Author: Carolina Odman
Affiliation: Inter-University Institute for Data-Intensive Astronomy, University of the Western Cape
Country: South Africa
Co-Author(s): Sarah Kendrew
Affiliation: European Space Agency, Space Telescope Science Institute
Country: United States of America
Title: Scientific and cultural impact of a decade of .Astronomy conferences
The growth of internet technologies and access to powerful computing infrastructure has catalysed a fundamental shift in how we carry out scientific research. This influence extends to scientific communication within our fields, to students and to broader audiences. Motivated by this technologically-driven transformation, the .Astronomy conference series (pronounced “dot Astronomy”) started in 2008. The series has always focused on building an inclusive and diverse community of practitioners with an interest to innovate our practice – from research infrastructure to the culture of the profession; from scholarly communication to public engagement. .Astronomy pioneered programme structures like unconferences and hack events in astronomy, and adopted algorithmically-supported participant selection to maximise diversity in nationality, origin, career stage and gender[1]. In 2017 after the 9th conference in the series, a survey on the experience of past participants was conducted to gain insight into the impact of .Astronomy on the community. A high fraction of participants reported that their participation in .Astronomy has resulted in new ideas and inspiration (90%), and has impacted their day-to-day work (67%). In particular, the majority of participants identifying as a minority reported having gained confidence in their skills and abilities. We break down the findings of the survey by gender and minority populations and discuss the role of conferences like .Astronomy in promoting diversity the field.
References
[1]: D. Huppenkothen. Entrofy: Participant Selection Made Easy. In Python in Astronomy 2016, page 24, March 2016.