Generating insights with conference data: a review and proposed guidelines

Conferences offer opportunities for announcing new knowledge, exchanging information and experience, articulating problems and solutions, negotiating, and formulating policies. Most, if not all, of the knowledge exchanged at them is regularly documented and made available to a wider audience. This knowledge has started to be widely used by scientists to capture trends, themes, or future research agendas in a timely manner. Some studies draw on nontraditional research conference data such as conference booklets or programs containing presentation titles, authors’ names, or abstracts, which have also proven to be useful for understanding research topics or trends covered in conferences. These distinctive data are especially valuable as they are available almost instantly or at least earlier than the publication of the official conference proceedings. However, to the best of our knowledge, it is not obvious to scholars what such research might be most suitable for or how to carry it out. Building on a scoping review of previous relevant research, we aimed to address this methodological shortage and propose a common guideline that can unite individual studies using nontraditional, conference-related data types. Our findings revealed a range of research across disciplines and varied in terms of its objectives, methods, quality, and language. The five-phased approach we propose should be understood as being a topic for discussion rather than a recommendation for action, as its applicability will be contingent on individual situations, norms typical for different disciplines, as well as the mix of competencies available in each research team.