OAWeek 2022: Managing Virtual and Hybrid Meetings

Welcome to International Open Access Week, 2022 edition! Last year, we discussed the vision of a distributed research organization. This year, we will explore this theme a bit further. One aspect of distributed organizations is the need to work both synchronously and asynchronously. This brings the real-world experience closer to the collaborator without the travel, carbon emissions, or expense of being at a centralized institute. As our collaborators live in many time zones and have different lifestyles, it is important to capture their full attention in different ways. 

One way this is done is through the live attendance and replay of group meetings. The Orthogonal Research and Education Lab (OREL) offers a number of regular topical meetings, in addition to a general meeting on Saturdays, that engages collaborators from all over the world using a number of different pedagogical and technological techniques. 

An example of a virtual distributed meeting with collaborators dropping in from different parts of the globe.

An open meeting has a number of moving parts that need to be thoughtfully considered to ensure success. The first of these is choosing a meeting platform. OREL has found success with Jitsi, as it is lightweight and free to use (open source). While Jitsi can be used as a service, installing it on your own server opens up its many customizable features. Jitsi even works with Virtual Reality, with interactions between the 2-D meeting world and immersive 3-D being available in the Wolvic browser and Meta Quest casting option.

Sample scenes from screensharing within Meta Quest and the casting option.

Secondly, programming the meeting is a non-trivial detail that can make the most of your time. For our Saturday Morning NeuroSim meetings, we have settled on the following format: updates, light features, discussion, open collaboration, and finally, papers of the week. Agenda-setting should be flexible with respect to your attendee's availability. Not everyone can make an entire meeting, so allowing them to "drop into" participation is encouraged. 

Notetaking and live feeds are also good for augmenting our meetings. The OREL Lab Manager (Jesse Parent) We use notetaking tools such as Obsidian and Notion with allied feeds (Slack and Discord) for coordinating the various fragments of ideas and themes that emerge during meeting time. Feed technology is also good for sharing papers, and the vision of a stream feed is key to realizing the multimedia aspect of real-time meeting immersion, even when attendees are asynchronous.     

Different types of notetaking and stream feeding within a meeting (from the Cognition Futures Reading Group).

As a tool for participatory engagement, this can be done in a number of different ways. Lead by Daniel Ari Friedman and Bleu Knight, the Active Inference Institute has taken the route of invited livestreams and summary podcasts. These materials introduce collaborators to difficult academic concepts while making them more accessible. While YouTube has options for live streaming, it is not always the best option. I use OBS Studio (free and open source) to compose a desktop recording and edit before making it public. 

Recorded meetings are also good for coding demos, particularly when they do not go as planned. One can either prepare a recording in advance to include in the meeting recording or strip the demo down to a minimal approach using a CoLab notebook. This reduces the friction of failed screenshares and execution errors, while also easing the burden of performing in front of a group.

Coding demos from a recent Saturday Morning NeuroSim meeting.

But completely virtual experiences are not the only option for bringing people together from around the world. OREL has been experimenting with hybrid meetings. This type of meeting brings the ethos of virtual meetings to more traditional in-person meetings. This enables more inclusive participation from distant geographical points. Last Spring, we experimented with our own virtual meeting experience at the New York Celebration of Women in Computing (NYCWiC), hosted live at Fort William Henry, NY. The hybrid session "Frontiers in Data Privacy and Tech Ethics" featured a buffet of topics on AI and technology ethics. Soem of the participants were live, while others were virtual (recorded or located in different parts of the globe). For this type of meeting, experimenting with ways to optimize live/virtual synchronization and media capture quality are essential. We plan to experiment with this more in the near future. 

Virtual (top) and in-person (bottom) components of the session.

Updates on Open Source Community Tools

All hail the Guidance (and Attribution) Tree!

The guidance tree is a concept that grew out of my days on the OpenWorm Community Committee. I have implemented a guidance tree for the Rokwire Community, and is available in Beta version for other communities to implement (HTML, Markdown) under a CC-BY license. Check out this 19-minute tour of a guidance tree based on the Rokwire Community.

A guidance tree allows new community members to find a starting point in your community easily, while optimally leveraging their skills. This is something I am calling Community Wayfinding. Community managers who want to adopt the guidance tree have to analyze their own set of community resources (Github repositories, web resources, and documentation) to see where members might fit in. Adopting a guidance tree of your own also requires a definition of community roles, which will be unique to different communities. In the Beta version, a user encounters a set of binary choices that bifurcate towards a specific contribution path. Future versions might map this possibility space to a VR (virtual) world where the options are presented as 3-D objects or as activity rooms.

Would you be interested in a system for tracing attribution or authorship on an open-source (or open science) project? When the formal release version of guidance tree is released, it will be accompanied by the Authorship Tree, an idea I worked on circa 2017 in the Orthogonal Research and Education Lab. The Authorship (or attribution tree) solves the problem of authorship order by showing the relative contributions of each individual in the form of a tree structure. This not only allows for primary contributions to be visualized, but also for deeper contributions (informal conversations, data sources, stakeholders) to be recognized. This is particularly good for publicly recognizing different types of contributors and whose who have been active at various levels of contribution.

Recombining your Technical Stack

During the month of March 2021, we considered how we might strive for a Full Stack community. The basic idea was that depending on the task one wants to carry out, there exist a series of possible technologies to achieve your goals. The challenge is to pick the best set of tools, for all aspects of your open source project. These tools should be compatible with one another, easy to learn/use, and provide accessibility to future contributors. 

But tools are constantly changing. Sometimes you outgrow your current set of tools. Some platforms are okay for small numbers of users, but become unmanageable as you community scales up. This is the nature of the constant tradeoffs one makes in managing a dynamic community. In other cases, tools simply cease to exist, forcing you to migrate to another solution. And sometimes a tool becomes unaffordable as your user needs change. So the question becomes: how do you go about changing out your stack? 

My personal preference is to stick to open source tools whenever possible. There are two reasons for this: it eliminates the cost constraint, and it allows for open source solutions to emerge from the user community. Your open source community might also be able to develop customized tools for such platforms, thus helping you keep your technology stack consistent. The Jitsi platform is a good example of this. Jitsi instances can be started through a web browser or mobile app, and Jitsi servers can be customized by specific organizations. 

When you do need to change out elements in your stack, the first step is to make sure that the solution works well with your other tools. For example, if you change your video conferencing tool, be sure to make sure your whiteboard (Jamboard) and file sharing (Ignite RealTime) tools also work well with this shift. Doing a series of contingency tests based on common use cases may help. Adopting OBS for screen recordings and streaming is an example of this. Once you know your tool runs stably and provides the desired output, then you will have fewer glitches down the road. 

Secondly, make sure that you community leaders (people most likely to run a community meeting) can use the new tool. You might offer a primer or training session to get people up to speed on the new tool, in addition to how it connects with other tools in the stack. This primer should then be available in the form of video and written documentation to the community, as your meeting and discussion leaders may change over time. Tools that visualize Github tasks and milestones (ZenHub) is one example of a tool with multiple dependencies.

A third step is to do an audit of how the tool is actually being used, to ensure that there is a match between desired functionality and the functionality that is available to everyday users. Perhaps your community is really interested in sharing files during their video meetings. This may require the addition of a new tool, or an addition to an existing tool. Only a post-implementation audit (or a quarterly solicitation of use cases) will reveal an actionable path.

Ten years of "Virtual Reality in Neuroscience Research and Therapy"

Ten years ago today (November 3), me and co-authors Corey Bohil and Frank Biocca published the paper "Virtual Reality in Neuroscience Research and Therapy" in Nature Reviews Neuroscience. Happy Birthday, paper!

Click to enlarge.

This article made the issue cover of the containing issue. A closeup of the cover art (below) is entitled "Virtual Reality Reaches New Heights" by Kirsten Lee. Great image of a digital mountain range.

Click to enlarge.

After 10 years, this publication has been cited about 730 times. Even after 10 years, the citation rate per year is still increasing. Not only does the paper cover examples of human engagement with VR, but examples from model organisms as well. This paper is different than many other reviews of VR in that it does not focus on the latest technology, but more fundamental research questions and applications. 

COURTESY: Google Scholar. Click to enlarge.

About four years later, I single-authored a paper at F1000 Research called "Animal-oriented virtual environments: illusion, dilation, and discovery", a paper that delved into speculation about neural mechanisms in model organisms during VR exposure. This was before the current VR hype came of age, so it was tough to find reviewers for this one. Nevertheless, there is much more to explore in this area.

Observer-dependent Models @ the Philosopher's Web Cafe

 

I gave a talk called "Observer-dependent Models" to the Philosopher's Web Cafe on December 11. I have made the slides available here, and the recording is here. Thanks to Jesse Parent (Orthogonal Lab Manager) and Charlotte Guo (series host) for hosting. It will be almost like being there (almost). 

The talk involved reviewing and redefining the role of observers in empirical and simulated systems. "Observer" refers mostly to computational agents (agent-based simulation and AI), although many of the ideas introduced here may apply to the analysis of empirical observations (experiments). Here is the abstract:

In many areas of science and philosophy, observers are seen as an integral part of understanding the natural world. Aside from a pedagogical role, observers are seen as less important in computational forms of inquiry. In this talk, I will reconsider a role for the observer in computational models as fully integrated with the agent. perhaps more fundamentally, causal outcomes and system dynamics are seen to be contingent on observers, while empirical observations themselves are dependent upon the actions of observers. As this is an article of faith in some interpretations of quantum mechanics, we extend this to algorithmic systems with a combinatorial solution space. The role for observers in computational and empirical investigations is established superficially using a number of concepts, including cybernetics, embodiment, and perceptual information processing. Then we will be introduced to more concrete examples of observer-oriented computational agents, such as observer-emitter systems and viewpoint networks. Finally, we will discuss how this approach goes beyond constructivism to consider multiple observers, multiple perspectives (relativism), and how they affect the interpretation of results.

There is a lot to follow up on from this talk, including a number of themes to explore within the topic of agent-based observers, with more to come in the new year. 

Virtuality: a new view on virtual experience

The first images when you Google "virtuality". Products from the Virtuality Group. LEFT: Virtual Reality Society, RIGHT: Wikimedia (Dr.  Jonathan D. Waldern/Virtuality Group).

At Neuromatch 2.0, I gave a talk on the concept of virtuality titled "Computational Virtuality as a Form of Artificial Intelligence" (slides available on Figshare). Virtuality is a means to summarize all brain and body systems involved in a virtual experience. This talk features two big ideas, the second of which the Saturday Morning NeuroSim group will be building on in the coming months.  

1) "Being Virtual" as Human Performance (click to enlarge).

2) Differentiating Allostasis machine (click to enlarge). Allostatic load is induced collectively by stimulus [1], leads to dysregulation of system and ultimately to a new homeostatic setpoint.

Overall, virtuality can be characterized as a constructive sensory experience (h/t to Anson Lim). The first big idea stems from the observation that current theories are too limiting to properly characterize virtual experiences at the systems-level. Indeed, the very notion of objective reality is based in part on the synchronization of perception and action. When this synchronization is disrupted or perturbed in any way, we observe virtuality. This does not even require a virtual environment -- virtuality can be experienced in our interaction with the physical world [for an example from fly-human interaction, see 2]. But virtual environments are the most common way to elicit the allostatic load required to observe virtuality.

There are two aspects of embodied performance essential to understanding the virtuality effect. The first is the idea of cognitive gaps, or disruptions to spatiotemporal representations caused by the perturbation of reality. The second involves inducing allostatic load in the internal model the represents perception-action coupling. The latter has wide-ranging effects in the homeostat (nervous system), and can lead to many different effects of varying length scales.

But where does the artificial intelligence part come in? In the second part of the talk, I conclude that the effect sizes for human experiments are too small and formal experimental design is too limiting to demonstrate virtuality. This is particularly true for observing virtuality over long periods of time. Therefore, we can use computational agents! To propose a general approach, we want to identify two attentional and three sensorimotor features essential for any agent to exhibit virtuality.

Naturally, we want our agents to be embodied in some manner. We propose working with two types of agent: Morphogenetic Agents, a novel agent type that can exhibit both pattern recognition and morphogenesis (percepetion-action), and the well-known Braitenberg Vehicle, in this case experiencing incongruous environmental physics which leads to gaps in the perception-action loop. 

NOTES:

[1] this requires a ecological view of perception. For a short introduction, please see: Lobo, L., Heras-Escribano, M. and Travieso, D. (2018). The History and Philosophy of Ecological Psychology. Frontiers in Psychology, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02228.

[2] Alicea, B. (2013). Perceptual Time and the Evolution of Informational Investment. Synthetic Daisies blog, September 24.

NeuroConferences in Twos

Welcome to April and the era of the virtual conference! Aside from enforcing social distancing, virtual conferences have a number of other social benefits. I have recently presented at two virtual conferences, one on Twitter and one via teleconference software. The Twitter conference (OHBMx) was held previously as the brain.tc conference. This year, I presented on behalf of four co-authors about our new paper "Braitenberg Vehicles as Developmental Neurosimulation".

Our talk (#44) at OHBMx (click to enlarge).

In this talk and paper, we explore using Braitenberg Vehicles (BVs) to study the role of processes related to brain development and ontogenetic emergence of behavior. So-called dBVs are flexible systems that allow for naturalistic explorations of embodied behavior. Our approach utilizes four allied topical areas: evolutionary simulations, multisensory Hebbian learning, simulations of collective behavior, and explorations of embodied cognition.

A little more than a week later, me and one of my co-authors from the Twitter conference (Jesse Parent) presented at the Neuromatch conference. Neuromatch was put together in a only a few weeks by Konrad Kording, Dan Goodman, and Titipat Achakulvisut (congrats to them). The organizers used Crowdcast and Zoom as the presentation media. Two days of talks and over 2500 attendees! While there were various technical challenges to overcome (such as Zoombombing), the conference was a great success. The organizers said that this conference was meant as a template for future all-virtual conferences.

The title of my presentation was "Process as Connectivity: towards biology-specific complex networks". This is an update on presentations given at the Find Your Inner Modeler II workshop and the NetSci 2017 conference. Jesse's presentation was "Embodied Cognition: Using Developmental Braitenberg Vehicles To Model Levels of Representation", and while delayed due to technical difficulties, was a follow-up on our dBVs paper.

Two great talks at Neuromatch! Click to enlarge.

The other part of Neuromatch is matching researchers based on interest area. One interesting outcome to result from this matching process is the new BrainWeb community. BrainWeb is a new collaborative platform aimed at bringing together Neuroscientists and Neuro-adjacent people with expertise to share. They have even visualized an adjacency matrix of the community so far based on expertise. Check out their website for information on hackathon times and virtual locations (URLs).

Now it is I who is caught up in the hairball! Click to enlarge.

UPDATE (4/6): a new paper from several eLife Ambassadors is now out on the bioRxiv with recommendations on how to improve the academic conference experience. Many of their concerns and recommendations for change dovetail with the virtual conference experience. 

Citation: Sarabipour et.al (2020). Evaluating features of scientific conferences: A call for improvements. biorxiv, doi:10.1101/2020.04.02.022079.

Silver Linings of COVID-19

PLoS headquarters when most of its staff is working remotely (click to enlarge).

A Brady Bunch pun on remote work from our friends at Numenta (click to enlarge).

This potentially tasteless title brings to mind the positive elements of canceling classes, academic conferences, and workplace meetings: the ability to do these activities virtually. Among my current projects, I am involved in a number of working groups that are entirely virtual. These group utilize Zoom and Google Meet to give talks and hold meetings, with Github, Google Docs, and a host of other tools to manage contributions and research products (papers, talks, social media posts). This might be called the "Zoom/Slack" paradigm. Below is a Twitter thread from a Sloan Foundation program officer that asks for thoughts on alternatives to this standard.

Potential support for people collaborating outside the Zoom/Slack paradigm (click to enlarge).

In 2014, I posted on a concept called a theory hackathon, which was held as a hybrid physical and virtual event. The idea is to define and work on problems that are best solved in teams where not all members can meet live. But online meetings are evolving beyond awkward encounters and technical glitches. Often, live physical meetings are meant to cement social ties. Indeed, below is an informal survey that asks this very question.

Why are live events (as opposed to virtual) so important (click to enlarge)? 

In general, live physical conferences seem to be useful for social connection. Revisiting the tweet from Josh Greenberg, perhaps what is needed aside from virtual meeting spaces and file exchange/ chat functionality is a frictionless social platform. This could be conventional social media, or more likely a virtual reality platform integrated with live video/version controlled file exchange/chat capabilities.

Virtual meetings and virtual work are not without their own rhythm and customs. Aside from the potential for social disconnection, it also poses a challenge for personal habituation and ultimately productivity. Below is a link to a Twitter thread that gives tips for meeting virtually for people who are unaccustomed to doing so.

Online meeting tips from Mozilla Open Leaders (click to enlarge).

Carpentries-style tips for synchronous online meetings (click to enlarge).

There are also tips for working from home more generally. As with virtual meetings, capacity to work remotely has been accelerated in the age of social media [1]. The link below gives tips about working from home as an adjustment from working in a large office or public place. Generally, virtual work does require a change in expectations, from dealing with technical glitches to dealing with gaps in social presence [2].

Tips on adjusting to working at home (click to enlarge).

Well-being while working from home (download) (click to enlarge).

Draft workbook on how to host an online conference (click to enlarge).

Online conference are more than simply scaling up virtual meetings. There is a method to conducting and organizing online conferences [3], and there are a number of options regarding the medium. Returning to the issue of greater social connectivity in virtual meeting, one solution is to hold the conference in a virtual world such as Second Life. In this type of meeting, you are able to meet other people as avatars, and even interact with the venue itself. Below are two examples of my experiences with Second Life academic events in the past, one being a continuing lecture series called Embryo Physics, and the other a conference called Simulation and Second Life.

Tour of the Embryo Physics Course @ Silver Bog, Second Life (click to enlarge).

My avatar at the Simulation and Second Life conference, 2007 (click to enlarge).

As a bonus, there is a new agent-based model of COVID-19 transmission created by Paul Smaldino and implemented in NetLogo. This model demonstrates the efficacy of social distancing (hence the resurgent interest in working virtually).

Discussion of COVID-19 transmission model as a Twitter thread (click to enlarge).

Be sure to also check out the Living Computation Foundation's "Pandemic in a Box"! Click to enlarge.

NOTES:
[1] Williams, A. (2017). How the Rise of Social Media Fostered a Culture of Remote Working. Social Media Week, April 14.

[2] Oh, C.S., Bailenson, J.N., and Welch, G.F. (2018). A Systematic Review of Social Presence: Definition, Antecedents, and Implications. Frontiers in Robotics and AI, doi:10.3389/frobt.2018. 00114.

[3] Reshef, O., Aharonovich, I., Armani, A., Gigan, S., Grange, R., Kats, M.A., Sapienza, R. (2020). How to organize an online conference. arXiv, 2003.03219.