When international academic conferences go virtual.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Falk MT
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7676402 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
When international academic conferences go virtual.
Falk Martin Thomas MT Hagsten Eva E
Scientometrics 20201119 1
This study investigates the extent to which international academic conferences changes format to virtual when faced by sudden Covid-19 related immobility. Data on 587 conferences in the fields of business, economics, information technology, management and other social sciences that were planned to be held between March and August 2020 are retrieved from authorised conference listings. Approximately 28% of the conferences changed to virtual format during the period of time studied. Probit estimat ...[more]
Similar Datasets
Project description:We consider the opportunities and challenges associated with organizing a conference online, using a case study of a medium-sized (approx. 400 participants) international conference held virtually in August 2020. In addition, we present quantifiable evidence of the participants' experience using the results from an online post-conference questionnaire. Although the virtual meeting was not able to replicate the in-person experience in some aspects (e.g. less engagement between participants) the overwhelming majority of respondents found the meeting an enjoyable experience and would join similar events again. Notably, there was a strong desire for future in-person meetings to have at least some online component. Online attendance by lower-income researchers was higher compared with a past, similar-themed in-person meeting held in a high-income nation, but comparable to one held in an upper-middle-income nation. This indicates that online conferences are not a panacea for diversity and inclusivity, and that holding in-person meetings in developing economies can be at least as effective. Given that it is now relatively easy to stream contents of meetings online using low-cost methods, there are clear benefits in making all presented content accessible online, as well as organizing online networking events for those unable to attend in person.
| S-EPMC8527193 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Women are under-represented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Despite the recent emphasis on diversity in STEM, our understanding of what drives differences between women and men scientists remains limited. This, in turn, limits our ability to intervene to level the playing field. To quantify the representation and participation of women and men at academic meetings in human genetics, we developed high-throughput and crowd-sourced approaches focused on question-asking behavior. Question asking is one voluntary and self-initiated scientific activity we can measure. Here we report that women ask fewer questions than expected regardless of their representation in talk audiences. We present evidence that external barriers affect the representation of women in STEM. However, differences in question-asking behavior suggest that internal factors also impact women's participation. We then examine the effects of specific interventions and show that wide public discussion of the relative under-participation of women in question-and-answer sessions alters question-asking behavior. We suggest that engaging the community in such projects promotes visibility of diversity issues at academic meetings and allows for efficient data collection that can be used to further explore and understand differences in conference participation.
| S-EPMC6612753 | biostudies-literature
Project description: Not available
| S-EPMC11341993 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Scientific conferences have an important role in the exchange of ideas and knowledge within the scientific community. Conferences also provide early-career researchers with opportunities to make themselves known within their field of research. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has brought traditional in-person conferences to a halt for the foreseeable future, the growth of virtual conferences has highlighted many of the disadvantages associated with the in-person format and demonstrated the advantages of moving these events online. Here, based on data from in-person and virtual conferences in a range of subjects, we describe how virtual conferences are more inclusive, more affordable, less time-consuming and more accessible worldwide, especially for early-career researchers. Making conferences more open and inclusive will provide both immediate and long-term benefits to the scientific community.
| S-EPMC7641586 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The importance of participation in academic conferences is well known for members of the scientific community. It is not only for the feedback and the improvement of the work, it is also about career development, building networks and increasing visibility. Nevertheless, women continue to be under-represented in these academic events and even more so in the most visible positions such as speaking roles. This paper presents the development of a tool based on performance indicators, which will allow monitoring and evaluating gender roles and inequalities in academic conferences in order to tackle the underrepresentation of women. The study identifies relevant perspectives (participation, organizational structure and attitudes) and designs specific lists of performance indicators for each of them. The tool is based on a combination of two multicriteria techniques, Analytic Hierarchy Process and Analytic Hierarchy Process Sort, and a qualitative analysis based on in-depth interviews and information gathered from a focus group. The use of the AHP multi-criteria decision technique has allowed us to weight the indicators according to the opinion of several experts, and with them to be able to generate from these weightings composite indicators for each of the three dimensions. The most relevant indicators were for the participation dimension. Additionally, the tool developed has been applied to an academic conference which has been monitored in real time. The results are shown as a traffic light visualization approach, where red means bad performance, yellow average performance and green good performance, helping us to present the results for each indicator. Finally, proposals for improvement actions addressed to the red indicators are explained. The work carried out highlights the need to broaden the study of gender equality in academic conferences, not only regarding the participation but also the performance of different roles and functions.
| S-EPMC7721142 | biostudies-literature
Project description:PurposeIn the current COVID-19 pandemic, it is more important than ever to maximize communication in the scientific and medical community. In the context of academic meetings and conferences, there is the growing need for a set of guidelines secondary to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the growing environmental and economic challenges that large academic and medical conferences face. These Virtual Meetings Best Practices were established in response to the scant evidence and guidance on the topic.MethodsThese best practice guidelines were developed from a scoping review of peer-reviewed literature, grey literature and lay literature. MEDLINE and Embase databases were scoped for relevant, non-duplicate articles. For lay articles, Google searches were utilized. The recommendations that comprise this document are a compilation of nonexperimental descriptive studies (e.g. case studies) and expert committee reports, opinions and/or experience of respected authorities, and lay articles.ResultsWe identified four phases of the meeting cycle: Pre-planning considerations, Planning, Accomplishing conference goals through execution, gauging Response and Engaging the target audience for future cycles (PrePARE). Akin to the Plan, Do, Study, Act Cycle of quality improvement interventions, this document is meant to drive meaningful initial and subsequent interventions in the meetings of the medical and academic community. This covers actions and preparation for registration, scheduling, speakers, attendees, event type, technology, monetization/marketing, dealing with disruptions, post-event deliverables, response and engagement strategies. Enhanced access to integrated, high-quality and efficient virtual meetings will establish a new norm as an effective alternative for innovative health research, education and information dissemination in orthopaedics and beyond.ConclusionsGiven the uncertainty of whether large in-person gatherings will be permitted, advisable or responsible later into the summer of 2020 and beyond, these guidelines will aid events being converted and scheduled as virtual-only meetings. As we move forward in the era of increased utility and utilization of virtual conferencing, these guidelines will serve as a benchmark and standard for surgeons in the field.
| S-EPMC7244398 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The advancement of science and evidence-based solutions for planetary health increasingly require interdisciplinary and international learning and sharing. Yet aviation travel to academic conferences is carbon-intensive and expensive, thus perpetuating planetary health and equity challenges. Using data from five annual international Agriculture, Nutrition and Health Academy Week conferences from 2016 to 2020, we explore whether moving to virtual conferencing produced co-benefits for climate, participation, attendee interaction, and satisfaction. We report on: absolute number of attendees, proportion of attendees from countries of different income levels, number of participants at social events, aviation CO2 emissions, and overall ratings of the event by participants. Transitioning online resulted in large reductions in travel-related aviation CO2 emissions, alongside increased attendance-including among attendees from low-income and middle-income countries. This was achieved without a major change in the participant rating of the event. However, the online format resulted in lower participation in conference social events. The urgency of reducing CO2 emissions in pursuit of planetary health and improving equity in scientific exchange requires new modalities of academic conferencing. This study indicates that co-benefits can be achieved when transitioning online. Challenges exist for virtual events, such as emulating the intangible facets of in-person interactions, overcoming time-zone limitations, and digital divides.
| S-EPMC8850368 | biostudies-literature
Project description:ImportanceWomen in medicine have been underrepresented at medical conferences; however, contributing factors have not been well studied.ObjectiveTo examine the distribution of invited conference speakers by gender and factors associated with representation of women as speakers.Design, setting, and participantsThis cross-sectional analysis used medical conference programs from March 2017 to November 2018 across 20 specialties in 5 regions (Australasia, Canada, Europe, the UK, and the US) that were obtained online or from conference conveners.ExposuresGender of invited lecturers, panelists, and planning committee members for each conference based on name or picture and publicly available data on compositions of specialties by gender for included regions.Main outcomes and measuresOutcomes included the proportion of female speakers (invited lecturers and panelists), the number of single-gender panels, and the proportion of female speakers compared with the specialties' gender composition. Correlations between the gender composition of conference planning committees and the proportion of female speakers were assessed. Multivariable regression models were used to evaluate factors independently associated with the proportion of female speakers at conferences.ResultsA total of 8535 sessions (panels and invited lectures) with 23 440 speakers across 98 conferences were identified. Women accounted for 7064 (30.1%) of speakers; 1981 of 5409 panels (36.6%) consisted of men only, and 363 (6.7%) consisted of women only. The proportion of women speakers varied by region and specialty from 5.8% to 74.5%. In general, specialties with low baseline proportions of women (<20%) had a ratio of female speakers to female specialists greater than 1, whereas specialties with high baseline proportions of women (>40%) had a ratio of female speakers to female specialists less that 1. There was a strong positive correlation between the proportion of women on planning committees and conference representation of female speakers (r = 0.67; P < .001). The association remained statistically significant after controlling for other variables, including the regional gender balance of the specialty (odds ratio, 1.10; 95% CI, 1.04-1.15; P < .001 for every 10% increase in the proportion of women on the planning committee).Conclusions and relevanceIn this cross-sectional study, the proportion of female speakers at medical conferences was lower than that of male speakers, and more than one-third of panels were composed of men only. Increasing the number of women on planning committees may help address gender inequities.
| S-EPMC7522699 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Every year since 2000, Academic Emergency Medicine (AEM) has presented a one-day consensus conference to generate a research agenda for advancement of a scientific topic. One of the 12 annual issues of AEM is reserved for the proceedings of these conferences. The purpose of this study was to measure academic productivity of these conferences by evaluating subsequent federal research funding received by authors of conference manuscripts and calculating citation counts of conference papers.This was a cross-sectional study. In 2012, the NIH RePORTER system was searched to identify subsequent federal funding obtained by authors of the consensus conference issues from 2000 to 2010. Funded projects were coded as related or unrelated to conference topic. Citation counts for all conference manuscripts were quantified using Scopus and Google Scholar. Simple descriptive statistics were reported.Eight hundred fifty-two individual authors contributed to 280 papers published in the 11 consensus conference issues. One hundred thirty-seven authors (16%) obtained funding for 318 projects. A median of 22 topic-related projects per conference (range 10-97) accounted for a median of $20,488,331 per conference (range $7,779,512 to $122,918,205). The average (± SD) number of citations per paper was 15.7 ± 20.5 in Scopus and 23.7 ± 32.6 in Google Scholar.The authors of consensus conference manuscripts obtained significant federal grant support for follow-up research related to conference themes. In addition, the manuscripts generated by these conferences were frequently cited. Conferences devoted to research agenda development appear to be an academically worthwhile endeavor.
| S-EPMC4018650 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundDue to the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic, conventional face-to-face academic conferences have been restricted, and many of these conferences have moved onto the internet.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to investigate the virtual conferences in the field of urology during the COVID-19 pandemic and provide suggestions for better organization of such conferences.MethodsA cross-sectional survey was conducted from May 30 to June 15, 2020, in China. Our team designed a 23-item questionnaire to investigate the conferences attended by urologists during the COVID-19 pandemic. SPSS 22.0 (IBM Corporation) was applied to analyze the data collected.ResultsA total of 330 Chinese urologists participated in our survey, and the response rate was 89.7% (330/368). Among the participants, 40.9% (135/330) were associate chief physicians. The proportion of participants who took part in conventional face-to-face academic conferences decreased from 92.7% (306/330) before the COVID-19 pandemic to 22.1% (73/330) during the pandemic (P<.001). In contrast, the proportion of urologists who took part in virtual conferences increased from 69.4% (229/330) to 90% (297/330) (P<.001). Most urologists (70.7%, 210/297) chose to participate in the virtual conferences at home and thought that a meeting length of 1-2 hours was most appropriate. Among the urologists, 73.7% (219/297) reported that their participation in the virtual conferences went smoothly, while the remaining respondents reported that they had experienced lags in video and audio streaming during the virtual conferences. When comparing conventional face-to-face conferences with virtual conferences, 70.7% (210/297) of the respondents thought that both conference formats were acceptable, while 17.9% (53/297) preferred virtual conferences and 11.5% (34/297) preferred conventional face-to-face meetings.ConclusionsVirtual conferences are increasing in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic; however, many aspects of these conferences could be improved for better organization.
| S-EPMC8061892 | biostudies-literature