Blog

Have you ever thought about making presentations that are accessible to everyone but don’t know where to start? Are you organizing a conference and care about making presentations more accessible but don’t know what to ask for? The winners of the accessibility awards at useR! 2021 shared their experience preparing accessible presentations for the first time. Check out this blog post and the complete interview to find out more!

The Latin America Community at useR! 2021

By Yanina Bellini Saibene, Claudia Alejandra Huaylla in useR!

November 26, 2021

One of the main goals of useR! 2021 edition was to have a global reach and increase the participation of people from regions and countries that generally have a minor participation in the conference. In this blog post we show you how the Latin American participation was from the point of view of people from the region. Data, data and more data As we are data people, let’s first take a look at some general data.

Prizes awarded during useR! 2021

By The UseR! 2021 Team in useR!

November 18, 2021

This year, there were awards for Early Career Researchers (students and postdocs), accessible presentations, and a Spotlight recognition to people behind the wheels of the R community. The Early Career Researchers awards had reviewers that evaluated presenters’ work and, for accessibility, the useR! 2021 Diversity Team reviewed all the presentations. The spotlight mentions were decided by popular vote during the conference. Early Career Awards Outstanding Technical Note: Balint Tamasi.

How to improve conference accessibility for screen-reader users—an interview with Liz Hare

By Rocío Joo, Silvia Canelón, Joselyn Chávez, Andrea Sánchez-Tapia in useR!

November 4, 2021

Do you remember meeting any people with sensory disabilities (e.g., blindness, deafness) at conferences? Have you ever wondered if online conference platforms are accessible for everyone? We talked to Liz Hare, a statistical geneticist who participated in the useR! 2021 organizing team, about conference accessibility. Liz is blind, uses screen reading software, and contributed significantly to the accessibility practices for the conference. We covered her experience with other conferences and their platforms, her accessibility work at useR!

Keep online option at conferences: it makes them more inclusive

By The UseR! 2021 Team in useR!

October 14, 2021

We worked hard to make an inclusive useR! 2021 for our diverse community and the virtual setting of the conference was fundamental in that purpose. We are proud of what we were able to achieve and happy about the lessons learned along the way. As the organizing team, we wrote a correspondence advocating for the continuation of online conferences as means to remove barriers for inclusion and it was recently published in Nature.