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Centering inclusivity in the design of online conferences—An OHBM–Open Science perspective
Author(s) -
Elizabeth Levitis,
Cassandra Gould van Praag,
Rémi Gau,
Stephan Heunis,
Elizabeth DuPré,
Gregory Kiar,
Katherine L. Bottenhorn,
Tristan Glatard,
Aki Nikolaidis,
Kirstie Whitaker,
Matteo Mancini,
Guiomar Niso,
Soroosh Afyouni,
Eva AlonsoOrtiz,
Stefan Appelhoff,
Aurina Arnatkevičiūtė,
Melvin Selim Atay,
Tibor Auer,
Giulia Baracchini,
Johanna Bayer,
Michael J. S. Beauvais,
Janine Bijsterbosch,
Isil Poyraz Bilgin,
Saskia Bollmann,
Steffen Bollmann,
Rotem BotvinikNezer,
Molly G. Bright,
Vince D. Calhoun,
Xiao Chen,
Sidhant Chopra,
Hu Chuan-Peng,
Thomas G. Close,
Savannah L. Cookson,
R. Cameron Craddock,
Alejandro de la Vega,
Benjamin De Leener,
Damion V. Demeter,
Paola Di Maio,
Erin W. Dickie,
Simon B. Eickhoff,
Oscar Estéban,
Karolina Finc,
Matteo Frigo,
Saampras Ganesan,
Melanie Ganz,
Kelly Garner,
Eduardo A. GarzaVillarreal,
Gabriel GonzálezEscamilla,
Rohit Goswami,
John D. Griffiths,
Tijl Grootswagers,
Samuel Guay,
Olivia Guest,
Daniel A. Handwerker,
Peer Herholz,
Katja Heuer,
Dorien Huijser,
Vittorio Iacovella,
Michael Joseph,
Agâh Karakuzu,
David B. Keator,
Xenia Kobeleva,
Manoj Kumar,
Angela R. Laird,
Linda LarsonPrior,
Alexandra Lautarescu,
Alberto Lazari,
Jon Haitz Legarreta,
Xueying Li,
Jinglei Lv,
Sina Mansour L.,
David Meunier,
Dustin Moraczewski,
Tulika Nandi,
Samuel A. Nastase,
Matthias Nau,
Stephanie Noble,
Martin Nørgaard,
Johnes Obungoloch,
Robert Oostenveld,
Edwina R. Orchard,
Ana Lúısa Pinho,
Russell A. Poldrack,
Anqi Qiu,
Pradeep Reddy Raamana,
Ariel Rokem,
Saige Rutherford,
Malvika Sharan,
Thomas B. Shaw,
Warda Syeda,
Meghan Testerman,
Roberto Toro,
Sofie L. Valk,
Sofie Van Den Bossche,
Gaël Varoquaux,
František Váša,
Michele Veldsman,
Jakub Vohryzek,
Adina Wagner,
Reubs J. Walsh,
Tonya White,
Fu-Te Wong,
Xihe Xie,
ChaoGan Yan,
Yufang Yang,
Yohan Yee,
Gaston Zanitti,
Ana E. Van Gulick,
Eugene Duff,
Camille Maumet
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
gigascience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.947
H-Index - 54
ISSN - 2047-217X
DOI - 10.1093/gigascience/giab051
Subject(s) - public relations , set (abstract data type) , online community , social media , perspective (graphical) , political science , sociology , engineering ethics , computer science , world wide web , engineering , programming language , artificial intelligence
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.

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