Interactive Sessions

Interactive sessions are designed around audience participation, either for teaching or collaborative purposes. These sessions will typically ensure the audience gains a new skill or that they engage meaningfully with other audience members and the session leader(s). The emphasis is on fostering learning, skill-building, networking, or idea generation in a dynamic and participatory environment. As long as these goals are kept in mind, the exact format is largely up to interpretation.

Planning Your Submission

Workshop

Workshops enable participants to develop their skills in relation to a particular technology or technique. Our most successful Workshops have guided participants through a topic using engaging, hands-on practicals alongside short talks/lectures. Ultimately, participants should have gained sufficient detail and practical experience that they can continue learning about the topic after the Workshop.

In your submission, you should include a description of the topic you would like to teach, a clear plan of how the audience will be able to participate and follow along, and the benefit that your audience will gain by attending the Workshop.

Participants will be using their own devices, and you will have the option to provide pre-conference setup instructions. As part of your planning, you should consider aspects such as licences, access to virtual machines, and compute capability. Access to licences and software must not result in a cost incursion for attendees. If there are any aspects of the technical plan that you would like support with, please contact us in advance of the submission deadline, and we will do our best to help. Should your submission be accepted, we will provide some Workshop-specific communications to you regarding sign-ups, sharing any setup instructions, and on-the-day logistics.

Topics for Workshops could include:

• Teaching a new skill (e.g. how to create an R or Python package, writing a grant application, leadership skills)
• How to use a technology or service (e.g. how to set up and use continuous integration, how to use a cloud service)
• Demonstrating a new tool (e.g. how to download and use a code coverage or documentation tool)

Previous Workshops have covered topics such as:

• From code to contributions: exploring open source culture in academia
• Reasonable Performance Computing SIG (SIG-RPC): Help Identify and Document Performance Traps in Research Software
• Deploying a Web Application with Kubernetes, A Beginner’s Guide

When submitting your proposal for a Workshop, you should consider the following:

• Title: Should describe what your submission is about (max 50 words)
• Abstract: A brief and attention-grabbing summary of your submission. (max 250 words)
• Prerequisites: Describe the required skills or knowledge for an attendee to fully engage with your submission.
  • Have you considered how accessible your session will be to a diverse conference audience (attendees comprise people from academia, industry, charity and government, from beginners to experts)? (max 150 words)
• Outcomes: How will your attendees benefit from your session? What do you expect them to gain/learn? (max 150 words)
• Technical Plan: Please answer the following questions:
  • How will you deliver the Workshop?
  • If you are delivering the Workshop in-person, how will you support attendees both in-person and online?
  • If you are delivering the Workshop online, how will you support online attendees, and how can the organisers best support you with the in-person aspect?
  • What is the maximum number of participants your workshop could comfortably support in a hybrid format?
  • What software and/or tooling will you be providing access to?
  • What will attendees need to install in advance or bring along (e.g. a piece of their own code)?
• Accessibility: Please comment on how you will ensure your content is accessible, which may include referring to relevant sections of the conference’s accessibility guidance, as well as any other considerations. Some key pieces to consider are:
  • Visually, have you considered the colours chosen, as well as the shape and size of graphics and fonts?
  • You can also use automated accessibility checking tools to help ensure that you haven’t missed anything.
• Hybrid delivery: How will you ensure that both remote and in-person participants have an equal experience? Is there anything that might pose a challenge to streaming your proposal? We appreciate that you may not have answers for all considerations at the moment; this is for the organisers to be aware in advance and support you to deliver a successful event.

You will also be asked to provide:

• Author list: identifying the corresponding author
• Workshop length (checkbox)
• In-person or online delivery (checklist)
• Mentorship: If your submission is accepted, would you like a mentor?

Birds of a Feather (BoF) session

Birds of a Feather (BoF) sessions are informal gatherings of people who share a common interest. They originate from the phrase “birds of a feather flock together” and focus on uniting communities around particular topics within research software. Attendees can discuss, share ideas, network, and collaborate in a more relaxed and open environment. They commonly involve multiple delivery types, such as lightning talks, panels, and discussions.

Whilst the idea is that BoFs are attended by people with a common interest, there may be people attending RSECon26 who are looking to discover new communities and areas of interest. Therefore, we ask that in your planning, you consider how you will make this event inclusive and engaging to attendees who may not have prior awareness of your community or ideas.

Participants will be using their own devices, and you will have the option to provide pre-conference instructions. As part of your planning, consider aspects such as licences, access to virtual machines, and compute capability. Access to licences and software must not result in a cost incurred for attendees. If there are any aspects of the content plan that you would like support with, please contact us in advance of the submission deadline, and we will do our best to help. Should your submission be accepted, we will provide some specific communications to you regarding sharing any set-up instructions and on-the-day logistics.

An example structure for BoF could include:

1. Welcome and introduction to the topic
2. Pre-prepared lightning talks that explore aspects of the topic
3. Community discussion
4. Breakout groups (allowing time for formation and discussion)
5. Reporting back from breakout groups
6. Closing comments, including future plans

For examples of BoFs, please see the following abstracts from RSECon25:

• RSE perspectives on AI code generation tools: Open discussion and drafting of a position statement
• HPCRSE@RSECon25: 4th annual meeting of the HPC RSE community

When submitting your proposal for a BoF, you should consider the following:

• Title: Should describe what your submission is about (max 50 words)
• Abstract: A brief and attention-grabbing summary of your submission. (max 250 words)
• Prerequisites: Describe the required skills or knowledge for an attendee to fully engage with your submission.
  • Have you considered how accessible your session will be to a diverse conference audience (attendees comprise people from academia, industry, charity and government, from beginners to experts)? (max 150 words)
• Outcomes: How will your attendees benefit from your session? What do you expect them to gain/learn? (max 150 words)
• Content plan: Please answer the following questions:
  • What is your proposed schedule, including a timing breakdown?
  • How will you identify contributors for your session? (Including how you will align with the conference mission and ensure inclusivity, diversity and accessibility.)
  • What is the maximum number of participants your workshop could comfortably support in a hybrid format?
  • If applicable, what software and/or tooling will you be providing access to?
  • If applicable, what will attendees need to install in advance or bring along?
  • How will you collect discussion material?
• Accessibility: Please comment on how you will ensure your content is accessible, which may include referring to relevant sections of the conference’s accessibility guidance, as well as any other considerations. Some key pieces to consider are:
  • Visually, have you considered the colours chosen, as well as the shape and size of graphics and fonts?
  • You can also use automated accessibility checking tools to help ensure that you haven’t missed anything.
• Hybrid delivery: How will you ensure that both remote and in-person participants have an equal experience? Is there anything that might pose a challenge to streaming your proposal? We appreciate that you may not have answers for all considerations at the moment; this is for the organisers to be aware in advance and support you to deliver a successful event.
• BoF justification: Why do you think your content should be given a BoF session? How will this content build or showcase a community? How will you disseminate and build on session content after the conference?

You will also be asked to provide:

• Author list: identifying the corresponding author
• BoF’s length: (checkbox)
• In-person or online delivery (checklist)
• Mentorship: If your submission is accepted, would you like a mentor?