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Conference Guide

Getting started

The first step to participating in virtual meetings on mathpsych.org is to read the Conference Guide below. All registered users should also check their user profile to make sure the information there is accurate and up to date. (Be sure to log in first.) If you haven't yet, make sure to complete your account creation by confirming your email address.

Asynchronous conference attendance

One of two ways you can use this website is by browsing the schedule, picking out sessions that look interesting and viewing the presentations. If you like a session, you can hit the Pin Session button so you can easily find it on the Schedule later. The advantage of asynchronous attendance is that you can do it anytime, anywhere, even long after the conference is nominally over. At any time, registered participants can access the discussion forums and post questions or comments.

Live conference attendance

Another way to attend the conference is by logging on each day of the conference. Sessions are been assigned a time and a virtual room. Over the 48 hour period in which a session is "on", it will appear prominently in that room. Moreover, during that period the authors of the presentations are expected to be active on the discussion forums, so that viewers can post questions and get feedback from the presenters. Finally, on most days there will be live Q&A sessions where presenters of select sessions will answer questions from the discussion forum and from a live audience.

If this is how you plan to attend the conference, you may find the schedule planner (in your user profile) helpful. You can pin sessions to your schedule to keep track of topic you don't want to miss.

Code of Conduct

The Society for Mathematical Psychology (SMP) is committed to the highest standards of diversity, equity, inclusion, and the free expression of ideas. We seek to provide an environment in which diverse participants may learn, network, and enjoy the company of colleagues. We recognize a shared responsibility to create and sustain that environment for the benefit of all. This Code of Conduct sets forth our commitment to providing a harassment-free and inclusive environment at SMP sponsored events (including all scientific meetings) as well as for all individuals engaged in SMP related business. All forms of harassment are prohibited. Specific prohibited behaviors include but are not limited to the following:

  • Harassment or intimidation based on gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, political orientation and views, religion (or lack thereof), or other group status
  • Unwelcome behavior as well as verbal or written comments (including online comments) related to the above categories that create a hostile meeting environment (e.g., sexist or racist jokes)
  • Sexual harassment or intimidation, including unwelcome sexual attention
  • Unwelcome physical contact
  • Harassing photography or recording
  • Stalking or following (physical or virtual)
  • Sustained disruption or threatening of conference presenters
  • Cyberbullying (i.e., the use of computers, cell phones or other devices to send or post emails, text messages or images intended to harass another person) and social media abuse
  • Advocating for, or encouraging, any of the above behavior

This code of conduct is not intended to limit the terms of open and respectful scientific inquiry or discussion. Critical examination, debate, and robust disagreement regarding beliefs and viewpoints, germane to the topic of discussion and presented respectfully do not, in themselves, constitute harassment.

We expect individuals to follow this code of conduct at all SMP scientific meetings and in all other SMP related business.

Enforcement

Individuals asked to stop any harassing behavior are expected to comply immediately. If an individual engages in harassing behavior, the SMP executive board retains the right to take any actions to keep SMP a welcoming environment for all individuals. These actions include simply warning the offender, expulsion from a scientific meeting with no refund of registration or other attendance-related costs, expulsion from the society, and/or banishment from all future SMP meetings. Appeals for any of these actions will be handled by the executive board.

Reporting

If you are being harassed, notice that someone else is being harassed, or have any other concerns, please report it to us immediately. We value your involvement in SMP, and will make every effort to ensure that you feel safe and welcome in our society.

You can make a report by emailing this address. This email is directly monitored by the secretary/treasurer and the president. Any reports made by email will be accessible by the executive board. You may also make a report in person to any member of the executive board.

Adopted on September 11, 2018

Attending virtual conferences on mathpsych.org

Conference events that take place on, or are supported by, mathpsych.org (the conference venue) may be accessible only to registered participants, so you need to log in using the 'Member login' button at the top right.

MathPsych virtual conferences are held mostly asynchronously, with a predefined interactive period of several days to a few weeks. Shortly before the beginning of this period, prerecorded presentations will be published on the conference venue.

Venue and rooms

The conference venue is a website, which may be found at mathpsych.org. The venue is divided into different sections, which we are calling rooms. Typically there is one dedicated room for Q&A sessions, workshops, and other live events; one room for poster sessions and social events, and multiple rooms for symposia and spoken sessions.

Simultaneously released, sequentially featured presentations

While all presentations will be made available at the same time in advance, and remain available throughout, MathPsych virtual conferences will publish recommended viewing times, during which a set of virtual talks will be "featured". Presentations typically remain featured for two days, giving everyone in all time zones the opportunity to view them. With a limited number of talks being recommended each day, and each talk taking no more than 15 minutes, the time commitment to view every talk in the conference is kept relatively low. Eventually each talk will be featured once.

Discussion boards for constant engagement

While (and after) a presentation is featured, we encourage all conference attendees to participate in the Discussion Forum to post questions about the presentation or engage in in-depth group discussions. A lengthy exchange on a public discussion board forms a potentially very useful resource for the audience's deeper understanding of a topic.

Live Q&A follow-up

A fixed period of time after a presentation is featured, selected speakers will participate as panelists in a moderated live Q&A session. In these sessions, panelists will answer questions about the work they presented as part of a Symposium or as part of a Concerted Session. Participation in a Q&A session (both as a panelist and as an audience member) is by invitation only. Panelists will be asked to kick off the Q&A session by answering selected questions from the Discussion Forum.

Live events

While much of our virtual meetings are accessible to the public, all interactive (live) events are tightly secured. Access to live Q&A sessions will require users to log in with a verified account. Access to all social events will be restricted to verified, registered attendees who reserved a virtual seat ahead of time. Access to the MathPsych business meeting will be restricted to current members of the Society for Mathematical Psychology.

Live events will make use of third-party services such as Zoom (zoom.us), and gather.town. These services will be free to use and work inside a regular browser. Zoom works as an app on most smartphones; gather.town may require a desktop or laptop. These services all require a camera and a microphone. Access will be protected by private access links and individual passwords, which will be disseminated via the conference venue.

Finally, note that we can make no guarantees that live events will happen as planned. A lot can happen to make live events impossible without notice. In the unlikely case that an ongoing event is abruptly interrupted, check the session page for updates.

Certificate of attendance

A certificate of attendance can be obtained from the conference venue as soon as the meeting ends. Log in to your User account and select 'Certificates of Attendance'.

Presenting on mathpsych.org

Since the mechanics of online conferences will be new to many, we have designed a small set of guidelines that all presenters should take into account. Please read this entire chapter.

Part of these guidelines are informed by our belief that our research should be, to the fullest extent possible, accessible to all. As a result, when authors submit a presentation to mathpsych.org, we believe it should be considered publicly accessible by default. Submitters will be given the choice to opt out of the immediate publication of their presentation. Instead they can choose to embargo their work for any amount of time, even permanently, during which the presentation will be accessible to authenticated users only.

To learn more about embargoing or about submitting your presentation without making it public (or, more generally, without using YouTube), be sure to read the section on Copyright information and intellectual property below.

Record your presentation

All presentations should be recorded using screen capture software with voice-over. This tends to produce higher quality sound and video than camera recordings of slide projections.

Software to record your screen and audio is relatively easy to come by. Zoom is currently a popular option at many universities. Current versions of all major computer operating systems have built-in screen recorders that also allow for recording audio from the microphone and allow the presenter to use the mouse as one would a laser pointer. The main hardware requirement is a microphone that can be placed close to you.

When you record the voice-over, please keep in mind that there is essentially no distance between you and the audience's ear. Speak in a clear, "inside voice." Also be mindful of the international character of the audience: Just as you should avoid unnecessary jargon, it is best to avoid slang and expressions that might be unfamiliar to non-native speakers of English.

Finally, also keep in mind that your talk will be visible to a large and diverse audience, and the Code of Conduct applies here, too.

Publish your presentation

If at all possible, presentations should be uploaded to YouTube. This has a number of advantages, including free storage, high bandwidth, and automatic closed captioning. To upload a video to YouTube, you need a Google or GSuite account (many institutional email addresses are GSuite accounts; personal Google accounts are free and easy to make).

  1. Go to studio.youtube.com
  2. Log in with your Google or GSuite account
  3. Click the Create button
  4. Choose ``Upload videos'' and select your recording
  5. Enter a title
  6. Enter the following description:
  7. This presentation is part of (conference name).
    See more via http://mathpsych.org/.

  8. Make note of the Video link on the right side of the window (this is what you will need to submit at the conference venue)
  9. Answer the required questions (e.g., this video is not targeted at children; this video has never appeared on television)
  10. When asked about privacy settings, choose either Public or Unlisted

Publishing via YouTube is currently free and allows users to upload an unlimited number of videos (videos longer than 15 minutes require account verification). Among other things, this means that presenters who have trouble using YouTube can ask any friend or colleague to upload a video to their account.

If you are not able to upload a video to YouTube, you may also contact the Conference Chair who can do it on your behalf.

Closed captioning

All prerecorded videos must have captions available. This is a non-negotiable accessibility requirement of the conference venue. Fortunately, YouTube makes this very easy — once you upload a video, an automatic speech-to-text engine will generate closed captions for your video. They are added to your video a few minutes after uploading. While the automatically generated captions are generally good, they do need to be checked and often edited manually. To do so, take the following steps.

  1. Go to studio.youtube.com
  2. Log in with your Google or GSuite account
  3. In the left bar menu, click 'Subtitles' to see a list of videos you have uploaded
  4. Click the downward pointing arrow under 'Languages' next to your presentation
  5. Click the line that reads 'English (automatic)' that has appeared

This will bring you to a relatively intuitive subtitle editor that allows you to edit the generated captions while listening to the audio.

Copyright information; intellectual property

Before you record

Since materials submitted to the conference will by default be made available to the public, we have to consider whose intellectual property is involved. Please make sure that everything in your recorded presentation is either in the public domain, or that it is your own intellectual property, or that you have the permission of the copyright holder to publish the material and to transfer the right to publish. In particular, if you use figures, clip art, or other audiovisual material that was previously published (by anyone, anywhere; not just an academic publisher), those may not be permitted.

When you submit the recording

At the time you submit your recording, you will be asked to give the Society for Mathematical Psychology the right to publish your presentation. Specifically, you will have to confirm the following statement:

I hereby give the Society for Mathematical Psychology a non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-revocable license to make this content publicly available.

You will also be able to specify an embargo if you so desire.

If you have concerns about publication or about using YouTube

If you are unable or unwilling to make your recording available to the general public, or if you are unable or unwilling to use YouTube, you may contact the MathPsych Conference Chair for instructions on how to make your presentation available to the conference attendees only. We are able to store recordings on a private server and make them visible only to users who are logged in and who have confirmed their identity. However, please keep in mind that this confers essentially no guarantees in practice. With hundreds of people with the ability to log in, we have no practical way to contain the illicit dissemination of digital materials.

Additionally, if you choose this option, it would be your responsibility to add closed captions for your presentation.

Live Q&A instructions

Symposium speakers and speakers in concerted sessions will be invited to participate in a live Q&A session.

Q&A sessions will be accessible only to authenticated users and will not be live-streamed in any public venue. After the session, a recording of a Q&A session will be made public only if all panelists in that session give their permission.

A note on timing of the live Q&A sessions

MathPsych live sessions are typically scheduled in the mid to late afternoon, Eastern Daylight Time. We are aware that this is not an ideal time for all presenters and audience members. The decision to hold live sessions in this time slot is based on a combination of considerations: That the majority of presenters (and therefore the likely majority of the audience) at the conference are in North America; and that the selected time slot is merely in the evening (rather than in the middle of the night) in Central European Summer Time and in the early morning in Australian Eastern Standard Time, which together account for the majority of the remaining presenters.