Walkthrough of the SLACK

The following guidelines are to help the participants get acquainted with the basic outline of the ST42021 slack workspace. Please read through carefully before joining.

1.  ST42021 will be coordinated almost entirely using slack. If you want to attend the lectures and participate in the ensuing discussions, joining is mandatory. On joining you will become members of 4 channels by default with 8 optional channels. Below we give a summary of these channels and their primary intended purposes.

a. #announcements– This is the core channel of seminar related announcements and you will be added to it automatically as you join. The Zoom links and live stream links (if needed) will be posted only in this channel. All participants are strongly encouraged to regularly check this channel for updates and announcements. This is the only channel on which the sole posting right is restricted to organizers. 

b.  #introduction – You will be added to it automatically as you join the workspace. Please use this channel to introduce yourself to other members. This is a great way to share your interests and find other people who share similar inclinations and interests.

c. #st42021-  You will be added to it automatically as you join the workspace. Please use this channel to put forward organisational issues

  d. #breakroom-banter– This channel is for any chitchat or conversations that you may find yourself drawn to during the breaks and you will be added to it automatically. This is also a great platform to advertise any new channel that you may have created to discuss a specific topic (see point 3 below).

e. #topic__speaker– There are 7 optional such channels, one for each speaker (recall several topics will be covered by 2 speakers). The speakers will use this channel to provide backgrounds, supplementary reading materials etc. Once the lectures start, people can use this channel to ask questions, debate and discuss the specific lecture topics in the respective channels. The speakers will also use this channel to answer any questions or clear any doubts. The participants will need to join them by themselves after signing into the workspace.

f. #gongshow_slides-  The gong show speakers are requested to join this channel and put up your slides there. There will be  8 more optional channels for each gong show participant (to be opened before the second week). We hope you have a very fruitful and vibrant discussion session discussing with the participants. The participants will need to join them by themselves after signing into the workspace.

 2.    We will request you to consider using a picture of yourself on the profile. In a virtual platform, this small step often helps in establishing a humane ambience. 

3.    Any user is free to create their own channels focusing on a specific research topic. This is a great way to start a new collaboration and/or study group. Before creating a channel, however, we strongly advise checking the existing list of channels to avoid the excessive creation of channels discussing similar and/or closely related topics. In case you want to create the channel, please use the following nomenclature "#discussion_topicname".

 4.    This workspace, admittedly, is by no means a direct replacement for in-person discussions. However, online discussion forums have their own advantages. One of the reasons we are opening this workspace 2 weeks prior to the start of the meeting is to give all the participants enough time to familiarize themselves with the environment. Hopefully, by the time the lectures start, most of us, if not all, will be well equipped to have dynamic discussions on slack.  

5.    The organizers have found over the past several months of using slack, that installing slack on your laptop/desktop as well as on your mobile/tablets help a lot to acclimatize faster. Slack was never meant to be used solely by accessing it from a browser. Think of it like any other communication/chat apps that you use in your day-to-day lives and that will help in ensuring you do not miss out on any important notifications.

Please join the slack as soon as possible to ensure you do not miss out on any of the updates (Only participants who had finished both the stages of registration will be provided with the link). As we come near the starting date of the meeting (5th July 2021) we will slowly phase out communications over email in favour of communications over slack.