The OCT Group embraces 2016 with open arms in anticipation of advancements in our research and the growth of our team.  When we look back at last year, some highlights included working on the last few phases of the DID project, beginning the new CID project, and launching our website.

We have exceeded our expectations and goals for the DID project, especially during the data collection phase.  By the spring of 2015, we collected and analyzed 100 interviews, which allowed us to construct a preliminary findings outline.  This outline allowed us to verify if our findings were accurate. In order to check our findings, we traveled to the XSEDE 15 conference in St. Louis, Missouri in the summer of 2015.  At that conference, we conducted an additional 35 interviews with conference attendees, primarily domain scientists and technologist.

The end of summer 2015 marked the end of Year 2 of the DID grant.  With 135 interviews transcribed and analyzed, we had a lot of work ahead of us.  As a team, we worked hard to understand the research data and put parts of the project together.  Over the course of the year, team members authored posters based on the research findings.  The posters laid the foundation for future papers.  We presented these posters at our home university’s research fairs in both the spring and fall.  These posters can be found on our website, under the ‘Resources’ tab.

One of our greatest accomplishments of the DID project thus far is a paper authored by our PI, Dr. Kerk Kee. The paper was presented at the IEEE Big Data conference in October 2015 and is now published in the conference preceding.  This publication is the first paper out of the DID grant.

One of the most exciting moments of 2015 was receiving news that our PI was awarded an NSF CAREER grant.  This new grant facilitates five more years of research for the OCT Group and marked the beginning of the CID project.  Balancing two government-funded projects simultaneously was a challenge our entire team was willing to take on.

Something we were most proud of in 2015 was the launch of our website and blog.  Building our website facilitated an opportunity for us to shed a different light on our identity as a team. We are excited about the new opportunities our web presence has provided us with and we will continue to expand this new dimension of the OCT Group.

Moving forward, The OCT Group anticipates an exciting year in 2016.  We are working hard to wrap up the DID project, which was our first grant.  With the completion of the DID project, we will have produced academic papers and practical strategies for the organizations we study.  Also, this year, we will be interviewing research participants in order to collect data for the new CID project.  Not to mention, we are still working on our website, building our brand, and brainstorming for our next proposal.  Stay tuned for more exciting advances from the OCT Group in 2016.