As discussed in previous meetings, I have prepared a consolidated draft covering ISCET’s proposed General Membership framework together with the associated Ethics & Compliance documents.

This draft is shared for structured review and feedback at this stage. The aim is to formalize ISCET’s membership and governance framework in a clear, transparent, and sustainable manner as the society continues to develop.

I welcome your comments and suggestions. If no substantial revisions are raised, the documents will proceed to website publication and the launch of the formal (non-paid) membership application process.

The draft is available at the link below.
Please share all comments directly in this forum thread to ensure structured discussion.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/16b1jUavNyAJHwgrEtjDIkAaFISf7gnN0BpIU8i0PR6w/edit?usp=sharing

Kind regards,
Rasha S. Moustafa

https://www.linkedin.com/company/international-society-for-clinical-eye-tracking-iscet/?viewAsMember=true

HISTORY

The International Society for Clinical Eye Tracking (ISCET) was formed in March 2023 with overwhelming support from the clinical eye tracking community. The initial meeting was attended by 70 people from across the world. ISCET is an open forum for anyone with an interest in clinical eye tracking (defined as the use of eye trackers to inform patient diagnosis or management). ISCET’s goals, discussion topics and actions are decided by all who participate in meetings. The organising committee (http://clinicaleyetracking.org/about) exists to organise meetings, maintain the website, and ensure everyone’s views are represented. Meeting hosts rotate between three geographical regions (Asia/Australasia, Europe/Africa and The Americas) to maximise participation.

REMIT

Eye trackers have been used in a relatively small number of specialist clinics for decades, but as access to eye tracking technology improves and more clinicians seek to enter the field, there is a growing need for joined-up thinking to enable freedom of patient movement and avoid duplication of effort. ISCET’s members have set three goals for the society:

1. Provide guidance and ‘default’ minimal protocols for conducting and analysing clinical eye tracking tasks. This will take the form of ‘ISCET standards’; similar to the ISCEV standards for visual electrophysiology that many clinicians will be familiar with. Ruth Hamilton (president of ISCEV) has provided immeasurable support to establishing ISCET. Standards are not meant to dictate how clinicians should do their work or replace common sense, but provide a minimal set of defaults suited to most situations (“all else being equal”). It is expected that different guidelines will be developed for each clinical condition (or groups of conditions where appropriate).
2. Provide a unified voice for clinicians working with eye trackers. As a representative body, ISCET can (for example) push for clinical certification of eye tracking technology, as well as ‘fee codes’ to allow clinicians to claim for eye tracking tests.
3. Maintain reference datasets. It can be difficult to determine whether a patient’s eye movement characteristics lie outside normative ranges without reference to large datasets. Although local/environmental factors undoubtedly affect measurements, published reference datasets from standardised protocols recorded in a wide range of settings should aid clinical decision-making.

RECENT AND ONGOING WORK

Rasha S Moustafa recently led a subcommittee which culminated last week in the presentation of two conference papers introducing ISCET at ETRA ‘24 (https://doi.org/10.1145/3649902.3656357 and https://doi.org/10.1145/3649902.3655659).

Gemma Arblaster (University of Sheffield) is currently leading a subcommittee to roll out an international survey of clinical eye tracker usage. The aim is to reach clinicians working in any clinical fields that may involve eye tracking. The survey will be distributed to clinicians, professional bodies and manufacturers to provide a snapshot of the current state of clinical eye tracking globally. This in turn should enable ISCET to better understand the prevalence of eye trackers in various modes of practice and determine which clinical conditions to prioritise for standards development. Gemma will be in touch with the final wording of the survey before it goes live.

The next meeting will be held at a time to suit the Asia/Australasia region and is expected to focus on the early results of the survey study. Amanda Douglass (amanda.douglass@deakin.edu.au) will announce the date once the survey has launched. Please contact Amanda if you’d like to add anything to the agenda.

The mail group can be posted to by anybody. There is also now a website (http://clinicaleyetracking.org) with more information, where you can join the forum to hold a more targeted discussion on any issue you’d like to raise.

As ever, please share this with relevant colleagues who may not be aware of ISCET; the more people are involved, the more representative ISCET can be to various modes of clinical practice. The link to join this mail group is: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=ISCET.

All the best,

Matt