Facilitating Remote Participation at International Scientific Conferences

促进远程参与国际科学会议

• 批准号: 1542161
• 负责人: Jonathan Barnes
• 金额: $ 2.55万
• 依托单位: Trustees of Boston University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-08-01 至 2017-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1542161&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Facilitating; Remote; Participation; International; Scientific

Effective dissemination of the results of scientific research is critically important to progress in all areas of inquiry. Isolation from one another slows progress, creating expensive redundant effort around the globe. Open exchange of findings is a cornerstone of the scientific community, and for the individual scientist, in linguistics and beyond, participation in that exchange grows more important, but also more challenging, as cutting-edge research becomes both more interdisciplinary, and more international, than at any time in history. The number and diversity of workshops and conferences that active researchers feel a responsibility to participate in is exploding around the world. This is by and large positive, of course, but it also places an increasingly unsustainable burden on many scientists that by all rights should be included in these critical conversations. International travel, rewarding as it may be, is also time-consuming and expensive. For those with disabilities, it may be prohibitively difficult. For scholars from institutions with fewer resources, or from less wealthy parts of the world, finances may derail otherwise sound travel plans. Other commitments, such as those to family, or local academic and administrative responsibilities, further compete for the time necessary to attend meetings. Visa restrictions add to this expense and effort, and sheer geographic remoteness is often sufficient to convince would-be conference attendees to stay home instead. In some cases, technology already exists to allow participants to bridge the travel issue and participate remotely in scientific gatherings. At least in linguistics, however, these technologies, owing in large part to their expense and unfamiliarity, tend to be deployed, if at all, in a limited fashion, around the margins of most meetings. Remote participants therefore miss out on most of the key scientific discussion taking place at these meetings. This proposal presents a plan to pilot, at the upcoming Speech Prosody 2016 conference at Boston University, a suite of solutions that will enable members of the scientific community to participate in conference activities as fully from remote locations as from the host location itself. Data will be collected concerning the usability and attractiveness of each technology, and will be used to devise a future budget model whereby such remote participation strategies can one day become self-funding. Specifically, this project will implement remote participation solutions for the following scenarios: 1) discussion and Q&A during oral sessions; 2) remote presentation of posters; 3) active attendance and interaction during poster sessions, and 4) "passive" attendance at oral and poster sessions, both in real time, and after the fact via digital archives of the proceedings. Solutions include streaming video, stationary iPads at posters, and mobile telepresence robots. A dynamic post-conference proceedings package featuring video archiving and asynchronous discussion forums will promote sustained interaction after the conference. Ultimately, this works aims to move not just linguistics, but other fields as well, toward a standard of remote participation that can become the norm at meetings, workshops, and conferences around the world.

有效传播科学研究成果对于所有研究领域的进步至关重要。彼此隔离会减缓进展，在全球范围内造成昂贵的冗余工作。开放的研究成果交流是科学界的基石，对于语言学及其他领域的科学家个人来说，参与这种交流变得更加重要，但也更具挑战性，因为尖端研究变得比历史上任何时候都更加跨学科，也更加国际化。世界各地活跃的研究人员认为有责任参加的研讨会和会议的数量和多样性正在呈爆炸式增长。当然，这总的来说是积极的，但它也给许多科学家带来了越来越不可持续的负担，他们理应被纳入这些批判性对话中。国际旅行虽然很有价值，但也很耗时且昂贵。对于残疾人来说，这可能是非常困难的。对于来自资源较少的机构或世界上较不富裕地区的学者来说，财务状况可能会破坏原本合理的旅行计划。其他承诺，例如对家庭的承诺，或当地的学术和行政责任，进一步争夺参加会议所需的时间。签证限制增加了这种费用和精力，而且地理位置的偏远往往足以说服潜在的与会者留在家里。在某些情况下，技术已经存在，可以让参与者解决旅行问题并远程参与科学聚会。然而，至少在语言学领域，这些技术在很大程度上由于其费用昂贵且不熟悉，往往在大多数会议的间隙以有限的方式部署（如果有的话）。因此，远程参与者错过了这些会议上进行的大部分关键科学讨论。该提案提出了一项计划，即将在波士顿大学举行的 2016 年语音韵律会议上试行一套解决方案，使科学界成员能够像从主办地点一样从远程地点完全参与会议活动。将收集有关每种技术的可用性和吸引力的数据，并将用于设计未来的预算模型，使此类远程参与策略有一天可以实现自筹资金。具体来说，本项目将针对以下场景实施远程参与解决方案： 1）口头会议期间的讨论和问答； 2）海报远程展示； 3) 在海报会议期间主动出席和互动，以及 4) “被动”参加口头和海报会议，无论是实时的还是事后通过会议记录的数字档案。解决方案包括流媒体视频、海报上的固定 iPad 和移动远程呈现机器人。以视频存档和异步讨论论坛为特色的动态会后程序包将促进会后的持续互动。最终，这项工作的目标不仅是语言学，还有其他领域，朝着远程参与的标准迈进，这种标准可以成为世界各地会议、研讨会和会议的常态。