In order to achieve RCN objectives, the following activities (listed chronologically) will be performed.

• Frameworking Workshop (Stony Brook University): An international 2-day kick-off workshop will be held at Stony Brook University in order to bring the RCN members together within the first year of the start date. The workshop is planned to set the stage for the envisioned activities by RCN researchers for the selected themes. The workshop activities will include presentations of existing RCN research, but will have a strong focus on exchanging ideas and brainstorming about immediate research direction. The workshop will bring community organizations and industrial partners together to identify issues, propose initial research questions, identify data sources for research, suggest contacts for RCN expansion, and initiate project collaborations. The workshop will also encourage student involvement by providing students with an opportunity to participate in discussions as well as to showcase any ongoing thesis or dissertation research on relevant topics. The workshop participant will work on a series of “white papers” or literature reviews (one for each of the three issues), which would set the stage for the RCN, would provide recommendations for research needs, and will serve as the basis for workshop discussions. Accordingly, a research needs statement will be prepared as a workshop product and posted on the RCN website for comments and to solicit interest in participating in the RCN.
• Conference Workshops and Paper/Presentation Sessions: Current RCN members hold advisory and organizing positions for multiple conferences related to the RCN themes. Utilizing these connections, the RCN members will prepare “research needs” and/or “call for papers” (CFP) to organize session and workshops for select conferences. True to the nature of the RCN and research themes, the identified CFPs will encourage cross-disciplinary collaborations. In order to foster interdisciplinary dialog and recruit more members, the RCN will target conferences which are traditionally associated with individual disciplines and encourage participation from other disciplines. Overall, conference related activities will be the main proponents for reaching out to potential candidates for RCN expansion. The initial conferences that will be targeted include the Transportation Research Board’s Annual Meeting, the Human-Computer Interaction International Conference, the IEEE Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems, and the National Aging in Place Council Annual Conference. The products of these activities will be the organized CFPs and conference sessions along with the presented/published papers. The abstracts of these articles will be disseminated via the RCN website.
• In-Progress Workshop (University of Michigan): Within the late second or early third year of the project, a workshop will be held covering all RCN themes. This workshop is expected to follow successfully completed conference activities (i.e. CFPs for special sessions). The workshop will encourage presentations of follow-up findings based on completed conference papers as well as presentations of research in progress to receive input from RCN members. A specific session will be held for student work. At least one session of the workshop will be dedicated to roundtable discussions to assess the progress of the RCN, re-evaluate the research directions, and identify potential additions to RCN. The product of these activities will be the abstracts and presentations of the articles which were part of the workshop. In addition, an updated research needs document will also be shared via the website, if need be.
• Journal Special Issues: Although this activity can be performed at any time when an opportunity arises, it is expected to have at least one Call for Papers (CFP) for a journal special issue following the In-Progress Workshop. The journal special issue would build on conference CFPs. In addition to new submissions, the select conference contributors would also be invited to submit improved papers for journal submission. Similar to conference CFPs, a multidisciplinary scope for the papers will be encouraged and interdisciplinary works will be given priority. The product(s) will be special issue abstracts which will be disseminated through the RCN website.
• Synthesis Workshop (Florida State University): Towards the end of the 4 year period, the most up-to-date RCN (with international participants) will meet to give final presentations of the ongoing and completed research, to discuss and assess the success of RCN activities, to report on research products (e.g. papers, theses, dissertations) as a result of RCN efforts, and to identify future actions to maintain the momentum of the RCN. This workshop will place a particular emphasis on 1) theses and dissertations in progress and completed as a part of the RCN, 2) collaborations forged within the RCN and resulted in funded research, and 3) strategies to keep the RCN active after the end of the NSF funding. The end product of the synthesis workshop will be a document summarizing the RCN activities, publication and funding achievements and further research directions.