Lab Mission

Our mission is to create technology for social good, assist students in developing as researchers and professionals, help them achieve their educational and career aspirations, foster a friendly environment, and enjoy the process. Most of the research conducted in this lab focuses on discovering how we can design technology for social good, particularly in education, healthcare, and well-being.

Lab activities include contextual studies, qualitative and quantitative data analysis, technology design, development, and evaluation. All this work involves participation in one or more stages of the technology creation process.

I have worked to ensure that this lab's success is connected to your success. I want you to achieve your goals, and I believe that participating in mentored research is one of the best ways to do so. I’m here to support you, but that doesn’t mean I will allow you to slack off. Slacking off leads to failure, which means my lab fails, too.

Roles

Dr. Caro´s role:

I am responsible for everything in our lab. My goal is to establish a lab dedicated to designing technology for social good and assisting you in achieving your academic and professional aspirations. Your time and effort are valuable to me, and I will do my best to support you in your work, prioritize your best interests, and guide your efforts to benefit you above all else. I will help you understand how research works, how to ask questions, collaborate, and share your results. I am committed to fostering a friendly and pleasant working environment with a healthy work-life balance.

Your role: 

You are responsible for everything you do in the lab. I expect you to be mature, show kindness to everyone, and work hard. Treat others as you wish to be treated. Enjoy the work. Technology is multidisciplinary and fantastic!

Lab Rules and Expectations

Communication

• Our communication occurs on various channels, including institutional email, WhatsApp groups, and Google Meet meetings.

• Respond to messages in a timely fashion. Ask for advice, talk about life, and show me pictures of your dog and cat. Just stay in touch. 

• Keep me updated on what you’re doing every week. 

• If you encounter any issues completing your weekly assigned tasks, please report them promptly through the appropriate channels, specifying when and how you plan to catch up on your deliverables to minimize the impact on the project schedule. This is especially crucial if it affects other team members and hinders their task progress.

• If you are unable to attend a scheduled lab meeting, please give at least 24 hours' notice and include evidence of weekly progress so it can be discussed during the meeting, even if you are not present. 

Ethics

• Please review the Lab Members' Code of Conduct thoroughly. By joining our lab, you agree to follow our code of conduct and to conduct yourself accordingly.

Lab tasks and work organization 

• Every lab member is assigned a specific main project, so your first research priority will be to engage with that project, not any of your side projects.

• If you have a lab task, do it promptly and diligently. 

• Stay organized. Plan your research and lab activities so you don’t wander around, keep track of everything, work directly in our shared space in the cloud, and be aware of your whole project. 

• You should always work directly in the shared Google Drive folder. Please create the files directly in the shared folder, not as a shortcut. This is my primary method for tracking your academic progress. 

• If your work involves coding skills, please make sure that you use GitHub for version tracking and have the latest version of your code uploaded to the GitHub Lab repository.

  • • Recommended reading material: 

      • Ten Simple Rules for Taking Advantage of Git and GitHub: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4945047/
      • Scientific Collaboration and Project Management in GitHub: https://rabernat.medium.com/scientific-collaboration-and-project-management-in-github-d74f2255ae5f 

• Always document your code. Remember that most of our projects require several phases of code until completion, so it is essential that you leave your code contribution as documented as you can. Ask yourself this question: How would I have liked to receive this code? 

  • • Recommended reading material: 

      • Code Documentation Best Practices and Standards: A Complete Guide : https://blog.codacy.com/code-documentation  
      • Documentation Best Practices: https://google.github.io/styleguide/docguide/best_practices.html  
      • How to Write Good Documentation: https://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/how-to-write-good-documentation  

Tools

• We used Google Drive for documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and more. 

• We utilize Canva and Figma to create presentations and prototypes. 

• GitHub serves as a tool for project management and version control. 

• Data analysis tools include R, Google Colab, and ATLAS.ti.

Protocols and templates 

• Please look at the lab folder on Google Drive to select the appropriate templates for documenting your evidence and progress in your assigned project. 

Open and reproducible science

• I believe in open and reproducible science, which means you should do the same during your time in the lab. You need to have some coding skills to be at the center of a project from start to finish. Keep your code well-documented and reproducible. Use Google Drive cloud services and GitHub repositories so I can track your progress. You should employ tools that enable version tracking, including ample comments, and so on.

Lab and research team meetings

Come to lab meetings prepared

• If you have an assignment for a lab meeting (like a paper to read or a presentation), please be sure to come prepared. Be sure to record all your evidence in the spreadsheets provided by the lab. It can be uncomfortable to stand in front of people and admit that you aren’t prepared and don’t know what you’re talking about. 

Personal meetings

• I would like to meet with you weekly, even if it’s just for five minutes on Google Meet. In these informal meetings, we can discuss your progress toward your goals and update each other on what we accomplished over the past week. Please check my calendar for a time slot for our weekly 1-on-1 meetings. 

Lab or research team meetings

• We will strive to hold regular lab meetings. These meetings will sometimes be used for practicing presentations, while at other times, we will discuss methods or journal/conference articles. You are expected to attend these sessions regularly to update me on your project’s progress. Although we will address your project in our individual meetings, sharing your updates with the larger lab group is a valuable practice. 

Collaborations

• Since we are primarily an undergraduate lab, much of our work relies on relationships with external collaborators. These researchers are professional friends of mine who deserve our utmost respect and effort. I'm hoping you'll be mindful of their time. This means that when we collaborate on a task, we must adhere to the agreed timeline. You will have many opportunities to engage with these researchers through various means: video calls, planning sessions, conferences, writing papers, and responding to reviews of our papers, among others. This is a fantastic opportunity for you to learn the importance of being a good collaborator—one of the most crucial skills in science—and to build a professional network. 

• If you prove to be a good and valuable team player, these collaborators may consider recruiting you to their labs upon graduation! Take full advantage of your chances to connect with other researchers, and don’t waste the experience by neglecting your responsibilities.

Publications and Policy on Authorship

• My goal for each student in my lab is to get authorship on a publication before they leave. This is easier said than done, but it will happen if you are willing to work and be persistent. Authorship is not guaranteed, however. To be an author, you need to substantially contribute to a manuscript. That can take several forms:

  • • Conducting a contextual study

    • Designing and developing the technology

    • Conducting technology evaluations and validations 

    • Performing data analysis and contributing to manuscript figures and tables

    • Writing and revising drafts of a manuscript

• To be recognized as an author of a lab publication, consider the following: 

  • • Authors must be the “creator or originator of an idea” and/or the work.  

    • Authors must make a significant contribution to the work.  

    • Authors must take responsibility for the work and its presentation in a publication.

• Each student should ideally develop their own project once they are familiar with lab procedures and have completed the background reading in their field (I’ll help you find the papers, but I can’t read them for you). You have the first claim to authorship on any papers arising from your personal project. Of course, if you decide not to continue and someone else takes over, it becomes their paper.

  • • Recommended reading material on authorship criteria: 

      • ACM Policy on Authorship: https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/new-acm-policy-on-authorship 
      • Guidance on Authorship in Scholarly or Scientific Publications: https://provost.yale.edu/policies/academic-integrity/guidance-authorship-scholarly-or-scientific-publications 

Fellowships and grants

• Apply for all available fellowships and grants. Take the initiative to find new ones. 

Presentations and Posters

• What’s the point of doing science if you won’t share your exciting results with others? I expect you to attend at least one conference to share your work. A wide array of local, national, and international conferences offers a unique platform to present your research. We need to find funding if you want to travel to a conference. Please ask for available funding for conferences.

Dealing with failure

• You may sometimes fail. Even if everything goes smoothly and you try your hardest while being careful and deliberate, there’s still a chance of failure! Sometimes, your data may reveal something you didn’t want to accept. That’s the nature of science. It’s okay. Please do your best, stay cautious, and follow the evidence wherever it leads.

Letters of Recommendation

• Please review these instructions and complete the Google Form to request a letter from me. I want to write the best letter possible and include specific examples. This means I need time and detailed examples of your activities and behaviors. It’s much easier for me to write a strong letter if you have been an active lab member. Please talk to me regularly to stay on track with your goals.

• If you haven't worked with me on a research project and your interactions have solely been through the courses I teach, please highlight your performance in those courses, the position you believe you achieved in class (top, average, etc.), and describe whether you completed a class project along with your roles in it.

Reading

• Regular reading of the scientific literature is crucial. You need to read at least a few papers every week. Please, don’t rely on me to find interesting papers.

  • • Create Google Scholar Alerts for your research topic's important keywords (and tangential).

    • You can also get alerts for author names if a lab group is doing research that interests you.

    • Follow journal and conference accounts on social media.

    • Attend reading clubs and seminars that focus on different subjects as well.

Managing all those papers

• We use Mendeley to manage papers and citations https://www.mendeley.com/. Look it up and learn how to use it. 

Lab contract termination

• Here’s a non-comprehensive list of things that can get you asked to leave the team:

  • • Regularly missing lab meetings. 

    • Missing deadlines repeatedly.

    • Harassment/bullying of other team members.

    • Trying to hide a mistake/accident/error instead of informing me and fixing it. 

    • Come to the lab meeting unprepared repeatedly.

    • Not following lab rules.

• At the start of a new semester, each lab member should reaffirm their affiliation with the lab by completing the following form. If any lab member fails to comply with this request, the contract between the lab member and the lab will be terminated. 

Joining our lab - What are your options?

As an undergraduate student, you have a few options when you are part of this lab group*:

You can volunteer in the lab:

• If you choose this path, you’re not earning credit, but that does not mean you’re exempt from attending lab meetings. There’s a long list of students eager to gain research experience. If you start to slack off, I’ll have to let you go, and someone else will take your place.

You can receive credits (hours)  through: 

• Professional Social Service Program [registered with FCAYS, UABC]  

• Professional Practice Program [registered with FCAYS, UABC]  

• Projects with Credit Values (PVVC) [registered with FCAYS, UABC]  

• Research Scholarships  

• Science and Technology Dissemination Assistant [registered with FCAYS, UABC]  

• Teaching Assistant [registered with FCAYS, UABC]

If you’re interested in any of these opportunities, please talk to me, and we can figure out how to proceed. Keep in mind that you will receive a grade for this. Missing deadlines or not putting in the effort will impact your grade. Remember that each program has a minimum number of hours to work each week; not meeting this requirement will also affect your grade. 

Please be aware that if you join a project that is already in progress, you will need to sign a document affirming your respect for the project's privacy and intellectual property rights and that you will not share any project work with third parties at any time. You can review our code of conduct if you would like more information. 

*For graduate students, please review our Join Us page for details of the graduate programs you can apply.

Advice and resources

Open and honest communication is essential. If we accomplish that, we can tackle nearly any other issue. Here are some helpful resources providing valuable advice for you:

• Building a good relationship with your supervisor: 

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6ZAeM8-m4g  

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CF35n57KF8

  • https://www.science.org/content/article/mastering-your-phd-better-communication-your-supervisor  

  • https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03703-z  

• Tips for writing your thesis and/or work reports: 

  • https://youtu.be/PxEJKO572rw?si=BxH-zuq7Kyt6anzS 

• Overcoming impostor syndrome:

  • https://impostorsyndrome.com/articles/10-steps-overcome-impostor/  

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQUxL4Jm1Lo   

  • https://youtu.be/AnveWmJM4LQ?si=h03twV5DC3XqtP7o 

What to Expect: A Research Project from Start to Finish

Expect this whole process to take at least a year for a small project.

1. Your big idea

• So, you're interested in designing, developing, and evaluating technology for social good. If you’re in the Tech4Good Research Lab, we hope those interests align with our work.

• You will likely begin in the lab by collaborating with a senior research student on their project or one of mine. This allows you to understand how things work and consider what kind of project you'd like to pursue independently.

• I’ll help you develop an idea, but it should be something you're passionate about. Research won't feel like work if you're seeking answers to a question!

2. Background reading

• Now that we have a topic to work on, it’s time to read!

• I’ll help guide you to relevant articles, but that’s just the beginning. You’ll need to start following the citation trail of those papers and discover even more documents that relate to your question.

• The main goal at this stage is to ensure your question hasn’t already been answered by someone else.

• You also want to grasp your topic well enough to understand what we know and what we don’t know about it.

• Keep track of those papers using Mendeley, as you’ll cite them when writing your manuscript.

3. Research plan

• Okay, you know quite a bit about your topic and have identified a gap in human knowledge. Now, it's time to design a way to fill that gap. Don't forget your research methodology course! 

• This field of science requires creativity. While we must adhere to certain rules, there is plenty of room to approach your question uniquely.

• I’ll collaborate to create a practical plan that effectively addresses your question. Planning a research project involves many factors.

  • • Where should we conduct our contextual study? 

    • What will the costs be? 

    • Will we need to obtain collection permits or approval from the ethics committee? 

    • What does your timeline look like? How many hours per week can you dedicate to your project?

• Having some background in user-centered design will be very helpful here.

4. Executing your research plan

• The nature of this step depends on your project. You can begin with a contextual study in a clinic, school, or educational organization. You might start with the design of the technology, which may involve conducting design sessions, prototyping, validating ideas, or moving directly to the evaluation phase. Your starting point will depend on your background; since our lab is interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary, you may come from fields such as education, software engineering, business intelligence, communication, social sciences, or psychology.

• This part of the work can get quite technical and demands significant focus, hard work, and careful consideration. You will receive training in these skills.

• You must document and record everything you do while collecting data, designing, developing, or evaluating technology in at least two digital locations: the shared Google Drive folder and the Lab GitHub Repository (BOTH MANDATORY). This documentation will serve as your manuscript's raw data and methods section.

5. Writing a paper

• Alright, it’s been a long time since you started your project—probably over a year, honestly! It’s time to start writing. I’ll be setting deadlines for your writing tasks, and I expect you to adhere to those deadlines. I prefer to write papers in the following order: 

  • • Methods

    • Results

    • Intro

    • Related work

    • Discussion

    • Abstract

• We will follow a specific journal or conference format. The forum we choose for your manuscript will depend on the strength of your results, the topic, and your career goals. Now it’s time to submit your hard work for peer review. This process can be pretty lengthy.