CODA The Challenges of Establishing Academic Identities During Times of Crisis

This section of the book synthesises authors' contributions by reflecting on the key themes identified in the various stories told within the chapters. It briefly describes the impact that marginalisation, parenthood, mental health, and virtual participation had on the formation of academic identity during the COVID-19 pandemic. The section ends with the editors' thoughts on what was achieved in this volume, in addition to the challenges that lie ahead. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022.

Virtual testimony

Since the onset of COVID-19, there was a rush of virtual forensic evaluations and testimony, all for compelling and rational reasons. At different times, jails have not allowed visitors, and courtrooms have been closed to in-person trials and hearings, and sometimes they have just been closed, period. Some research on virtual participation that emerged during the COVID pandemic built on earlier videoconferencing studies. This chapter draws on the experiences of colleagues, especially those of Denis Zavodny and Caroline Parrott, who have had much experience in virtual testimony. Many paths lead to effective as well as ineffective virtual testimony. The experiences of experts testifying by Zoom vary considerably. Workshops and talks are now presented on the topic of virtual testimony. Such testimony offers the possibilities of better and worse experiences for experts, and one can anticipate more guidelines and advice coming forth in the near future. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Let's Do It Online?! Challenges and Lessons for Inclusive Virtual Participation

Within the broader framework of the EU-H2020 EdiCitNet project-a large-scale collaborative project with a multi-stakeholder approach-there is the opportunity to observe participatory planning approaches to mainstream nature-based, edible solutions to solve specific social urban problems in an international group of six cities-Berlin (Germany), Carthage (Tunisia), Sant Feliu de Llobregat (Spain), Letchworth (United Kingdom), Sempeter pri Gorici (Slovenia), and Lome (Togo). One year after the project started, the COVID-19 pandemic made it necessary to transfer most participatory planning processes to online platforms. This new format presented challenges to planning and voluntary stakeholder engagement due to different capacities regarding technical requirements as well as location-specific social circumstances. In this paper, we aim to shed light on the potentials and trade-offs in shifting to online participation and who gets to participate under digital Participatory Action Research (PAR) circumstances. We used a mixed-methods approach to evaluate the planning progress and the transition to working online in the six cities during the first wave of the pandemic. The study identifies critical implications of COVID-19 on participatory planning processes, the challenges for online participation, and the effectiveness of measures applied to tackle those challenges. The transition to online participatory planning described in this paper emphasizes organizational rather than technical remedies. While the planning progress in all cities was delayed, some faced significant challenges in the transition to online due to the lack of technical or community capacities. This was fostered through the diverse and new realities of the stakeholders ranging from meeting existential needs to adapting to alternative forms of working and caring. The reflections in this paper offer learnings from the disruptions caused by COVID-19 to better understand how participatory planning processes can be managed online along the lines of equity, access, and participation. The findings demonstrate how participatory processes in the ongoing crisis can be maintained, with relevance to future waves of this and other pandemics.

Pandemic-era Participation in Public Lands Governance: Lessons From the USDA Forest Service

Public participation processes influencing National Forest management in the United States have shifted significantly because of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Although the United States Forest Service has used virtual participation tools in the past to support participation, the pandemic was the first time staff had to solely rely on such methods. Using the Trinity of Voice theory concepts of access, standing, and influence, we discuss how each has been and can be impacted by virtual vs. in-person public participation in federal land governance. Lessons are drawn from two peer-to-peer learning sessions among Forest Service staff in Fall 2020 and a case from the National Forests in North Carolina. Virtual participation can broaden access to processes that would primarily have taken place in-person as people were not limited by travel time or distance. Virtual methods may allow for greater use of adaptive technologies and therefore may increase participation access. Web meeting alternatives (e.g., telephone calls) can be used to increase participation access for those without reliable or affordable internet. However, planners trained in facilitating in-person meetings may not have the technical competencies necessary to ensure participants are able to effectively participate during virtual meetings, and misunderstandings that might be easily addressed in face-to-face settings can be more difficult to solve and ground rules for participation ignored more easily during virtual participation. We expect these lessons will support the work of other practitioners interested in supporting access, standing, and influence when designing virtual participation processes. Copyright © 2022 Floress and Cohen.