Interactive Sessions

Interactive sessions are designed around audience participation, either for teaching or collaborative purposes. These sessions will typically ensure the audience gains a new skill or that they engage meaningfully with other other attendees. The emphasis is on fostering learning, skill-building, networking, or idea generation in a dynamic and participatory environment.

Planning Your Submission

Workshops

Workshops enable participants to develop their skills in relation to a particular technology, or technique. Our most successful Workshops have guided participants through a topic using engaging, hands-on practicals alongside short talks/lectures. Ultimately, participants should have gained sufficient detail and practical experience that they can continue learning about the topic after the workshop.

If you would like to share information or an experience, or demonstrate a process (without expecting the audience to follow along on their own device), you could consider submitting a Talk or Walkthrough instead.

In your submission, you should include a description of the topic you would like to teach, a clear plan of how the audience will be able to participate and follow along, and the benefit that your audience will gain by attending the Workshop.

Your audience will be expected to participate using their own devices, and you will have the option to provide pre-conference setup instructions. As part of your planning, you may need to consider aspects such as licences, access to virtual machines and compute capability. Access to licences and software must not result in a cost incursion for attendees. If there are any aspects of the technical plan that you would like support with, please contact us in advance of the submission deadline and we will do our best to help. If your submission is successful, we will provide some workshop-specific communications to you regarding sign-ups, sharing any set-up instructions, and on-the-day logistics.

We anticipate that a Workshop will be delivered in either 75 minutes (one full session), or 150 minutes (two sessions broken by a break). However, if you have a specific time requirement we can consider workshops of alternative lengths. Please state your desired Workshop length in your submission.

Topics for Workshops could include:

• Teaching a new skill (e.g. how to create an R or Python package, writing a grant application, leadership skills)
• How to use a technology or service (e.g. how to set up and use continuous integration, how to use a cloud service)
• Demonstrating a new tool (e.g. how to download and use a code coverage or documentation tool)

Topics for Workshops have previously included:

• GPU code optimization and automatic performance tuning made easy with Kernel Tuner
• Helping Support Reproducibility in Research: An introduction to Containers for RSEs
• How to use and contribute to a software sustainability dashboard

You are welcome to refer to these, and others in last year’s programme, for ideas on how to present your submissions. Please bear in mind that our conference themes change each year, and previous abstracts may not fully address the type of information requested during our submission process this year.

Birds of a Feather (BoF) session

Birds of a Feather (BoF) sessions are informal gatherings of people who share a common interest. They originate from the phrase “birds of a feather flock together”, and focus on uniting communities around particular topics within research software. Attendees can discuss, share ideas, network, and collaborate in a more relaxed and open environment. They commonly involve an organised schedule of content, such as lightning talks, panels and breakout discussions.

If you would like to present information more formally, with less interaction from conference attendees, please consider submitting an abstract for a Talk or a Panel. BoF submissions that only feature a collection of talks will not be accepted, as this content-type is intended to build or develop community, rather than feature as a themed track within the programme.

Whilst the idea is that BoF sessions are attended by people with a common interest, there may be people attending RSECon24 who are looking to discover new communities. Therefore we ask that in your planning you consider how you will make this event inclusive and engaging to attendees who may not have prior awareness of your community or ideas.

In your submission, you should include a description of the topic you would like to focus on, a plan for how you will curate your content, and how the audience will be able to participate and collaborate. You will also need to provide a justification why your submission counts as a BoF and how it will benefit the community.

Your audience will be expected to participate using their own devices, and you will have the option to provide pre-conference instructions. As part of your planning, you may need to consider aspects such as licences, access to virtual machines and compute capability. Access to licences and software must not result in a cost incursion for attendees. If there are any aspects of the content plan that you would like support with, please contact us in advance of the submission deadline and we will do our best to help. If your submission is successful, we will provide some specific communications to you regarding sharing any set-up instructions, and on-the-day logistics.

We anticipate that a BoF sessions will be delivered in either 75 minutes (one full session), or 150 minutes (two sessions broken by a break). However, if you have a specific time requirement please contact the programme team so that we can consider alternative lengths.

An example structure for BoF session could include:

1. Welcome and introduction to the topic
2. Pre-prepared lightning talks that explore aspects of the topic
3. Panel discussion
4. Breakout groups (allowing time for formation and discussion)
5. Reporting back from breakout groups
6. Closing comments, including future plans

For examples of BoF sessions please see the following abstracts from RSECon23:

• RSE HPC Community Birds of a Feather Session
• Updates from around the RSE World: RSE Groups and Research Software recognition

Please bear in mind that our conference themes change each year, and these abstracts may not fully address the type of information requested during our submission process this year.

Information Required for Submission

When submitting your proposal for a Workshop or BoF session, you should consider:

• Title: Should describe what your submission is about (max 50 words)
• Abstract: A brief and attention-grabbing summary of your submission. (max 250 words)
• Prerequisites: Describe the required skills or knowledge for an attendee to fully engage with your submission.
  • Have you considered how accessible your session will be to a diverse conference audience (attendees comprise people from academia, industry, charity and government, from beginners to experts)? (max 150 words)
• Outcomes: How will your attendees benefit from your session? What do you expect them to gain/learn? (max 150 words)
• Accessibility: Please comment on how you will ensure your content is accessible, which may include referring to relevant sections of the conference’s accessibility guidance, as well as any other considerations. Some key pieces to consider are:
  • Visually, have you considered the colours chosen as well as the shape and size of graphics and fonts?
  • You can also use automated accessibility checking tools to help ensure that you haven’t missed anything.
• Hybrid delivery: How will you ensure that both remote and in-person participants have an equal experience? Is there anything that might pose a challenge to streaming your proposal? We appreciate that you may not have answers for all considerations at the moment; this is for the organisers to be aware in advance and support you to deliver a successful thing.

Workshop submissions will also need to provide:

• Technical Plan: Please answer the following questions:
  • How will you deliver the Workshop?
  • If you are delivering the Workshop in-person, how will you support attendees both in-person and online?
  • If you are delivering the Workshop online, how will you support online attendees, and how can the organisers best support you with the in-person aspect?
  • Bearing in mind that you will have both in-person and online attendees, how many could you reasonably deliver your Workshop to,?
  • What software and/or tooling will you be providing access to?
  • What will attendees need to install in advance or bring along (e.g. a piece of their own code)?

BoF sessions will also need to provide:

• Content Plan: Please answer the following questions:
  • What is your proposed schedule, including a timing breakdown?
  • How will you identify contributors for your session? (Including how you will align with the conference mission and ensure inclusivity, diversity and accessibility.)
  • Bearing in mind that you will have both in-person and online attendees, how many attendees could you reasonably support?
  • If applicable, what software and/or tooling will you be providing access to?
  • If applicable, what will attendees need to install in advance or bring along?
  • How will you collect discussion material?
• BoF justification: How will this content build or showcase community? How will you disseminate and build on session content after the conference?

You will also be asked to provide:

• Author List: Please add all authors who will contribute to the submission
• Length (checkbox)
• Research Software Development Principles: Please identify which principle(s) you think your submission aligns to. For clarification see information about these principles.(checklist)
• In-person or Online Delivery (checklist)
• Reviewing Submissions: We need help to review submissions. Would you be interested in learning more about becoming a reviewer? (checkbox)
• Mentorship: If your submission is accepted, would you like a mentor?

Hackathons

Hackathons are collaborative events, where participants work together on a problem or a task set by you. There should be a clear description of the problem, and an understanding of what outcomes you want to achieve.

We are accepting proposals for this programme element slightly differently, therefore you will not find an option for Hackathons in the abstract submission platform. If you are interested in running a hackathon please get in touch so we can discuss logistics.

An example of a hackathon held at RSECon23 was Carpentries Offline Development Hackathon.