Organizing Facilitated Poster Discussion Sessions: Their Inspiration, Planning, and Implementation at the C*Sci2023 Conference

Abstract

The C*Sci 2023 conference, held by the Association for the Advancement of Participatory Sciences (AAPS; until 2024 known as the Citizen Science Association) in Tempe, Arizona in May 2023, aimed to bring those involved in participatory science together in person for the first time in four years. To respond to feedback from attendees of past AAPS conferences, the conference planning committee developed facilitated discussion sessions along common themes to allow for more opportunity for conversation among poster presenters and participants. In these sessions, poster presenters delivered 2–3-minute talks followed by panel presentations and then small group discussions, primarily using the Conversation Café model. During the abstract submission process, two-thirds of respondents expressed interest in participating in a session of this type. Ultimately, there were 14 discussion sessions with 61 individual presenters and a facilitator in each. A post-conference survey revealed that while conference attendees were unsure of what to expect prior to these sessions, a majority of respondents felt that these sessions enhanced engagement with posters and provided more meaningful opportunities for actionable takeaways from conversations. As this was the implementation of a new session type, several challenges were faced from the execution of these sessions. These included facilitator confusion with the model used and inadequate facilitator training, as well as the timing of these sessions during the conference, and difficulty in collecting session notes. This report expands on the development and deployment of these sessions, as well as reflections after their implementation and suggestions for future conferences.

Keywords

• discussion sessions
• conferences
• participatory science