Fall 2020 Program Meeting

The 2020 Fall CTSA Program Meeting took place on November 17, 19 and 20, 2020, via GTR, a virtual event platform. CLIC conducted evaluations for the Administrators Meeting, the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Workforce Development, Collaboration and Engagement, Poster Session and Networking, and COVID-19 Response sessions as well as an evaluation for the overall Program Meeting.

A total of 617 individuals attended the Program Meeting. Participants who registered before attending were emailed an individualized survey link to complete the Program Meeting evaluation. Two reminders were sent to those who had not responded. A total of 145 responses were received from the 617 registered attendees, for a response rate of 23.5%. Registered attendees were asked questions about their overall experience attending the Program Group Meeting and to indicate which individual meetings they had attended. A total of 136 respondents indicated they attended the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion session, 116 respondents attended the Workforce Development session, 117 attended Advancing Collaboration and Engagement Session, 74 respondents the Networking and Poster session, and 103 respondents attended the COVID-19 Response session.

Session-specific public survey links were shared after every session through the GTR chat box. It is important to note that when attendees used the Zoom link, rather than remaining on the GTR platform, attendees no longer had easy access to chat, and may have never noticed the shared link. However, all session-specific public survey links were included in the two email reminders that were sent to all registered attendees. Questions addressed meeting content, expectations, future steps, and satisfaction with the virtual platform. These responses will be used in planning subsequent meetings. The 2020 evaluation differs from previous versions because of the change in overall virtual format. This updated version includes new or expanded questions to assess the experience of attending the Fall Program Meeting via GTR. A complete set of qualitative responses for the Fall CTSA Program Meeting is included in the appendix.

Quantitative responses were generally very positive, and indicated that the meeting met or exceeded attendees’ expectations. Overall, attendees were pleased with the content and structure of the meeting, as well as the presenters and speakers. Attendees were also satisfied with the meeting’s virtual platform, GTR. The platform’s chat feature, which allowed for discussion and interaction with others in attendance, received many positive reviews in particular. It is important to note that the comments gathered only came from a small portion of attendees. Taken from these comments, areas for improvement included increasing the allotted time for networking and discussions, allowing more time for lunches and breaks, and preparing breakout session topics and groups in advance. Other suggestions that appeared included the desire to discuss more concrete future steps and the wish for subsequent meetings to resume a face-to-face format.