Facilitating Remote Participation at International Scientific Conferences

科学研究成果的有效传播对所有研究领域的进展至关重要。彼此隔离减缓了进展，在全球范围内造成了昂贵的冗余努力。开放的研究成果交流是科学界的基石，对于语言学和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，因为前沿研究比历史上任何时候都更加跨学科，更加国际化。活跃的研究人员感到有责任参加的研讨会和会议的数量和多样性在世界各地呈爆炸式增长。当然，这在很大程度上是积极的，但它也给许多科学家带来了越来越难以承受的负担，而这些科学家理应被包括在这些关键的对话中。国际旅行虽然可能有回报，但也很耗时和昂贵。对于那些有残疾的人来说，这可能是非常困难的。对于来自资源较少的机构或来自世界上较不富裕地区的学者来说，财政状况可能会破坏原本合理的旅行计划。其他的承诺，如家庭，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。签证限制增加了这方面的费用和努力，而且纯粹的地理位置偏远往往足以说服潜在的与会者留在家里。在某些情况下，已经有技术允许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，在很大程度上由于它们的费用和不熟悉，倾向于在大多数会议的边缘以有限的方式部署，如果有的话。因此，远程参与者错过了在这些会议上进行的大多数关键科学讨论。在即将到来的波士顿大学演讲韵律2016年会议上，该提案提出了一个试点计划，一套解决方案将使科学界的成员能够从远程地点完全参与会议活动，就像从主办地点本身一样。将收集关于每项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式，使这种远程参与战略有一天能够成为自筹资金。具体而言，本项目将针对以下场景实施远程参与解决方案：1)口头讨论和答疑；2)海报远程呈现；3)海报会议期间的主动出席和互动，以及4)口头和海报会议的“被动”出席，无论是实时的，还是事后通过诉讼程序的数字档案。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。一个动态的会后会议记录包，包括视频存档和异步讨论论坛，将促进会议后的持续互动。最终，这项工作的目的不仅是推动语言学，还包括其他领域，朝着远程参与的标准发展，这种标准可以成为世界各地会议、研讨会和会议的规范。

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.