D Tutorials How-to

D.1 Organizing Tutorials

Every year, useR! features a tutorial program addressing the diverse interests of its audience. The tutorials are aimed at R users/developers worldwide who wish to learn about new technologies or enhance their knowledge about the existing technologies and novices to the #Rstats world interested in introductory lessons. Tutorials have helped the R user community to be updated about the latest packages, concepts, and best practices in R.

D.1.1 Call for proposals

One of the first steps to organize the tutorials is to decide whether there will be an open call for tutorial proposals, will be by invitations, or a hybrid model, where some tutorials will be invited, and another number will be decided by open call. Determining the number of tutorials is also necessary because it depends on the infrastructure available (ex: classrooms when in-person or zoom accounts when online) and will influence the schedule.

If there is an open call, the second step is to write the call for proposals. Some of the points to determine to write the call are topics, minimum and maximum duration, language (for example, in useR! 2021, there were tutorials in English, Spanish and French), and level of the tutorials (beginners, advanced, etc.). Decide if tutors will get monetary compensation. Afterward, determine the opening date of the call for proposals and the closing date. And finally, the platform through which the proposals will be received. All this is information must be detailed in the text of the call.

D.1.2 Infrastructure

Where, when and how to run the tutorials

In the case of in-person conferences, the tutorials are given in classrooms or rooms prepared for this purpose in the same venue that the conference. These classrooms should follow the same accessibility guidelines as the rest of the conference.

In the case of online conferences, there are two ways in which they have been carried out:

In useR! 2020 tutorials were organized in conjunction with AfricaR, MiR, and R-Ladies. These communities and their chapters and members selected which tutorials they would like to host and the conference organizing team made the match between tutors and host so that they could agree on times and days for the tutorial. The communities and the RConsortium helped with the Meetup or Eventbrite infrastructure for registration and Zoom for the video conference. The organization of the event provided the subtitles for the tutorials.

In useR! 2021, a full day of the conference was dedicated to tutorials and all related infrastructure was organized and provided by the event organizer (Zoom, helpers, captions, recording, etc.).

Call for proposal platform

The plataform to recibe the tutorial proposal needs as information the data which will be requested about the tutorials. Here we list a set of potential data to request:

The title of the tutorial
Abstract
A brief outline
The broad topic it covers
The learning goals
Time zone preference and time slot (please mention at least three different time zones you are comfortable with) - this is only necessary for the online component of the conference.
Length of the tutorial (in minutes or hours)
Language in which the tutorial can be taught.
The intended audience (beginners, advances, etc.)
Pedagogical method of teaching
The maximum number of attendees
Motivation to teach this tutorial at useR!
- Links to the Tutorial materials and/or web page (If there exists).
Prerequisites / requirements
Material sharing (license), recording consent
A brief biography of the instructors

In the template appendix, you can find an example text from useR! 2021.

D.1.3 Promotion of the Call

The first step is to publish it on the web and communicate it through the social networks of the conference.

Other channels include: R user groups, partners like R-Ladies, MiR; AfricaR, LatinR, Forwards, among others. Slack from related communities, such as rOpenSci, The Carpentries, The Turing Way, to name a few.

Email is one of the most widely used media. The information can be sent to universities, professional associations, companies, and institutions. This is a template for this email.

D.1.4 Review

In parallel with the writing of the call, the reviewers can be invited. You should include when they are expected to review and how much time we estimate this can take in the invitation. An example of an email to invite reviewers can be found in the template appendix.

These reviewers will be part of the Program Committee and will carefully evaluate each submission regarding its overall quality, research scope, and appeal to a reasonable fraction of the R community. The submission will also be checked for its technical content and the pedagogical proposal.

Each submission will have at least two reviews. Reviewers will fill a form with review criteria that will help to choose the final list of tutorials. Here is a list of potential criteria:

Criteria

Relevance: Very good, Good, Acceptable, Weak, Very weak (According to the proposed topic, the target audience, language, and motivation, indicate this tutorial’s relevance for the conference.)
Pedagogy: Very good, Good, Acceptable, Weak, Very weak (Indicate the clarity and level of the pedagogical proposal of the tutorial in all its points, with emphasis on the description, outline, learning objectives, duration, and target audience. Include your rating of material such as websites and GitHub, if they exist.)
Originality: Very good, Good, Acceptable, Weak, Very weak (According to the proposed topic, the target audience, the pedagogical proposal, language, and motivation, indicate this tutorial’s originality for the conference.)
Accessibility: Very good, Good, Acceptable, Weak, Very weak (Considering our accessibility guidelines for tutorials, evaluate this tutorial’s accessibility proposal as well as the accessibility of any linked materials.)
Instructor (Brief comments on qualifications of the instructor and quality of their instruction. In addition, it is useful to know details such as the tutor’s experience working with the global R community and/or in their region, scope and popularity of their courses and/or materials, any knowledge of their instructional ability, or any other information that may be of interest when ranking the tutorial.)
Overall Evaluation: Very Good (must be accepted) Good (I recommend that it be accepted) Limit (is at the limit of what is acceptable) Weak (I recommend rejecting it) Very weak (I strongly recommend that it be rejected)
Brief comments for the program and content tutorial committee
Brief comments for the authors of the proposal
Level: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced (Categorize the proposal according to the level you think the tutorial audience should have.)

Final selection

Final decisions will be based on the review committee, depending on conference attendees’ interest, topic relevance, and slot availability.

D.1.5 Communication with reviewers

During the review process it will be necessary to communicate with the reviewers, to confirm that they can do the work, to send the data for review, to remind them of the dates on which the results are expected and to thank them for their work. In the template appendix you can find email addresses for these communications.

D.1.6 Results communication

Once the review is finished, the results should be sent to all the people who made a proposal. In the appendix there are two email templates to communicate acceptance and rejection results. Reviewers’ comments are included in this communication so that authors can take advantage of this feedback for their proposal.

For accepted tutorials, also include the information of the day and time for the tutorial. Schedule changes may occur in this stage from interaction with tutors.

In this instance, it is necessary to confirm: title, duration, tutors, language, and agreement to recorded and shared the tutorial after the conference.

D.1.7 Agenda

At this stage, the final agenda is generated and published on the web and on the registration platform so that the people who attend the conference can select the tutorials. People were not allowed to take more than two tutorials and a charge was added to decrease the no-show rate for these events.

D.2 Documents and templates

D.2.1 Template call for tutorials

In this announcement, we outline topics of interest, presentation guidelines, and important dates for proposal submission.

The tutorials will be for R users in all sectors, e.g., researchers, government officers, and industry representatives who focus on the applicability of R in practical settings and for all levels.

The duration of each tutorial can vary between two to four hours, we encourage shorter length but we expect at least two hours. We strongly believe that similar tutorials have helped the R user community to be updated about the latest packages, concepts, and best practices.

Since we have a global event this year, we will accept proposals for tutorials to be taught in English, Spanish or French. If you plan to teach in Spanish or French, the proposal must still be submitted in English.

These tutorials will be organized in multiple time zones, so we request that you select a convenient time zone. We will later determine the timezone based on all other tutorials and attendees’ interest to combine them into a session. The recordings of the tutorials will be shared online with the consent of the organizers, instructors, and attendees. We prefer tutorials to have hands-on exercises or examples to be carried out by the participants for their best interest.

The organization will offer a payment of USD 500 for those tutorials that are selected.

Topics of interest

Suggested topics for this edition, although not exclusive, are the following:

Environmetrics
Epidemiology
Big data
Spatial analysis and modeling
Transportation
Usage of Rcpp
Introduction to artificial intelligence/machine learning, exploratory machine learning, and/or ethical artificial intelligence
Non linear statistical modeling
Reproducibility and best practices
Ethical web scraping
Imaging and signal processing
Database management
Docker and RStudio
Natural Language Processing
Shiny app development and best practices
Predictive modeling time series forecasting
R Packages: building packages, CRAN submission and package maintenance
Teaching R and R in teaching.
Visualization
Using git with R

Submission guidelines

Submissions must be sent using the Tutorial Submission platform following this link https://graphs.kof.ethz.ch/user-tutorials/ from {date} to {date}

Please read the code of conduct and the accessibility guidelines for tutorials before submitting the tutorials.

Submissions must be written in English and include:

The title of the tutorial
Abstract
The broad topic it covers
The learning goals
Time zone preference and time slot (please mention at least three different time zones you are comfortable with)
Length of the tutorial
Language in which the tutorial can be taught.
The intended audience and method of online engagement with the audience
If there exists, a link to the Tutorial materials and/or web page.
Prerequisites / requirements
Material sharing (license), recording consent
A brief biography of the instructors

Important dates

Tutorial submission start: {date}
Tutorial submission deadline: {date}
Tutorial acceptance notification: {date}

Review Criteria

Each submission will be carefully evaluated by our Program Committee regarding the submission’s overall quality, research scope, and its appeal to a reasonable fraction of the R community.

The submission will also be checked for its technical content and the pedagogical proposal. Final decisions will be based on the review committee, depending on conference attendees’ interest, topic relevance, and slot availability.

The outcome of the review process will be declared on {date}

D.2.2 Template email for promotion of the call

Hi, I’m writing to you because you are {add profession, title, role} and the useR! {year} Call for Tutorials is open now until {date} and I think that this call can be of your interest.

useR! {year} is going virtual, and we are happy to open the call for the tutorial proposals.

The tutorials will be for R users in all sectors, e.g., researchers, government officers, and industry representatives who focus on the applicability of R in practical settings and for all levels.

Each tutorial’s duration can vary between {min_hours_number} to {max_hours_number} hours, we encourage shorter length, but we expect at least {min_hours_number} hours, and we will accept proposals for tutorials to be taught in {list of languages}.

useR! offers USD {number} for selected tutorials.

Find the full call for tutorials here: {link to the Call on the website}

We would appreciate it if you spread this call and we await your proposals.

Cheers,

D.2.3 Template email for invite reviewer for tutorials

Hi,

We are pleased to announce that useR! {year}, the next International R User Conference, will take place online on {date and time}.

Given your expertise in R, we would like to invite you to be a member of the useR! {year} Program Committee. This will greatly help us to consolidate the preferences for the contributions that will be presented during useR! {year}.

If you accept this invitation, we would like you to review some one-page tutorial proposals. At this time it is not possible to anticipate how many proposals we will assign to you. However, we will do our best to keep your service as a program committee member to a maximum of eight hours.

We expect that your service will approximately take place during the last three weeks of {month and year}, once the tutorial submission process has been completed.

We thank you for considering this invitation and hope that you might be able to contribute to the conference.

Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Looking forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience, before {date}

Best wishes,

{Name of the chairs of the program committee} Chairs of the Program Committee

D.2.4 Template email for sending reviewer info to review tutorials

Dear {name},

Thank you for agreeing to review tutorial proposals. We are now sending you an HTML file containing all the Tutorial abstracts assigned to you for review. Please record your feedback in the spreadsheet that is linked in the HTML file. At the bottom of each tutorial (in the HTML file), we have provided a link that takes you to the correct row in the spreadsheet to facilitate the review. We expect that you need an average of 15 minutes per proposal. Below, we specify the criteria for the tutorial review. These are also included in the first tab of the spreadsheet.

Please complete the reviews by {date}, and please reach out early if there is any problem.

Thank you again for your time, and please don’t hesitate to contact us if anything is unclear.

Kind regards,

useR! {year} Program Committee

{commite members names}

Criteria
- Relevance (According to the proposed topic, the target audience, language, and motivation, indicate this tutorial’s relevance for the conference.)
- Pedagogy (Indicate the clarity and level of the pedagogical proposal of the tutorial in all its points, with emphasis on the description, outline, learning objectives, duration, and target audience. Include your rating of material such as websites and GitHub, if they exist.)
- Originality (According to the proposed topic, the target audience, the pedagogical proposal, language, and motivation, indicate this tutorial’s originality for the conference.)
- Accessibility (Considering our accessibility guidelines for tutorials, evaluate this tutorial’s accessibility proposal as well as the accessibility of any linked materials.)
- Instructor (Brief comments on qualifications of the instructor and quality of their instruction. It is useful to know details such as the tutor’s experience working with the global R community and/or in their region, scope and popularity of their courses and/or materials, any knowledge of their instructional ability, or any other information that may be of interest when ranking the tutorial.)
Overall Evaluation
Brief comments for the program and content tutorial committee
Brief comments for the authors of the proposal
Level (Categorize the proposal according to the level you think the tutorial audience should have.)

D.2.5 Review reminder for tutorial

Hi,

Thank you for agreeing to review tutorial abstracts for useR! {year} We are writing to you since we are approaching the tutorial abstract review deadline ({date}). Meeting this date is critical for us to carry out the final selection process in a time. Please let us know if you have any questions/issues with the abstract review process and we are happy to help. Thanks in advance for your time and contribution. Kind regards, useR! {year} Program Committee {names of the chairs/head of program commitee}

D.2.6 Template email to inform tutorial submission decision - accepted

Subject: Tutorial Submission decision Dear {name of the tutor/s}

Thank you again for submitting your tutorial titled {tutorial title} to useR! {year}. With over {number of submissions} quality submissions, the committee had the tough job of selecting a small number of tutorial abstracts.

We are happy to inform you that your tutorial has been accepted!

We propose the following time slot on {date and time} (in UTC - please check the equivalent in your timezone).

Tutorial Title: {tutorial title}

Tutorial language: {tutorial language}

Please confirm the time slot, title, and language by {deadline date}.

When preparing your material, please follow our accessibility standards.

Thanks for your valuable contribution to useR! {year}.

Kind regards,

{names of the chairs of the program committee} Chairs of the Program Committee

D.2.7 Template email to inform tutorial submission decision - not accepted

Dear {tutor name},

Thank you again for submitting your tutorial titled “{tutorial name}” to useR! {year}. With over {number of submision} quality submissions, the committee had the tough job of selecting a small number of tutorial abstracts. Unfortunately, we regret to inform you that your tutorial has not been accepted for this year’s edition.

Our Program Committee carefully evaluated each submission regarding the submission’s overall quality, research scope, and its appeal to a reasonable fraction of the R community. The submitted material was also checked for its originality, accessibility, and technical/pedagogical content.

Our goal is that this edition of useR! is global, inclusive, and accessible. Therefore, the final decisions were made based on the aspects detailed above: topic relevance, language, gender, and regional representation, slot availability, preference to less-established presenters, and content previously not presented at global R conferences. The reviewers would like to share the following feedback with you: {reviewers feedback}

Thank you again for your interest in conducting a tutorial. We hope to see you at the conference and look forward to your tutorial in a future edition.

Kind regards {programm committee team}

D.2.8 Template email to thank tutorial reviewers

Subject: Tutorial useR! {year} review

Hi,

Thank you so much for completing your reviews for useR! {year}. Your work contributes to the organization of a quality, global, and accessible conference.

We much appreciate your time and dedication. Thank you!

Kind regards, useR! {year} Program Committee {names of the chairs/head of the program committee)

D.2.9 Template mail asking for summary for website

Dear Tutor, we will open registrations to useR! very soon and we would love for participants to pick your tutorial! Since the summary you sent us was aimed at the reviewers of the Program Committee, we thought that you would want a chance to edit it and make it even more appealing to participants. For that reason, we now ask you to provide a new summary of your tutorial in up to 100 words to promote it on the conference website and our social networks.

In your {register platform name - for 2021 was conftool} account (your credentials have been sent in a separate email) under submissions, you can find the information that we already uploaded about your tutorial. Please make your changes before {date}. Additionally, we may take the liberty of editing the current or final summary.

Should you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact us.

Kind regards {program committee team}

C Abstract Review Systems at useR!

E UseR! Social media policy