Meeting between Gill, Mattia and Yannis, Friday 21st July 2017

Gill met with Mattia and Yannis to discuss the next steps for the collaboration. The main points of this discussion are summarised below:

Training workshops

It was agreed that it would be good to pilot possible training methods by running two workshops for members of the neuroimaging department, probably in the autumn term of the coming academic year. The first session would cover the more theoretical aspects of scientific visual communication while the second would be a practical, hands-on session, with attendees given the opportunity to draw and edit their own conceptual figures, probably using Adobe Illustrator software.

Gill will produce a short proposal document, outlining the aims and objectives of the workshops and the training content that will enable these aims to be achieved. A dedicated ‘Workshops’ page will be created for this website, so that relevant content and useful links can be posted prior to any workshops taking place.

(30th July 2017 – see the Workshops webpage for more details)

Library of visual elements

Key to aiding the production of conceptual figures in the neuroimaging department is the creation of a library of suitable visual elements. These would be provided both as high-resolution image files, that could be used directly, and as Illustrator-format files, that could be edited or combined to make new figures. It was agreed that there needed to be both a gallery of thumbnail images, where a user can easily see what is available and choose the image they want, and a linked depository or folder, where they would then select the matching high resolution image file or Illustrator file. There needs to more research and discussion about how best, and where best, to set this up.

Case studies

Yannis and Nisha are intending to submit two journal papers within the next few months. It was agreed that the conceptual figures that will be produced for these papers would be good test case studies for both the proposed training methods and the library of visual elements. Gill will meet with Yannis and Nisha, once they are at a stage to discuss possible figures for their papers.

Exhibition of the work

As the collaboration will be producing a lot of visual material it was agreed that it would be good to incorporate this into some kind of exhibition or display, possibly towards the end of the collaboration, to demonstrate the work that had been done. This will be given further consideration as the collaboration continues.