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. 2021 Aug 20;10(8):giab051.
doi: 10.1093/gigascience/giab051.

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

Elizabeth Levitis  1   2 Cassandra D Gould van Praag  3   4 Rémi Gau  5 Stephan Heunis  6 Elizabeth DuPre  7 Gregory Kiar  8   9 Katherine L Bottenhorn  10 Tristan Glatard  11 Aki Nikolaidis  9 Kirstie Jane Whitaker  12 Matteo Mancini  13   14   15 Guiomar Niso  16   17 Soroosh Afyouni  18   19 Eva Alonso-Ortiz  20 Stefan Appelhoff  21 Aurina Arnatkeviciute  22 Selim Melvin Atay  23 Tibor Auer  24 Giulia Baracchini  25   26 Johanna M M Bayer  27   28 Michael J S Beauvais  29 Janine D Bijsterbosch  30 Isil P Bilgin  31 Saskia Bollmann  32 Steffen Bollmann  33   34 Rotem Botvinik-Nezer  35 Molly G Bright  36   37 Vince D Calhoun  38 Xiao Chen  39   40   41 Sidhant Chopra  22 Hu Chuan-Peng  42 Thomas G Close  43   44 Savannah L Cookson  45 R Cameron Craddock  46 Alejandro De La Vega  47 Benjamin De Leener  48   49 Damion V Demeter  47 Paola Di Maio  50   51 Erin W Dickie  52   53 Simon B Eickhoff  54   55 Oscar Esteban  56 Karolina Finc  57 Matteo Frigo  58 Saampras Ganesan  59   60 Melanie Ganz  61   62 Kelly G Garner  63   64   65 Eduardo A Garza-Villarreal  66 Gabriel Gonzalez-Escamilla  67 Rohit Goswami  68   69 John D Griffiths  70   71 Tijl Grootswagers  72 Samuel Guay  73 Olivia Guest  74 Daniel A Handwerker  75 Peer Herholz  7 Katja Heuer  76   77 Dorien C Huijser  78   79 Vittorio Iacovella  80 Michael J E Joseph  81 Agah Karakuzu  82   83 David B Keator  84 Xenia Kobeleva  85   86 Manoj Kumar  87 Angela R Laird  88 Linda J Larson-Prior  89   90   91 Alexandra Lautarescu  92   93 Alberto Lazari  94 Jon Haitz Legarreta  95 Xue-Ying Li  96   97   98   99 Jinglei Lv  100 Sina Mansour L  59   60 David Meunier  101 Dustin Moraczewski  102 Tulika Nandi  103 Samuel A Nastase  87 Matthias Nau  104   105 Stephanie Noble  106 Martin Norgaard  107   108 Johnes Obungoloch  109 Robert Oostenveld  110   111 Edwina R Orchard  22 Ana Luísa Pinho  112 Russell A Poldrack  113 Anqi Qiu  114   115 Pradeep Reddy Raamana  116 Ariel Rokem  117 Saige Rutherford  118   119 Malvika Sharan  12 Thomas B Shaw  32 Warda T Syeda  120 Meghan M Testerman  121 Roberto Toro  76   122 Sofie L Valk  54   55   123 Sofie Van Den Bossche  124 Gaël Varoquaux  112   125 František Váša  126 Michele Veldsman  127 Jakub Vohryzek  4   128 Adina S Wagner  55 Reubs J Walsh  129   130 Tonya White  131   132 Fu-Te Wong  133   134 Xihe Xie  135 Chao-Gan Yan  39   136   137 Yu-Fang Yang  138 Yohan Yee  139   140 Gaston E Zanitti  112 Ana E Van Gulick  141   142 Eugene Duff  3   143 Camille Maumet  144
Affiliations

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

Elizabeth Levitis et al. Gigascience. .

Abstract

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.

Keywords: collaborative events; diversity; inclusivity; online conferences; open science.

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Figures

Figure 1:
Figure 1:
Three steps (with recommendations) to improve the inclusivity of online conferences. (A) Unlock access. (B) Design for meaningful participation. (C) Embrace co-creation and open leadership. Image credits: Access CC-BY by Flatart, PK; Time CC-BY By Shmidt Sergey, US; cog CC-BY by John T. Garcia; Money CC-BY by By Verry, ID; localization CC-BY by By Juan Pablo Bravo, CL; leadership Public Domain by Iconathon, US; welcome CC-BY Gan Khoon Lay; Safety CC-BY Adrien Coquet, FR; opportunity CC-BY NithinanTatah, TH; co-creation CC-BY monkik; input CC-BY Prithvi; equality CB-BY Nicole Hammonds, US; leadership CC-BY Life Skill Collection; all images from the Noun Project.
Figure 2:
Figure 2:
Three time zone hubs for global accessibility: Asia Pacific; Africa, Europe, and Middle East; and the Americas. The coloured bars represent the schedule range of each hub in 6 representative time zones. For each time zone, a blue box indicates the timing corresponding to the recommended hub. For example, researchers based in New Zealand (NZST) can attend hub 1 during 14:00–18:00 (local time). They will be joined in this hub by researchers from Bangladesh (BST) for whom the content will happen 8:00–12:00 (local time). The green dashed rectangles cover typical working hours, which often fall within the 8:00–18:00 range. The 3 time zone hubs make it possible to schedule 4 hours of content each day while remaining within typical working hours for nearly all time zones. NZST: New Zealand Standard Time (UTC+12); BST: Bangladesh Standard Time (UTC+6); PST: Pakistan Standard Time (UTC+5); GMT: Greenwich Mean Time (UTC+0); BRT: Brasília Time (UTC−3); AKDT: Alaska Daylight Time (UTC−8).

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