PAGING @EVERYONE: SOLVE THE COMMUNICATION “DISCORD” IN YOUR GEOSCIENCE FIELD COURSE

The GeoScientists Promoting Accessible Collaborative Experiences, or GeoSPACE, Project (NSF Award 2023124), is a planetary geology and volcanology field course that addresses accessibility issues in geoscience fieldwork. We recruited diverse geoscience students for a pilot program in May 2022, and they had the option to join virtually or travel to the San Francisco Volcanic Field, Arizona. Using remote sensing techniques, photogrammetry, high precision GPS positioning, and field volcanology, the students worked together as a team of “Mission Control” (virtual) and “Astronauts” (in-person). By performing asynchronous tasks like building point clouds with 3D spatial data, and synchronous activities like “mission briefings” and “EVAs” (video meetings and fieldwork), students experienced a field course that allowed flexibility and accommodated their needs.

Because of its hybrid nature, communication between groups was crucial for a successful course. While communication software like Zoom or Microsoft Teams are well known, multiple device integration can be clunky, or functions are limited for users at different academic institutions. Enter Discord, a free-to-sign-up instant messaging and VoIP service, mainly used by video gamers, that served as the mission control communication platform. The GeoSPACE Discord server was a welcoming space that facilitated collaborative efforts. It provided a way for participants to get to know each other before, during, and, unexpectedly, after the field course.

Discord granted the ability to push out quick updates about schedule changes, enabled real-time communication between virtual and in-person participants, and encouraged mixed-mode participant groups to collaborate on projects. With careful planning of channel topics and a flexible and knowledgeable moderator team, Discord can easily be the primary communication method in a variety of hybrid geoscience courses. In this presentation, I will introduce the Discord platform, lessons I learned with the GeoSPACE 2022 rollout, and other things to consider when building a server for a hybrid field course.