InSight Initiative: Summit 6
Moving toward Equitable Health Sciences Knowledge Sharing – Dissemination
The May 4-6, 2021, summit was the latest installment in the ongoing MLA InSight Initiative. Participants in the October 2020 Fall Forum played a critical role in determining the transformational opportunity that was the focus of this Summit, which brought together librarians and health information providers to begin collaborating on Moving toward Equitable Health Sciences Knowledge Sharing. Throughout the course of this Summit, participants focused on delivering a tangible outcome, the work for which was informed by speakers, panelists, and experts in the field. The Summit centered on Dissemination with a focus on whiteness in publishing. For more information about this initiative—including objectives, outcomes, guidelines, and task force members—please consult the InSight Initiative home page.
Detailed Summit 6 information:
Moving toward Equitable Health Sciences Knowledge Sharing
Summit 6 is an energized continuation of the Fall Forum’s thought leadership and ideation with a focus on achieving important results for the health information community. In order to move toward equitable health sciences knowledge sharing, participants will work in small groups to deliver one of three tangible outcomes:
- Engage deans and academic administrators to draft a new framework/campaign for more inclusive and equitable promotion and tenure guidelines that emphasize alternative measures of impact and knowledge creation and sharing.
- Create a marketing communications campaign to highlight the key elements and availability of toolkits that address equity, diversity, information literacy, disinformation, access, and other topics important to scholarly health communications.
- Engage journalists to develop a platform, set of guidelines, or another agreed upon resource that can be used to improve the quality of scientific information in mainstream and social media, with specific attention paid information literacy and access disparities.
Summit 6 will encourage participants to approach these outcomes through the lens of Dissemination, with a focus on whiteness in publishing.
Anticipated Outcomes
As with previous InSight Initiative cycles, this summit aims to contribute a body of tangible intellectual property that is widely available to librarians, health information providers, and others involved in scholarly communications to address inequities in health sciences knowledge sharing and promote best practices among key stakeholders.
Dates
May 4-6, 2021, times 11 am – 4 pm CDT all three days
This meeting took place virtually, using Zoom.
Summit Participants
MLA plans for balanced representation of librarian leaders and participating organizations. This sixth Summit will convene 20 librarians and 20 participating organization representatives.
Librarian Participants
Librarian participants are chosen through an application process as detailed below. Before applying, applicants should be aware of the following:
- There is no fee for librarian participants.
- There are a limited number of available spots (20) for librarian participants. A cornerstone of InSight is equal representation of librarians and representatives from participating health information provider organizations.
- MLA seeks a wide range of voices and experiences to share and engage in productive conversations around equity in health sciences knowledge. Applicants will be asked to provide information that will help MLA bring together a diverse participant group.
- In selecting librarians for participation, MLA strives to include diverse voices and diverse expertise in the summit. Therefore, selection of participants is based not solely on individual expertise, but also on what’s needed to form the most representative cross section of librarians.
Participating Organizations in Summit 6
Participating organizations sponsor the InSight Initiative and send two representatives, chosen by each organization, to participate in the Summits. InSight would not be possible without the support of their fiscal and human resources. MLA is grateful to the following participating organizations for sponsoring the 2021-22 InSight Summit Cycle:
- New England Journal of Medicine
- Wolters Kluwer
- McGraw Hill
- JAMA
- Annual Reviews
- BMJ
Organizations interested in participating should contact Sabrina Sheth, who is responsible for recruiting of participating organization for the MLA InSight Initiative; 703.442.2079.
All InSight activities are facilitated in accordance with the MLA Statement of Appropriate Conduct. As such, the first Summit began with implicit bias training to provide all participants common ground in recognizing and understanding any hidden biases.
Application
Applications for librarian participants should be submitted using the MLA InSight Initiative - Summit Application.
The application deadline is March 20, 2021, at 11:50pm. Applicants will be notified of their participation status by MLA no later than April 5. Before applying, please review “Participation in the MLA InSight Initiative 2021-2022 Summit Cycle” found on the InSight Initiative home page for commitment expectations.
Program Committee
Librarians
- John Gallagher, Committee Chair, Yale University, New Haven, CT
- Nadine Dexter, AHIP, University of Central Florida–Orlando
- Donna Gibson, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY
- Roxann Mouratidis, AHIP, Florida State University–Tallahassee
Health Information Providers
- Priya Arora, Wolters Kluwer Health
- Richard Gallagher, Annual Reviews
- Susan Haering, NEJM
- Jason Malley, McGraw-Hill Education
Liaisons and Facilitators
- Kristine M. Alpi, AHIP, Oregon Health & Science University–Portland, and Liaison, MLA Board of Directors
- Gerald (Jerry) Perry, AHIP, FMLA, University of Arizona–Tucson, and Liaison
- Daniel J. Doody, Facilitator, Doody Consulting
- Tim Butzen, Facilitator, Doody Consulting
