Sicsa phd2015

Scientific Collaboration

sicsa PhD ConferenceJune 25, 2015

Ian GentUniversity of St Andrews

http://ian.gent

http://www.slideshare.net/turingfan/sicsa-phd2015

http://ian.gent/






Timings…• 10.20 Find Room & Group• 10.25 Introductions

• Introduce yourselves to the other members of the group

• 10.40 Brainstorming• Figure out something you could work together on• Anything!

• 11.00 Write down summary of ideas• 11.10 Finish text for presentation• 11.20 Email pdf of presentation to committee• 11.30 Give presentation to your room in 4 MINUTES!• 12 The End

What do I bring to the party?

I have done a little bit of collaboration in my time …Özgür Akgün, Sylwester Arabas, Michael R. Bareford, James L. Caldwell, David A. Clark, Michelle Cope, Tom Crick, Joseph C. Culberson, Jeremy Frank, Alan M. Frisch, Enrico Giunchiglia, Benjamin M. Gorman, Peter Gregory, Masih Hajiarabderkani


Kevin Hammond, Warwick HarveyTristan Henderson, Neil P. Chue HongHolger H. Hoos, Sophie HuczynskaBilal Syed Hussain, Luke HuttonRobert W. Irving, Christopher JeffersonThomas W. Kelsey, Sergey Kitaev, Alexander Konovalov, Lars Kotthoff, Stephen Linton


Inês Lynce, Ewan MacIntyreDavid Manlove, Ciaran McCreeshIain McDonald, Paul McKayIan Miguel, Neil C. A. MooreMassimo Narizzano, Glenna F. NightingalePeter Nightingale, Ruma R. PaulJustin Pearson, Karen E. PetriePatrick Prosser, Abdul Razaq


Daniël Reijsbergen, Andrea RendlColva M. Roney-Dougal, Andrew RowleyJosh Singer, Alan SmaillBarbara M. Smith, Kevin SmythKostas Stergiou, Armando TacchellaKenji Takeda, Armagan TarimNeven Tomov, Judith L. UnderwoodToby Walsh, Wu Wie... But that doesn‘t mean I‘m good at collaborating!

What do I know about collaboration?

• Intimidating list of paper co authors• Ok that’s a bit unfair because of a 17 author paper

• Oh well that also means good collaborator too…

• Many types of collaborator• People who have changed my life • Others who pass through my life• Some I’ve never met• That’s what to expect

But that doesn‘t mean I‘m good at collaborating!• I used to think I was a bad collaborator

• Did my PhD without writing any joint papers • Even with my supervisor• Wrote only with one collaborator for a couple of years after that

• Then I thought I was better collaborator than most of my colleagues• Then I realised both of the above statements are consistent!

• So this is a great idea for a workshop!

Why collaborate?

• There’s a very easy answer

Why collaborate?

• You have to!

Why collaborate?

• Also

A project of this scope could not be realized without the aid of many people, or rather it could but it would be dumb to do it that way when there are so many people around willing to give their aid.

• Peter SchickeleThe Definitive Biography of P.D.Q. Bach (1807-171)?

You may have collaborated before

• Maybe five authors in your research group• You had the idea, did all the implementation, wrote about half the paper, etc• Postdoc wrote all the code yours is an adaption of, pointed out the critical

bug in your code 2 days before submission, and wrote a quarter of the paper• Lecturer wrote about an eighth of the paper• Senior Lecturer wrote the impressive abstract• Professor has their name on the paper too but you’ve no idea why

• This exercise is not about that kind of collaboration

This kind of collaboration…

• You meet somebody or a group of people• There might be some interesting work you can do • Maybe there is and maybe there isn’t• But how might you find out?• Let’s try today!

The Exercise…

• We want you to meet a group of collaborators• Introduce yourselves to each other• Find out what you work on • Figure out something you could work on together• Figure out what you might do on that• Prepare a presentation about it• Give the presentation• You’ve got more than an hour, easy!

• I did it with Oche in a few minutes

Presentation

• 4 Minutes is not very long• And we have to be strict• Want MAX of three slides• Slide 1:

• title of potential project, • names of collaborators, affiliations

• Slide 2• Brief (obviously) summary of project• What’s the problem you are trying to address• Perhaps ideas of how to solve it

• Slide 3• What do we bring to the party?• How the different collaborators might be able to help

Constraint Modelling for Energy Efficient Video• Oche Ejembi & Ian Gent• Summary

• Example Use Case: Home video server delivering multiple streams• How do we satisfy users most in terms of quality etc while using minimal

energy and obeying physical constraints?

• What do we bring to the party?• Oche: study of video codecs energy & resource usage• Ian: understanding of optimisation techniques using constraints• Combine these by building optimisation model using results of Oche’s studies

Some Dos and Don’ts

Do be the stupidest person in the collaboration• Somebody asked me how I coped with working with two particularly

ridiculously smart people• I said, “exactly, I work with them!”• Look at it this way

• You want your collaboration to be the smartest possible• Will it be smarter if you are the smart one in the collaboration, or if you are

the stupid one?

Do be smart enough to work with people smarter than you• A more polite way of saying exactly the same thing!

Do put up with other collaborators being incredibly annoying

• You are probably incredibly annoying sometimes• But also you do good stuff• I think this is one thing that makes me a good collaborator

• I let my co-authors down and they let me down• And I might be incredibly annoyed• But I get over it and we write more papers together

• This doesn’t mean you should put up with abuse or bullying of course

Do put up with arguing • Similar but not quite the same as the last point• Listen carefully when your co-authors disagree with you• Especially the quiet one who never says anything but is looking dubious in

the corner• Arguments among co-authors are often the best way to come up with a new

solution• And guards against some things your reviewers would spot

Don’t lose your paper

• I mean literally lose your paper and not be able to recreate it• And I’m not joking• I can think of two cases where this has happened to me so …

Do use source code control

• LaTeX works well with git, hg, etc• Right now I’m writing a paper via Word & DropBox• And it’s scaring the whatsit out of me

• Great for working on different parts of paper at the same time• With source code control …

• It doesn’t matter how stupid your collaborators YOU are• You can retrieve the situation

What do you bring to the party?

• Let’s say you are still worried about not being the smart one… • There’s almost certainly something you can bring to the party …

• … which is probably more important to the paper than being the smart one

Are you …

• The one who knows the literature?• The one who can see the mistake in the past paper which

means you can fix the literature?• The one who can predict what reviewers won’t like about

your paper as is?• The one who can see how to sell the paper idea?• The one who can structure the paper just right?• The one who can get the paper submitted on time? • The one who can resolve edit conflicts?• The one who can get the paper back into length when it’s

a page over 4 hours before submission?

Sicsa phd2015

Education

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