Conference Attendance Tracking and Evaluation in the Era of Virtual Conferences.

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES: The coronavirus pandemic upended in-person radiology education and led to a transition to virtual platforms. We needed a new method to monitor lecture attendance, previously relying on a physical badge system. Our goal was to develop and implement a virtual conference attendance system that is user-friendly, automated, useable in any virtual conference environment, and accurate. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We developed a web-based platform to serve as a virtual conference attendance tracking and evaluation platform. Daily, the application synchronizes with our lecture calendar to identify scheduled conferences and generates a unique attendance link for each event. The link is automatically posted in the conference chat and attendees must be logged in by the time it is posted to click the link, prompting single sign-on authentication. We integrated the system with resident schedules to excuse residents when appropriate. Real-time attendance reports are accessible in a user-friendly dashboard with a 5-star lecture review and comment system. We surveyed residents on satisfaction with the application after 1-year of use. RESULTS: Over the 2020-2021 academic year, we registered 376 conferences with 5,040 virtual swipes from 65 users. Once set up, virtual swipes take seconds to perform with minimal disruption to the conference. Average satisfaction for the platform was rated as 4.69 on a scale of 1 to 5. All respondents agreed or strongly agreed that use of the platform should be continued for future years, with 85% strongly agreeing. CONCLUSION: We developed an online platform for radiology conference attendance logging and evaluation, designed for virtual conferences.

Geographic Trends in Publications and Submissions in Radiology Journals: Decade Report (2010 - 2020).

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVE: The Radiology Research Alliance (RRA) of the Association of University Radiologists (AUR) organized a task force to quantify geographic changes in submissions to and publications within radiology journals over time. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty journals were selected: 7 US-based general, 4 European-based general, and 9 subspecialty radiology journals. Journals were solicited for submissions and publications based on country of origin from 2010 -2020. Regression models assessed changes over time across countries, and by continent, with an emphasis on the US and China, for each journal category. RESULTS: There were 104,679 publications and 92,446 submissions from 149 countries. Overall, there were significant increases in numbers of publications from Asia (R2 = 0.66, p <0.01), and specifically, China (R2 = 0.87, p <0.01). For US journals, there were increased numbers of publications from Asia (R2 = 0.72, p <0.01) and China (R2 = 0.98, p <0.01), but decreased numbers from North America (R2 = 0.41, p = 0.03). For European journals, there were increased numbers of publications from Asia (R2 = 0.79, p <0.01), North America (R2 = 0.75, p <0.01), and China (R2 = 0.82, p <0.01). For subspecialty journals, there were increased numbers of publications from North America (R2 = 0.38, p = 0.04) and China (R2 = 0.73, p <0.01). There was an acute COVID spike in submissions during 2020, with a continuous increase most notable in China (R2 = 0.96, p <0.01). CONCLUSION: In the last decade, the numbers of submissions to and publications within general and subspecialty US and European radiology journals have generally increased around the world, with the largest growth in Asia and in particular China.