[Incf-ocns-software-wg] Request for Comments (RFC): Software WG activities at CNS*2023: issue #125

[Ankur Sinha]

Hi folks

The ticket is here: https://github.com/OCNS/SoftwareWG/issues/125

This is a follow up from the initial discussion at the [January
meeting](https://ocns.github.io/SoftwareWG/2023/02/01/wg-meeting-16-january-2023.html).

NOTE: I've copied the text here for your convenience, but please drop all your
comments on the ticket on GitHub so we have all the information in one
place.

-------------------

The question is: what, if anything, do we do at [CNS
2023](https://www.cnsorg.org/cns-2023-quick).

## Context


We did [a whole week of satellite tutorials at CNS 2022 last
year](https://ocns.github.io/SoftwareWG/pages/software-wg-satellite-tutorials-at-cns-2022.html).
These were free to register for, and open to everyone. Organising them
did take a little bit of work---communicating with tutors, scheduling
them, announcing them, setting up all the meetings etc. We had great
registration numbers: >250 registrants, but we had low turnout: ~10 per
session.

The low turnout could've been for a number of reasons---lack of daily
reminders is one, zoom fatigue is another, availability of lots of
documentation and video tutorials that users can follow in their own
time is another. We sent a short survey to all registrants and got very
few responses (a subset of attendees), but those that did respond
generally indicated that they'd be happy to pay a small registration fee.

So, we, as the WG need to decide if we'll do another round of satellite
tutorials this year. If we do, the plan is to make a few tweaks to learn
from our experience last year:

- require some registration to filter out people that register but are
  unlikely to attend; registration fees will be low (~20$) and can be
  waived
- use something like [Sched](https://sched.com) for scheduling the
  sessions; this requires someone to fund us up front; sched allows
  users to select what sessions they want to attend and then it sends
  them daily reminders and so on.
- hopefully INCF/OCNS will fund this, and set up a registration form on
  their infrastructure---the money earned from registration will go to
  them.

The larger question is: are online tutorials, and a full week of them
covering lots of tools, still relevant/useful to the community? A
general feeling does seem to be that because we're all working hard at
writing good documentation and tutorials (often video based), users are
happier using these resources when they need them (on-demand) rather
than sitting through a whole week learning lots of tools that they may
or may not need in the short-term future. There are also initiatives
like [NeuroMatch
Academy](https://compneuro.neuromatch.io/tutorials/intro.html) that are
solely focused on training and do a much better job than what we can
manage---although, they're not software specific from what I know.

## Alternatives

If we think such a week of tutorials is not the way to go, do we want to
do something else? If yes, what?

Initial ideas (in no particular order):

- do one hour software highlights---these are shorter and introduce
  people to tools; some of these tools will do in-person tutorials at
  CNS, so they'll act as a gateway to them
- software wg open day with a mix of user and dev focussed sessions,
  open to everyone to attend
- reproduction projects
  - tutors (tool devs) list some models that they would like reproduced
    in their simulators
  - "students" work with them to reproduce them
  - submit for review to [Rescience](http://rescience.github.io/)
  - Issue: probably not doable in a day, so if done, will be a longer
    term project requiring multiple meetings
- internships
  - usually require some buy in from institutions, so not easy to do

So, please comment here with your views. We'd like to make a decision
and get started with the necessary organisation ASAP. Please also share
this with your labs/colleagues---all input is welcome.

-- 
Thanks,
Regards,
Ankur Sinha (He / Him / His) | https://ankursinha.in
Research Fellow at the Silver Lab, University College London | http://silverlab.org/
Free/Open source community volunteer at the NeuroFedora project | https://neuro.fedoraproject.org
Time zone: Europe/London
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