In accordance with our code of conduct and privacy policy, please do not share this unlinked page with anyone outside of the conference.
The Pre-Recorded Talks
The pre-recorded talks from the first week are now available on our YouTube channel as unlisted videos. You can access them via the conference schedule. You should watch the talks you are interested in and discuss them on Slack before their scheduled live discussion. We suggest choosing which parallel sessions you will attend, and then, as a minimum, watching the talks from those sessions as well as all the plenary talks.
All the scheduled live discussions will be recorded and shared with the participants. Therefore, do not worry if you miss a session, you can still catch what was discussed later. These recordings will not be made publicly available after the conference. In addition, you should be able to find the speakers in Sococo and be able to talk to them in person.
We strongly advise deliberately setting time aside to watch the talks and not leaving it to the last minute!
The Slack Workspace
The invitation link to the conference Slack workspace is included in your welcome email. Slack will be the main source of communication during the conference: we will post all announcements, instructions and guidelines there.
The Slack workspace will also host asynchronous discussions of all talks. Each scheduled discussion session has its own Slack channel. We encourage you to begin discussing the talks as soon as you have watched them. These asynchronous discussions complement and improve the scheduled live discussions: Speakers will have time to carefully think about the questions asked; and all participants will be able to inform themselves of the likely points of interest in the live discussions.
Slack will also be where the themed discussions are suggested, planned and scheduled – as well as where asynchronous discussion of the chosen themes happens beforehand.
Slack Etiquette
- When using Slack, please adhere to our code of conduct. It is OK to have scientific disagreements with other participants, but keep them constructive and kind.
- Try to follow the rule of one thread per discussion topic. For example, do not reply to someone with a new top-level post in the channel, but do start a new thread if you have a new, unrelated question. This allows other participants to navigate and join in the many ongoing discussions more easily.
- If your question (or discussion point) is to someone in particular, e.g. the speaker of a pre-recorded talk, you should @their-name so that they know you have asked the question.
The Sococo Virtual Office Space
There are two floors to our Sococo space. One features an auditorium and multiple seminar rooms. This is the floor where the scheduled live talk and themed discussions will take place. The other floor is an office space, where participants can gather at all other times to discuss and collaborate.
Sococo Etiquette
Treat the Sococo space as you would treat the conference venue at an in-person event. Wherever possible, when you have a discussion with other conference participants, do it in Sococo. If your discussion is pre-planned, let others know about your plans in Slack. The purpose of using Sococo is to allow participants to see what conversations are taking place at any point of the conference and to freely move between them.
As a general rule, whenever you are online during these two weeks, log in to Sococo and put yourself in one of the rooms, or lounges, on the office floor. Doing this allows other participants, who might want to talk with you, to see you and strike up a conversation.
We have dedicated social rooms in the Sococo space, so even if you are online but taking a break from physics, make use of these rooms to meet and interact with other conference participants, who have joined Cosmology from Home from countries in all corners of the world.
Themed Discussions
On days between scheduled live discussions of the talks we will also be having scheduled themed discussions. These will be chosen by participants during the conference. You can suggest a topic, and discuss others’ suggestions in the #themed-suggestions channel on Slack. This is also where we will organise the scheduling of the themed discussions.
Feel free to suggest any topic you are interested in!
There is no prescribed format for the themed discussions. Some might be a tutorial by an expert on a difficult topic of interest. Others might be a lively debate of a contentious issue within cosmology. Still others might be working groups getting together to begin tackling a scientific, or social, topic of interest to participants.
Each themed discussion will be assigned an official chair to moderate the discussion on the day.
Social Events
Beyond the use of the social rooms in Sococo, there will also be scheduled social events throughout the conference. This will include regular online games and a pub quiz.
Final Comments
Take advantage of the Slack and Sococo spaces to get the most out of the conference. The officially scheduled discussion hours are not the whole conference. We warmly encourage participants to schedule their own informal discussions (and social interactions) in Sococo and to inform other participants of these plans in Slack.
If you think of something that could be added to make the conference even better, let us know in Slack, and we can all bring it about together.