10.17037/DATA.00003485
Research data collected as part of a project to explore the differences in participant experience during online conferences relative to in-person conferences. It is comprised of [1] quantitative data outlining participant engagement with online training sessions held during the conference and [2] qualitative data collected through focus group discussions and in-depth interviews to understand participants' experiences of attending and participating in a conference online in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic.
Data was collected by the ANH Academy team for the purpose of understanding and facilitating the equitable and sustainable exchange of knowledge and research across disciplines, regions, and perspectives at the ANH Academy Conference 2021. The project collected information from Zoom videoconferencing data of participants session duration, chat box activity, and total number of sessions attended across a three day research conference. It was followed up with exploratory qualitative data collection in the form of focus group discussions and in-depth interviews to understand participants' experiences of attending and participating in a conference online in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic.
Quantitative data on training sessions that were held during the ANH Conference 2021 and attendee numbers for each session are made openly available. Limited information on characteristics of participants who attended training sessions will be made available upon request.
Qualitative data, consisting of anonymised quotes provided during interview and focus group discussions, will be made available upon request.
Access to anonymised data will be provided to researchers performing work related to the creation of more inclusive environments and enabling equitable participation when organising conference events. This does not necessarily have to include a comparison of different conference modes (online versus in-person) but rather participation in scientific events in general.
Quantitative data indicating participant engagement with online training sessions held during the ANH Academy Conference 2021. Table 1 provides information on the training sessions that were run during the conference and attendance figures.
| Variable name | Variable label | Answer label | Answer code | Variable type |
| Session | Session title | String | ||
| Agriculture and nutrition interventions | ||||
| Amitav Ghosh + Plenary discussion | ||||
| Aquatic and animal source foods | ||||
| Closing ceremony with prizes | ||||
| Cost and cost effectiveness of ANH programs and intervention | ||||
| Decolonising | ||||
| Diet quality, diet cost, and food security | ||||
| Environmental change, livelihoods and conflict | ||||
| Food environments: Global and local | ||||
| Food environments: Urban and rural | ||||
| Food policy and politics | ||||
| Impacts of COVID19 on food systems and food security | ||||
| Opening plenary | ||||
| Panel of perspectives: Priorities, power and evidence for "food systems transformation” | ||||
| Women's empowerment in agriculture and nutrition | ||||
| Daydate | Date on which the session took place (DD/MM/YYYY). | Date | ||
| 29 June 2021 | 29/06/2021 | |||
| 30 June 2021 | 30/06/2021 | |||
| 01 July 2021 | 01/07/2021 | |||
| Programslot | Program slot | Numeric | ||
| 01 to 08 | ||||
| type | Session type | String | ||
| Parallel | ||||
| Plenary | ||||
| session duration | Session duration in minutes | Numeric | ||
| 30 | ||||
| 75 | ||||
| 130 | ||||
| Actual Participants | The number of participants who attended the session | 30 to 226 | Numeric |
Table 2 (below) outlines anonymised information on the gender, location and other information of participants who attended the training sessions.
| Variable name | Variable label | Answer label | Answer code | Variable type |
| ID | Participant ID number | Numeric | ||
| Session | Session title | See above | String | |
| consent_zoom | Consent to Zoom data being used | String | ||
| Yes | ||||
| No | ||||
| Blank / Null | ||||
| consent_contact | Consent to be contacted for FGDs | String | ||
| Yes | ||||
| No | ||||
| Blank / Null | ||||
| gender | Participant gender | String | ||
| Female | ||||
| Male | ||||
| Prefer not to say | ||||
| location | Participant geographic location | String | ||
| Argentina | ||||
| Australia | ||||
| Austria | ||||
| Azerbaijan | ||||
| Bangladesh | ||||
| Belgium | ||||
| Brazil | ||||
| Bulgaria | ||||
| Burkina Faso | ||||
| Cambodia | ||||
| Cameroon | ||||
| Canada | ||||
| Chile | ||||
| China | ||||
| Colombia | ||||
| Congo (Brazzaville) | ||||
| Czech Republic | ||||
| Denmark | ||||
| Ecuador | ||||
| Egypt | ||||
| Ethiopia | ||||
| Finland | ||||
| France | ||||
| Gambia | ||||
| Germany | ||||
| Ghana | ||||
| Honduras | ||||
| Hong Kong S.A.R., China | ||||
| India | ||||
| Indonesia | ||||
| Ireland | ||||
| Italy | ||||
| Japan | ||||
| Kenya | ||||
| Lebanon | ||||
| Malawi | ||||
| Malaysia | ||||
| Myanmar | ||||
| Nepal | ||||
| Netherlands | ||||
| New Zealand | ||||
| Nigeria | ||||
| Norway | ||||
| Pakistan | ||||
| Peru | ||||
| Philippines | ||||
| Portugal | ||||
| Serbia | ||||
| Singapore | ||||
| South Africa | ||||
| South Korea | ||||
| Spain | ||||
| Sweden | ||||
| Tanzania | ||||
| Thailand | ||||
| Trinidad and Tobago | ||||
| Turkey | ||||
| Uganda | ||||
| United Kingdom | ||||
| United States | ||||
| Vietnam | ||||
| Zambia | ||||
| Zimbabwe | ||||
| wb | World Bank country income classification (FY2021) | String | ||
| No Data | ||||
| Low income | ||||
| Lower middle income | ||||
| Upper middle income | ||||
| High income | ||||
| career | Highest degree earned | String | ||
| Diploma | ||||
| Undergraduate | ||||
| Postgraduate | ||||
| Doctorate | ||||
| No Data | ||||
| Attendance (%) | Percentage of total session duration attended (averaged across total sessions attended) | Numeric | ||
| sessions | Number of sessions attended | 1 to 11 | Numeric | |
| Chat | Contributed to the Zoom chat box at least once over the conference | |||
| No | 0 | |||
| Yes | 1 | |||
| Total chat posts | Total number of chat posts across the conference | 0 to 16 | Numeric | |
| Discipline 1 | Primary academic/practitioner discipline | String | ||
| Agriculture (30) | ||||
| Economics (4161) | ||||
| Environment (4163) | ||||
| Food systems (4165) | ||||
| Geography (140) | ||||
| Nutrition (4162) | ||||
| Public health (4164) | ||||
| Social sciences (4166) | ||||
| Discipline 2 | Secondary academic/practitioner discipline | String | ||
| No additional discipline selected | 0 | |||
| Economics (4161) | ||||
| Environment (4163) | ||||
| Food systems (4165) | ||||
| Geography (140) | ||||
| Nutrition (4162) | ||||
| Public health (4164) | ||||
| Social sciences (4166) | ||||
| Discipline 3 | Tertiary academic/practitioner discipline | |||
| No additional discipline selected | 0 | |||
| Environment (4163) | ||||
| Food systems (4165) | ||||
| Geography (140) | ||||
| Nutrition (4162) | ||||
| Public health (4164) | ||||
| Social sciences (4166) | ||||
| volunteer | Volunteered during ANH2021 in at least one session | Numeric | ||
| No | 0 | |||
| Yes | 1 |
The dataset contains selected quotes provided in the focus group and individual in-depth interviews. Each column refers to specific topics/themes covered during the discussion.
| No. | Variable name | Variable label | Purpose |
| 1 | Participant demographics | Any mention of age, seniority, geographic location or origin, references to income status, or other influencing characteristics. | |
| 2 | Previous involvement with ANH | Whether the participant has attended or contributed to the organising of online or in-person ANH conferences, in which years, and in which countries. | |
| 3 | In-person vs online | Captures all direct comparisons between online versus in-person experience. | |
| 4 | Flexibility | Flexible arrangements of hybrid working, attending online, allowed by the online format. | Row 4-10 cover procedural/administrative concepts: these factors influence the breadth of participation |
| 5 | Attendance/retention or drop-out | Refers to the ability or inability to hold people's attention in sessions. | |
| 6 | Time-zones/Scheduling | Refers to participants geographic location at the time of connecting to ANH2021 and the influence of connecting across time-zones. | |
| 7 | Technology (issues and innovations) | Explanations of how technology hindered or enabled their participation and access to conference materials. | |
| 8 | Scale | Refers to the size of the conference, and how this changed with transition to online. | |
| 9 | Institutional permission | References to participants' institutional affiliations' expectations of continued work or time allowed away from work to attend conferences. | |
| 10 | Other obligations | These include family, care, commuting, and other obligations that conflict with attending the conference. | |
| 11 | Access and Equity | References to the equity, inclusion, and diversity of conferences with implications for changes in access to academic forums online. | Row 11 - 19 indicate the effects of widened participation, influence on a range of equity of access |
| 12 | Economic reasons | References to limited or increased access to funding for any aspect of conference attendance - online or in-person. | |
| 13 | Geo-political | Issues experienced across borders and owing to the hierarchies created between nation states or regions. | |
| 14 | Race | Mentions of how their perceived race or ethnicity affected their attendance or participation. | |
| 15 | Age | References to age-based differences in participation, such as with understanding and utilising novel technologies in the online format. | |
| 16 | Seniority | Refers to academic and career seniority, such as being early-career, or senior, and power dynamics or opportunities for networking and learning arise. | |
| 17 | Gender | Refers to gendered dynamics at the conference at in participants' personal lives. | |
| 18 | Language | Refers to language barriers in conference attendance. | |
| 19 | Climate Change | References to climate change as a concern, or an impacting factor in their participation of conferences. | |
| 20 | Home environment | Factors in the domestic space that influenced attendance, such as children, or limited access to quiet space. | Row 20-23 indicate Social and home environments, context of participation |
| 21 | Experiental | These capture references to the lived experience or emotional qualities of attending in-person versus online. | |
| 22 | Community | References to a sense of cohesion and support specific to the space fostered by the ANH Academy. | |
| 23 | Power dynamics | Experiences of power dynamics between participations across gender, seniority, race, ethnicity, or otherwise. | |
| 24 | Mental health | Statements relating to the effects to mental health of conferences, these included both positive (support during Covid-10 lock-down isolation) and negative (loss of in-person stimulating travel experiences online). | Row 24 - 31 indicate personality, cognitive capacity, cognitive processes involved in participation. |
| 25 | Active engagement | References to one's ability to engage in sessions with an intentional, participative, and continued attention with limited fatigue. | |
| 26 | Attention/Detatchment/Selective participation | The mirror to the above, this reflects limited ability to connect or feel engaged with conference content. | |
| 27 | Return to normal | Mentions of a 'post-Covid' life in which we return to business as usual without online components. | |
| 28 | Zoom Fatigue | The phenomenon of limited attention and increased fatigue with continued interactions through videoconferencing materials. | |
| 29 | Intention without action | This refers to a gap between a participant's intention or desires for the conference, and how they were able to participate in reality. | |
| 30 | Reluctance | Hesitation and reluctance to engage or participate in sessions or interact with other participants. | |
| 31 | Confidence | Ease and confidence to interact with participants through any means available in online or in-person. | |
| 32 | In-person engagement | References to face-to-face interactions. | Row 32 - 42 indicate Outcomes: from soft interactions to long-term collaborations and knowledge transfer. these are both the final objectives of a conference and the processes involved in achieving them. |
| 33 | Zoom chat | Explicit mentions of sharing information through the Zoom videoconferencing chat box functions. | |
| 34 | Informal interactions | References to serendipitous, unscheduled interactions with other participants. | |
| 35 | strengthening existing bonds (team or otherwise) | References to improved relationships, professional and informal friendships achieved through the conference. | |
| 36 | Accessing archival materials | This refers to engagement with materials made available on YouTube and the conference website after the date. | |
| 37 | Introduction to new work/researchers | Refers to networking within the conference. | |
| 38 | Skills and knowledge sharing | Refers to exchange of skills and knowledge, or the introduction to people who could share their skills in the future. | |
| 39 | Interdisciplinary learning | Learning across disciplines, or connecting to researchers for future work across disciplines. | |
| 40 | Collaborations/making connections | Includes actual collaborations borne of previous ANH Academy Weeks and connections made that seem promising for future collaborations or mentoring opportunities. | |
| 41 | Networking intention | This specifically refers to a participant's intention to make themselves available to network with others. | |
| 42 | Mentoring | Networking across seniority. |