Assessment Network

The Assessment Network was established as a space for those working on assessment within the open source/research computing community to collaborate and share resources.

Assessment Network Goals

The goals of the assessment network include:

  • Comparing assessment efforts across various programs.
  • Discussing strategies for measuring and assessing research computing productivity.
  • Managing and sharing resources (quantitative/qualitative tools and approaches) across countries.

Relevant Blog Posts

If you are interested in learning more about assessment within The Carpentries community, we recommend the following blog posts:

Long-Term Assessment Strategy
Pilot Survey Focus Group Update
Analysis of Data Carpentry Workshop Impact
Long-Term Assessment Results
Reflections on Assessment

Meeting Minutes

Minutes from our quarterly meetings are available on the Assessment Network GitHub repo.

Assessment Network events

Webinar with Rochelle Tractenberg: Debrief

On February 2, 2018, the Assessment Network held a webinar with Dr. Rochelle Tractenberg of Georgetown University. Our starting point was the controversy about short-format training which arose last year, following the publication of a 2017 PNAS paper titled “Null effects of boot camps and short-format training for PhD students in life sciences”. The Carpentries design and deliver short-format training for working with software and data; trainees are researchers from various fields. The Carpentries’ initial response to the paper discussed many ways in which we have been successful with respect to our goals for Software Carpentry and Data Carpentry workshops. However, given that short-format training is a known challenge for generating sustainable content learning, we hoped that Dr. Tractenberg’s expertise might shed some light on areas with room for improvement. See the full webinar.

Get Involved

To get involved with the assessment network, contact us or join our assessment network email list.

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