The organisers of OpenCon, a global community and conference series that aims to empower the next generation to advance openness in research and education, has released a report focused on minimising barriers to participation in conferences that convene academic communities. The report includes relevant lessons learned in organising the first three OpenCon global conferences, a conference planning checklist based on those learnings, and a self-assessment of OpenCon's global meetings to date. The report is available at https://bit.ly/opencondeireport.
The OpenCon Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Report was created to keep OpenCon—and its commitments and values—transparent and accountable to the community, while raising the visibility of these issues for other conference organisers. The report seeks to spark a conversation about how academic communities can be more diverse, equitable and inclusive, starting with the spaces where communities convene in person. These issues have been identified as fundamental by the next generation of academic professionals working to open up research and education through the OpenCon community.
The report covers decisions around choosing venues, minimising financial barriers, ensuring that voices from underrepresented and marginalized groups are prioritized and heard, and more. The document draws on lessons learned from planning OpenCon as well as external resources on accessible event planning. The report also includes detailed demographic data on OpenCon's participants, speakers, and organising committees, as well as a self-assessment based on that data.
The report is intended to be a living digital document and has been posted online using GitHub, where anyone is welcome to provide feedback, contributions, corrections, or additions. The digital version of the report is available at https://sparcopen.github.io/opencon-dei-report/ and details on how to contribute can be found at: https://github.com/sparcopen/opencon-dei-report/blob/master/Contributing.md.
OpenCon's 2017 global conference will take place in Berlin on November 11-13, and attendance is by application only. This year's application process will remain open until August 1st at 11:59pm U.S. Pacific Time. The application to attend OpenCon 2017 is available at www.opencon2017.org/apply.
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