Nuffield Summer Students

Once the exhibit was installed at Sea Life Brighton on Tuesday, 4 July 2017, we spent the rest of the week preparing to meet our Nuffield Research Placement students! They will be spending three weeks hosting the exhibit and collecting preliminary data to help assess the interactive booth as a way to collect behavioural data from humans “in the wild”. Below is the email I sent them to get everyone on the same page for our first day together on Monday, 10 July 2017.

Hi Reanna and Alex,

I’m super pleased to be working with you both this summer! This email will cover some logistics and give you further instructions for Monday. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to ping me :)

I’ve attached two papers to this email. Please read the 2013 paper “Crowd science: The organization of scientific research in open collaborative projects” by Monday so that we can discuss this paper over lunch (see detailed schedule below). The 2017 paper, “Neuroscience needs behavior: correcting a reductionist bias”, please read by Thursday.

Next week it would be ideal if you could both be at Sea Life Brighton every day from Monday to Thursday. I’ll be leaving on Friday to go teach in the States for 3 weeks, so these four days will be very important for us to get on the same page and for me to help you gain confidence as the scientific hosts of the exhibit. I’d like to go with the following schedule:

Monday (July 10):

9am - please arrive at Sea Life Brighton by 9am. Together we will boot up the exhibit, and I’ll explain all the parts (hardware and software) that make it tick. You will both try out the exhibit so you have a sense of what our guests will be experiencing.
10am - Sea Life Brighton opens. During the morning session, you’ll observe/shadow me as I host the exhibit and demonstrate the data collection procedure.
1pm - We will break for lunch together, during which we’ll discuss the paper on crowd science and any questions you have so far.
2pm - We’ll begin the afternoon session, during which you’ll both host the exhibit together while I observe you.
4:30pm - As the Sea Life center prepares to close at 5pm, we’ll go through the exhibit’s daily shut-down sequence. I’ll give you my feedback on the afternoon session. We’ll discuss any other questions and suggestions you have concerning the exhibit.

Tuesday and Wednesday:

9am - arrive at Sea Life Brighton. Boot up exhibit.
10am - Sea Life Brighton opens. All three of us co-host the exhibit in the mornings.
12pm - Reanna and Alex go to lunch while I host the exhibit.
1pm - I go to lunch while Reanna and Alex host the exhibit.
2pm - Reanna and Alex take turns solo-hosting the exhibit while I observe.
4:30pm - Shut down exhibit. Give each other feedback on how the day went.

Thursday (flexible, based on how well Tuesday and Wednesday go):

9am - arrive at Sea Life Brighton. Boot up exhibit.
10am - Sea Life Brighton opens. All three of us co-host the morning session.
1pm - We break for lunch together to discuss the paper about the need for more behaviour in neuroscience.
2pm - Reanna and Alex take turns solo-hosting the exhibit while I observe.
4:30pm - Shut down exhibit. Discuss how Reanna and Alex will regularly touch base with me while I’m in the US.

We would like for this exhibit to run every day, so please think about what days you can cover during those three weeks that I’m gone. Reanna, you mentioned that you work Fridays and Saturdays? Alex, do you have any scheduling constraints? Once I’m back in August (I land back in the UK on August 7th) we can re-distribute the hosting schedule to take advantage of having three hosts. This means those first 3 weeks will be quite intense, then things will relax significantly in August.

I think whatsapp will be the easiest way to communicate with everyone quickly, especially while I’m in the US. I’ve checked with Reanna and she already uses whatsapp – Alex, do you? If not, it’s a free app. My Whatsapp number is xxxxxxxxxxx. Please save my number and message me, so that I can create a group chat for us.

As always, let me know if you have any questions or concerns. Can’t wait to begin!

Have a lovely weekend,
Danbee