Our first work cycle, Prometheus

This post originally appeared on the Data Carpentry website

We’re wrapping up our first work cycle! Here’s what we accomplished over the past six weeks and what we’re still working on. To help with any of these projects, please get in touch!

Planning for Data Carpentry Ecology Lessons Release

What did we do? This cycle we started the process for Data Carpentry’s first lesson release - for our Ecology lessons. During the Issue Bonanza 3/16-3/17, fifteen energetic members of our community and staff submitted a total of 134 issues focused on items related to our lesson release checklist. Data Carpentry staff and maintainers will be going through these issues in preparation for our Bug BBQ (4/6-4/7). Stay posted for announcements about the Bug BBQ!

What are we still working on? Over the next cycle, we’ll be working on documenting the process for future lesson releases and planning for our next lesson release (the Data Carpentry Genomics lessons).

How can you help? Sign up for the upcoming Bug BBQ to help polish up the Ecology curriculum for publishing. Even if you can’t “attend” please help clean up issues in those repos! We’d love to hear your thoughts about this new lesson publication process. Please send any feedback to Erin (ebecker@datacarpentry.org) or Tracy (tkteal@datacarpentry.org).

Streamlining Process for Instructor Training

What did we do? This cycle we focused on simplifying processes, increasing our capacity for training new instructors and giving our Trainers opportunities to share expertise and learn from each other. We simplified our processes for scheduling instructor training events and tracking progress of trainees through checkout to make more efficient use of our volunteer Trainer time. We set up regular meetings for our Trainer community, including discussion meetings to share expertise about teaching instructor training events. We started training ten new instructor Trainers, who will be joining the Trainer team this summer. We also developed documentation for communicating with partners about training events and followed up with pending instructor training applicants.

What are we still working on? We’re working on building our capacity for offering training to non-partner affiliated individuals and improving our documentation for Trainers running instructor training events.

How can you help? If you’re interested in becoming an instructor Trainer, please contact Erin (ebecker@datacarpentry.org).

New hire

We’ve received a large number of highly qualified applicants and are working on scheduling first round interviews. Keep an eye out for more news!

Setting an Assessment Strategy

What did we do? This cycle Data Carpentry overhauled our pre- and post-workshop surveys to include measurements of self-efficacy and skill with R or Python. We’ll be piloting these surveys over the next few months. We also developed and released a long-term follow-up survey for learners who attended workshops six months ago or more.

What are we still working on? In October we released a report of Data Carpentry’s impact on learners. We’re now working on a report for Software Carpentry. Stay posted!

How can you help? If you were a learner at a Carpentry workshop over six months ago, please fill out our new survey by April 4th and be entered in a drawing for a Data Carpentry swag bag.

Lesson Contribution Guidelines

What did we do? We surveyed community members about their experiences with contributing to Carpentry lessons and asked for ways that we can make this process more straightforward. We received 54 responses with a wealth of suggestions.

What are we still working on? We organized the feedback we received and are working on understanding the best way to implement these suggestions.

How can you help? If you’d like to be part of the team developing new documentation and resources for lesson contributions, please contact Erin (ebecker@datacarpentry.org).

Our next cycle - Cycle Deimos - March 27th through May 19th

I hope you’ll agree that we accomplished a lot over the past six weeks! Our next cycle is also looking to be action-packed and exciting. Stay tuned for an announcement of what’s coming up! As always, if you there’s something you’re excited about and would like to see, post your idea to our Conversations repo or get in touch.