Collaborative Research: A virtual workshop on conducting language research online: Enhancing the resilience of the language sciences in a time of social distancing

This project supports a five-week long virtual workshop for language scientists. The purpose is to train language scientists to conduct language studies with human subjects over the Internet. There are two primary motivations. First, in response to the COVID-19 crisis, laboratories around the world have ceased in-person human data collection. That means ideas being left untested, discoveries not being made, students not getting trained, and human talent left untapped. Second, Internet-based experiments offer a number of advantages for research: they can be cheaper, faster, provide better data, and allow researchers to work on questions that are impossible to study in the lab. In fact, a number of researchers have pointed out that language science research would be advanced if more studies could be undertaken using Internet-based data collection. Thus, by enabling researchers to rapidly move research online, this project will not only help mitigate the costs of the COVID-19 crisis, but will result in a science that is more robust and faster-moving than before the crisis. The workshop will be free and open to all. All materials will be available online for individuals who could not attend the live workshop.

In each of the first four weeks, there will be a 2 to 3 hour live video presentation, including a live question and answer (Q&A) session. Each presentation will be followed several days later by a live, message board-based Q&A. During the fifth week, there will be an additional message board-based Q&A. Topics will include technical skills, such as using popular software platforms, as well as other research implementation skills, such as handling ethics issues and subject recruitment. The workshop will be facilitated by the teams experienced in the design and use of two robust software packages for online experiments.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.