CW24 - Discussion session and collaborative ideas

The CW24 Discussion session will take place on Tuesday, 30 April 2024 from 13:25 - 15:00 BST (12:25 - 14:00 UTC). The live list of topics will be made available to workshop participants, allowing them to sign up for topics and suggest new topics.

Participants can suggest discussion topics during registration via Eventbrite. A link to the list of discussion topics will be sent out closer to the event for participants to read and suggest additional topics. Before the session, all workshop participants should sign up to the topic they would like to participate in (a link will be provided); there will only be one discussion topic session.

Based on peoples' preferences, we will assign the groups to breakout spaces/rooms. CW24 is a hybrid event, and the Discussion groups will have people participating both in-person and remotely. We will have a number of hybrid kits and Meeting OWLs set up to facilitate hybrid teams, and helpers from the CW24 Organising Committee will be present to assist during the session. More information on how to make the most of a hybrid Discussion session will be shared to participants closer to the event.

The discussion session lasts for 90 minutes. That is not enough time to discuss the subject in depth, but we find it's about the right amount of time to determine the main points and write them up as speed blog.

In the first five minutes, you should choose a Chair, a Note-taker, and if the group has members participating both in-person and online, a Remote Facilitator. The Chair's role is to make sure that everyone's voice is heard, and keep everyone on topic. The Note-taker clicks the link for the collaborative note taking and blog template for their group from the Discussion Topics spreadsheet and uses that to note down the pertinent points from the discussion that can then be used as the basis for constructing the speed blog about the session (everyone in the group should help contribute to the notes and speed blog). The Remote Facilitator is responsible for ensuring that remote group members are able to contribute to the discussion by keeping an eye on the Zoom breakout room and acting as advocate in the room.

A good way to start is to ask what participants in the group want from the discussion. Are people looking to solve a problem, wanting to promote a solution, or do they simply want to know more about the topic? If you can get a handle on what people want from the discussion, it's much easier to keep everyone on topic.

Focus on what can be changed! It's easy with some topics to focus on a discussion of the problems and overlook the process of finding a solution.

It is important to give the first 50 minutes of time to the discussion and not worry about writing the blog post, as it can be hard to explore a topic and write coherent prose as the same time. Once the 50 minutes is up you should move on to writing the blog post for which you will have approximately 40 minutes, ideally it's better to get it written during this time as we have found if you leave it for later then you tend to never get back to it. Even a first decent draft is a good start, and we will ask you if you want to work on it further before we publish them after the event.

You might want to move the notes to the bottom of your document and blog post to the top in the last few minutes of the discussion session. In any case, once you are done and if you want others to see it then you can always let people know via the CW24 Slack workspace. Otherwise the organisers will be aware of where the documents are. You will be able to carry on working on the blog after the session and for about a week after the workshop but please do try and have a (near) complete blog by the end of the session otherwise the momentum to write anything might be lost.

There is no formal reporting back session at Collaborations Workshop 2024, the blog posts form the heart of reporting back information from the discussions in a way that is of wider benefit to the research software community.

In the weeks after Collaborations Workshop 2024, we will publish the speed blog posts - so the teams will still have some time to tweak them. We will confirm with the team members before we publish. We will not be publishing the notes so please feel free in noting things down as you see fit.

The CW24 Collaborative Ideas session will take place on Wednesday, 1 May 2024 from 11:40 - 12:40 BST (10:40 - 11:40 UTC). Collaborative Ideas group assignments have been made based on the roles you undertake that you provided during registration. This is so that there can be a mix of roles and research domains in each group, providing the opportunity for you to meet and collaborate with new people.

CW24 is a hybrid event, and the Collaborative Ideas groups will have people participating both in-person and remotely. We will have a number of hybrid kits and Meeting OWLs set up to facilitate hybrid teams, and helpers from the CW24 Organising Committee will be present to assist during the session. More information on how to make the most of a hybrid Collaborative Ideas session will be shared to participants closer to the event.

Once you arrive in your breakout space/room:

• Introduce yourselves!
• Select a Chair, a Note-taker, and if the group has members participating both in-person and online, a Remote Facilitator. The Chair's role is to make sure that everyone's voice is heard, and keep everyone on topic. The Note-taker clicks the link for the Collaborative Idea Form for their group from the Collaborative Ideas session groups spreadsheet and uses that to note down the pertinent points from the discussion. The Remote Facilitator is responsible for ensuring that remote group members are able to contribute to the discussion by keeping an eye on the Zoom breakout room and acting as advocate in the room.
• Take it in turns to introduce something about your work that is important to you. It can be anything: a new project you want to get started, a policy that you want to see adopted, the skeleton of a concept that you want flesh out, a tool that you want built, a problem that you face - anything! If it's on your mind and you think discussing it with a group of leading researchers and software developers could help, then this is the place to discuss it.
• Make a decision about which idea is most likely to be taken forward. Selecting only one idea can be very difficult! (Even if your idea isn't taken forward during the session, you can submit it yourself later during the workshop).
• Help the Note-taker complete the Collaborative Ideas form.

The Note-taker should record some notes about the group's idea in the Collaborative Ideas form (which will be a templated Google Doc). It should take about 15 minutes to fill out the form. The information needed is:

• Idea Title
• Context/Research Domain: one or two sentences that will help us understand where the idea comes from: a specific field of research, a general field of work or something wider.
• Problem: a couple of sentences that describe the problem that the idea will help solve (25-100 words)
• Solution: a couple of sentences that describes how the idea will help solve the problem (200-500 words)
• Diagram/illustration: please provide any diagrams or images that support your idea. It could be something you've created yourself or it could be an existing image from the web (please include attribution as necessary).
• Team members: Please provide the names of the people in your group. This allows us to trace the idea back to its originators (and if your team should win the prizes then we can get them to the right people).
• Hack Day Idea Proposer: If you would like this idea to be taken to the Hack Day, please provide the name of the Idea Proposer. It is the Idea Proposer's job to describe the idea during the pitching session, and try to attract people to work on the idea during the Hack Day (more information below).
• Hack Day Idea Proposer's email address: an email address for the Idea Proposer.
• After submitting your idea you can continue to work on it, fleshing out ideas and even starting work on the pitch for the Hack Day, or you can work on a second idea.

Some ideas are so good that they simply need to be realised. This is where the Hack Day comes in: at the end of the Collaborative Ideas session, you can state whether your idea should be pitched during the Hack Day.

If you want your idea to be submitted to the Hack Day, someone in your group must nominate themselves as the Hack Day Idea Proposer (the person who will pitch the idea at the start of the Hack Day in an attempt to attract a team to work on the idea). The Hack Day Idea Proposer must put their name and email address in the appropriate fields of the Collaborative Ideas form (see above for detail). If these fields are left blank, the idea may not be carried through to the Hack Day.

Not all ideas from the Collaborative Ideas session will go on to be used in the Hack Day, but there will be prizes for the best Collaborative Ideas regardless of whether they make it to the Hack Day. All the ideas will be collated and anyone at the workshop can vote for their favourite ideas. 

The Collaborative Ideas groups to come in 1st, 2nd and 3rd place will win prizes! The prizes will be digital gift cards to Love2Shop or Global Rewards (for international attendees). 

The prizes for the winning Collaborative Ideas group members are as follows:

• First place: £30 digital gift card
• Second place: £20 digital gift card
• Third place: £10 digital gift card