[lookit-research] Lookit update, fall 2018

[Kim Scott]

Happy holidays, Lookit friends! Here's an update for fall 2018, just under
the wire.

The news:

- Our* new full-time developer*, Rico Rodriguez, joined the project last
month! (I can now write "we" and "team" with a clear conscience.) He's
gotten started by making the study build process (dramatically) more
efficient, and adjusting the UI to allow researchers to see their changes
instantly.

- Development planning has migrated over to *Github Issues on the various
Lookit-related repositories <https://github.com/lookit>.* You can add your
own feature requests if you want! Internal plans about what issues are
being addressed when, and how long that will take, are organized in
CodeTree - we're happy to add you to the project if you're curious.

- Information about the current status of the project, our longer-term
plans, how IRB approval works, etc. has *migrated to a "research-resources"
Github repo and wiki <https://github.com/lookit/research-resources/wiki>. *

- Surprising no one, recruitment is a lot easier if you pay the
participants :)

- Alpha testing studies: Testing for Mind and Manners (Mike Frank/Erica
Yoon) is complete! Testing is ongoing for Flurps and Zazzes (Lisa
Chalik/Yarrow Dunham) and Your Baby, the Physicist (Melissa Kline/Liz
Spelke). Tell your friends with 6-7 year olds and babies! :) There are
several studies in the works to support gradual recruitment efforts - see
the list here
<https://github.com/lookit/research-resources/wiki/Status-&-plans-for-platform>
.

- The WebRTC-based webcam recording approach deployed this summer is
working much more reliably. I've also started generalizing and improving
the individual "frames" that researchers use to build their experiments.
(For instance, participants now have a button to download a PDF of their
consent form. Thrilling stuff, I know!)

- Setting up a collaboration to make *automated gaze coding* a reality is
coming along! MIT's Quest for Intelligence "Bridge" program may
(tentatively!) be able to provide support, and we have promising starting
points from both Antonio Torralba's and Andreas Bulling's groups (example
<https://drive.google.com/open?id=1pkmLJ_ICEcuShy9SNTWguGRVRhTITdJp> of
OpenFace detecting partially-occluded child's face). We have a small
dataset and proposed standard <https://osf.io/xh54d/> posted for groups who
want to share video data towards this effort, and as a first trial, a lot
of data generously provided by Virginia Marchman to use for training.

- *Funding* - our NSF grant has started, and we have several other irons in
the fire. We're still looking to raise a total of about $1.0M to get
through 2021 without depending on any income from a fee structure, so
additional leads or ideas for collaborations are always welcome.

- *Legal*: a few other schools have actually signed the Lookit access
agreement and approved IRB protocols involving data collection on Lookit!
We are trying this process out already with collaborators in the UK and
Canada, and things are going relatively smoothly. One ongoing challenge is
*GDPR*: we can't officially guarantee that participants aren't in the EU.
This isn't a big deal for MIT - we just comply with GDPR, which is pretty
sensible anyway! - but it may mean that some schools want an additional
contract.

- The *documentation* remains up-to-date. Wait, does that belong here? Is
that exciting news? BUT OF COURSE. (Just leaving this one from last time.)
The overall docs are now in their own Github repo to make it easier for
folks to contribute if they want. Overall documentation
<https://lookit.readthedocs.io/en/develop/> for using platform, specific
experiment frame docs
<https://lookit.github.io/exp-addons/modules/frames.html>.

What's next: *mostly* hunkering down and coding.

- Rico's working on making the platform more usable and powerful for both
researchers and participants, to get ready for proper "launch" in about 18
months.

- I'm working on making it possible for researchers to implement their
studies independently, by expanding the set of experiment frames & their
functionality.

- If you're interested in getting yourself or your students (more)
involved, take a look at the list of ways to help here
<https://github.com/lookit/research-resources/wiki>.

Thanks for all your support and patience!

Kim

---
Kim Scott
Research scientist | Early Childhood Cognition Lab | MIT
W: www.mit.edu/~kimscott | Participate: lookit.mit.edu
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