningfully. In fact, many elements of an online conference are still significant barriers to truly diverse participation: the tools used can be inaccessible for some individuals; the scheduling choices can favour some geographical locations; the set-up of the conference can provide more visibility to well-established researchers and reduce opportunities for early-career researchers. While acknowledging the benefits of an online setting, especially for individuals who have traditionally been underrepresented or excluded, we recognize that fostering social justice requires inclusivity to actively be centered in every aspect of online conference design. Here, we draw from the literature and from our own experiences to identify practices that purposefully encourage a diverse community to attend, participate in, and lead online conferences. Reflecting on how to design more inclusive online events is especially important as multiple scientific organizations have announced that they will continue offering an online version of their event when in-person conferences can resume.

AB - As the global health crisis unfolded, many academic conferences moved online in 2020. This move has been hailed as a positive step towards inclusivity in its attenuation of economic, physical, and legal barriers and effectively enabled many individuals from groups that have traditionally been underrepresented to join and participate. A number of studies have outlined how moving online made it possible to gather a more global community and has increased opportunities for individuals with various constraints, e.g., caregiving responsibilities. Yet, the mere existence of online conferences is no guarantee that everyone can attend and participate meaningfully. In fact, many elements of an online conference are still significant barriers to truly diverse participation: the tools used can be inaccessible for some individuals; the scheduling choices can favour some geographical locations; the set-up of the conference can provide more visibility to well-established researchers and reduce opportunities for early-career researchers. While acknowledging the benefits of an online setting, especially for individuals who have traditionally been underrepresented or excluded, we recognize that fostering social justice requires inclusivity to actively be centered in every aspect of online conference design. Here, we draw from the literature and from our own experiences to identify practices that purposefully encourage a diverse community to attend, participate in, and lead online conferences. Reflecting on how to design more inclusive online events is especially important as multiple scientific organizations have announced that they will continue offering an online version of their event when in-person conferences can resume.

U2 - 10.1093/gigascience/giab051

DO - 10.1093/gigascience/giab051

M3 - Review

C2 - 34414422

VL - 10

SP - 1

EP - 14

JO - GigaScience

JF - GigaScience

SN - 2047-217X

IS - 8

ER -