The evidence synthesis and meta-analysis in R conference (ESMARConf ): levelling the playing field of conference accessibility and equitability

Haddaway, N.R., Bannach-Brown, A., Grainger, M.J., Hamilton, W.K., Hennessy, E.A., Keenan, C., Pritchard, C.C. ORCID: 0000-0002-1143-9751 and Stojanova, J., 2022. The evidence synthesis and meta-analysis in R conference (ESMARConf ): levelling the playing field of conference accessibility and equitability. Systematic Reviews, 11 (1): 113. ISSN 2046-4053

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Abstract

Rigorous evidence is vital in all disciplines to ensure efficient, appropriate, and fit-for-purpose decision-making with minimised risk of unintended harm. To date, however, disciplines have been slow to share evidence synthesis frameworks, best practices, and tools amongst one another. Recent progress in collaborative digital and programmatic frameworks, such as the free and Open Source software R, have significantly expanded the opportunities for development of free-to-use, incrementally improvable, community driven tools to support evidence synthesis (e.g. EviAtlas, robvis, PRISMA2020 flow diagrams and metadat). Despite this, evidence synthesis (and meta-analysis) practitioners and methodologists who make use of R remain relatively disconnected from one another. Here, we report on a new virtual conference for evidence synthesis and meta-analysis in the R programming environment (ESMARConf) that aims to connect these communities. By designing an entirely free and online conference from scratch, we have been able to focus efforts on maximising accessibility and equity—making these core missions for our new community of practice. As a community of practice, ESMARConf builds on the success and groundwork of the broader R community and systematic review coordinating bodies (e.g. Cochrane), but fills an important niche. ESMARConf aims to maximise accessibility and equity of participants across regions, contexts, and social backgrounds, forging a level playing field in a digital, connected, and online future of evidence synthesis. We believe that everyone should have the same access to participation and involvement, and we believe ESMARConf provides a vital opportunity to push for equitability across disciplines, regions, and personal situations.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Systematic Reviews
Creators:	Haddaway, N.R., Bannach-Brown, A., Grainger, M.J., Hamilton, W.K., Hennessy, E.A., Keenan, C., Pritchard, C.C. and Stojanova, J.
Publisher:	BioMed Central
Date:	3 June 2022
Volume:	11
Number:	1
ISSN:	2046-4053
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1186/s13643-022-01985-6 DOI 1551175 Other
Rights:	© The Author(s) 2022. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Laura Ward
Date Added:	09 Jun 2022 15:01
Last Modified:	09 Jun 2022 15:01
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/46429

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