Table of contents
2026 Summer Working Group on Critical Technical Practice
The collective result from this working group is a 2-hour tutorial on critical research and critical technical practice in the context of embedding in a graduate-level introductory research course. You can find the tutorial materials in the Tutorial page.
Working Group Events
Working Group Wed Biweekly Sessions
Join our Wednesday biweekly sessions of the Working Group on Critical Technical Practice
Wednesdays, 2:00-3:00 pm on these dates:
- May 27, 2026
- June 10, 2026
- June 24, 2026
- July 8, 2026
- July 22, 2026
- August 5, 2026
- August 19, 2026
September 2, 2026
- In-person: TASC1 8003, SFU Burnaby campus, or
- Online: Zoom link
Introducing the Working Group on Critical Technical Practice
In May 2026, we start a working group on Critical Technical Practice.
- We want to create a working group to discuss doubts in research and technical practice.
- We will collectively explore how to turn this skepticism into formal inquiries and research findings.
- Our goal is to improve the scientific rigor and responsibility in technical standards, common methods, and conventional practices of your particular technical field.
“Critical technical practice” denotes the systematic approach to critically inspect assumptions and justifications in common technical practices, and understand weaknesses, flaws, and boundaries of a technique, analogous to strengthening our technical “immune system”.
From this working group, we will collectively:
- Inspect the underlying assumptions and justifications in a certain aspect of technical practice that you doubt about.
- Develop practical tools and methodologies of conducting critical technical practice/inspections for technical and non-technical audiences and the public.
The working group is open to all students and faculties in any technical field.
Subscribe the working group calendar
Working group presentations
Session 1: Critical Technical Practice: Motivation and Methods
This working group is for people who:
- Want to get support to tackle the doubts in research and technical practice
- Want to get support to improve the sense of meaning regarding the technical and research agendas and purposes
- Want to increase the real-world contribution from one’s technical professional
The goals of the working group:
- Conduct critical examinations and improve the critical reflections of group members’ own technical work or technical field
- Outcomes: some inspiration, alternative perspectives of understanding technology, side projects, or improvements in your existing projects, etc.
- Interested group members work together to summarize our critical technical practice experience/processes as formal methods that can be taught and delivered to technical and non-technical audiences
- Outcomes: tutorials, courses, toolkits, website, papers, etc.
Tentative format of the working group:
- Group members bring each doubt and skepticism in each own research and technical practice into critical discussion and feedback
- Each time we present some examples of critical analysis, regarding the technical problem formation, design, evaluation, deployment
Duration:
- Summer 2026, can be extended depending on participants’ interest
- Meet biweekly