Getting Started as a New PLSE Member

Note: This is a resource for newly-joined members of PLSE.

You need a valid CSE NetID, which will grant you access to most of the infrastructure managed by the Allen School. If you’re a CSE student (including incoming PhD students), you should have one already.

Code of Conduct

All PLSE members must follow the code of conduct. We expect everyone who participates in any PLSE research, meetings, or social events to be familiar with and follow these guidelines.

Get Cardkey Access to CSE2 253, the PLSE lab

If you’re an incoming graduate student, you should likely have access to the lab already. If not, check out the lab cardkey access page.

Join the Allen School’s Slack

You should already have access to the Allen School’s Slack if you are a graduate student, faculty member, or someone who is affiliated with the Allen Allen School in an official research capacity.

The Allen School’s Slack FAQ provides information about inviting other individuals on a per-channel basis (e.g., undergraduates, external collaborators, alums).

You should join the following channels:

• #plse: For lab-wide announcements and discussions.
• #plse-friends: This is a wider channel that is a superset of PLSE and folks who are generally interested in PLSE.
• #plse-students: Ask a current student to be added to this channel!

Other channels that might interest you are:

• #food: For (free) food-related announcements.
• #teatime: Join us in CSE2 253 (the PLSE lab) at 1pm on Thursdays for tea and treats!
• #needlecraft: For fans of knitting and needlecraft. The crafting circle meets pretty often, so stay tuned for updates in this channel.

Once you’re in #plse, feel free to introduce yourself!

Join Mailing Lists

Please join the PLSE mailing list using your CSE NetID.

Undergraduate researchers should join the ugrad-researchers mailing list.

Other lists you might consider joining are:

• misc: for, you guessed it, miscellanea.
• fungrads: for fun events for graduate students.

Import the PLSE Calendar

Please add the global PLSE event calendar to your @cs.washington.edu account. Clicking on the link while signed into your account will usually suffice.

Get Access to the PLSE Google Drive

Some institutional knowledge is stored in an enterprise (i.e., UW-managed) PLSE Google Drive. You can request access via the link.

Add Yourself to the PLSE Webpage

The website has a (mostly) up-to-date listing of faculty and postdocs, graduate students, staff, and undergraduates. You’re likely going to fall into one of these categories. The source of the PLSE website is hosted within the PLSE GitHub organization. If you don’t yet have access to the PLSE GitHub org, send Yihong your GitHub user name and cc your advisor.

At a high level, the steps are to:

1. Clone the uwplse.github.io repository.
2. Create an entry for yourself in grads_phd.yml or whichever file you belong in, add a photo of yourself, and link to your webpage (if you have one).
3. Push your changes to GitHub and open a PR.

See an example PR for an example of how to add yourself. Just make sure you make the change in the correct .yml file, such as grads_phd.yml, undergrads.yml, etc. Feel free to ask anyone in the lab for a hand if you need one getting started.

Set Up Your Personal Webpage (optional)

A webpage is a useful tool for an academic. That includes you! You can use your webpage to publicize your research, host an up-to-date version of your CV, or disseminate other information, such as technical (or non-technical) blog posts.

Your webpage does not need to be fancy, and folks in the lab will be more than happy to help you set one up. Ask James for help if you need to set one up.