This research was, more than any other, a team effort. Beyond the work of the sole authors, various people were involved more or less directly, and we would like to extend our deepest gratitude to them.

To the speakers who agreed for their picture to be used in our study. First of all, our first guests, Axel Guïoux (Université Lyon 2) and Évelyne Lasserre (Université Lyon 1), who kindly accepted to participate in our seminar to present their workConference “Mobilis Immobile - La présence au-delà de l’empêchement”.↩︎. Then, Susan Herring (Indiana University, USA), an eminent specialist in the field of screen-based communication, who presented her work on robotsConference “Discourse Pragmatics of Robot Mediated Communication”.↩︎. We wish to thank you sincerely for feeding into our reflection on screen-based interactions in the context of our polyartefacted doctoral seminar.

To our colleagues who participated more or less regularly in our seminars, who were also filmed and are part of our data collection: Jacques Cosnier (Université Lyon 2), Françoise Poyet (Université Lyon 1) and Liping Zhang (Hangzhou University, China). To Yigong Guo, a PhD student at the ICAR laboratory, who was a regular participant in these seminars, and Prisca Fenoglio, a PhD student at Paris 8 University, who also participated briefly in a videoconference during the first session. We would like to express our appreciation to these colleagues for allowing us to use their image for research purposes.

To our colleagues from the technical team of the ICAR laboratory who were involved in the different stages of our work, as shown in the appendix “Technical issues and methodological challenges of field engineering for research”. We are deeply indebted to the team led by Justine Lascar, with the ad hoc collaboration of Laurie Boyer, Julien Gachet, and Luca and Gerry Niccolaï. This past year, Oriane Dujour’s work on the digital publication process saved us some precious time. The ease with which she got on board with the project, her interest in computerised documentation, and her talent as an illustrator helped us greatly.

We are also grateful to the Education team of the French Institute of Education (Ifé), who allowed us to use their multifunctional room for the seminar in Lyon. We also used the Beam robot, which was lent to us by Ifé, and we therefore wish to thank this institution.

Thanks should also go to Gilles Pouchoulin for welcoming us and for his availability to answer our questions during our first steps on the Ortolang platform, and for his careful follow-up of our project.

We are deeply indebted to the Montreal team: first of all, for taking an immediate interest in our editorial project and for proposing a collaboration with Les Ateliers de [sens public]. Secondly, for accepting to come to Lyon to hold training sessions on the text editor Stylo, and finally, for their proofreading work and their support with matters of digital publishing. Our warmest thanks go to Hélène Beauchef, Servanne Monjour, Nicolas Sauret and Marcello Vitali Rosati.

Finally, this research has benefited from funding from the Labex Aslan, the ICAR laboratory, the Canada Research Chair in Digital Textualities and the Centre de recherche interuniversitaire sur les humanités numériques.
It also received funding from the ELICO, the LEST, and the LPL laboratories to carry out the English translation of the manuscript.