This post originally appeared on the Data Carpentry website

We’ve been enjoying the added focus and sense of accomplishment we’ve gained from working in cycles. If there’s something you’re excited about for the next round, let us know! If you’d like to join (or organize) a team for one of the next few cycles, let us know! Please post an issue on our conversations repo or email ebecker@carpentries.org.

Our third cycle - Cycle Phobos (May 29th through July 21st)

Our third cycle started this week and goes through July 21st. We focused on planning this first week. Here’s what we’re hoping to accomplish in this cycle.

Working towards publication of Instructor Training and Data Carpentry Genomics curricula

Jason Williams, Bob Freeman, Sue McClatchy, Mateusz Kuzak, Erin and Tracy are working on preparing for the first publication of the Data Carpentry Genomics lessons. There is a lot of enthusiasm for this curriculum push, with over 70 people interested in being involved! During this cycle, we will be forming a Genomics curriculum advisory board, finding maintainers for each of the lessons, and cleaning up the repo organization. Towards the end of this cycle, we will be having an Issue Bonanza. Stay tuned for more information!

Karen Word, Naupaka Zimmerman, Lex Nederbragt, Rayna Harris, Christina Koch and Erin are working with the rest of the Trainer community to revamp the Instructor Training curriculum for its next release in August. We’ll be having an Issue Bonanza July 13th and 14th and a Bug BBQ August 3rd and 4th. Keep an eye out for more announcements about these events!

Developing a guide for Trainers

Maneesha is working on putting together documentation and checklists for Trainers running instructor training events. If you’re a Trainer and have any questions or issues of unclarity surrounding instructor training events, please send your thoughts to Maneesha as she’s gathering information for this documentation.

Pursuing funding for specific efforts

Data Carpentry has been focusing closely on curriculum development in the past months and is committed to continuing those efforts over the next year. During this cycle, we are focusing on pursuing more resources to help us maintain high quality lessons and expand our curricular offerings into new domains.

In addition to growth in new domains, Data and Software Carpentry are committed to improving our ability to serve learners in underserved regions. Anelda van der Walt has led growth efforts in Africa and had great success in starting to establish a Carpentry community on the continent. This is a big job! We’re now seeking funding to help support workshop coordination and other work necessary to support new Carpentry communities, in both Africa and Latin America. If you have ties to these regions and are interested in helping secure funding for these efforts, please contact Erin.

Communication around assessment

Kari is working on developing a plan for communicating the results of our long-term follow-up survey to both the Carpentry community and the wider data science community. She’s also cleaning up and archiving pre- and post-workshop survey data so that this information is more accessible to interested members of the community. During this cycle, she will also be leading an effort to complete a report of the post-workshop survey results from Software Carpentry’s workshops thus far. If you are interested in being involved with these efforts, check out the carpentry community assessment projects repo.

Small batch projects

• Erin is working on recruiting new instructor Trainers. Particularly people with ties to Africa and Latin America. If you’re interested in becoming a Trainer, please apply!
• Thanks to growth in the Trainer community, we are now able to offer more instructor training events for individuals who aren’t affiliated with member sites. We’re working now on organizing some of these events for the coming months. If you’ve been on the waitlist for training, please keep an eye out for an update!
• Tracy is working on finalizing and communicating new Data Carpentry policies around reimbursements, staff professional development and workshops for for-profit institutions.
• A while back we collected input from our Advisory board. We’ve been looking through their feedback and are working on communicating about it and planning follow-up actions.

Continuing Work

We’re also continuing to work on our many ongoing projects, including (but not limited to):

• Publishing our monthly newsletter
• Running our blogs
• Maintaining our websites and lessons
• Coordinating workshops and instructor training events
• Teaching at workshops and instructor training events
• Hosting discussion sessions and instructor teaching demos
• Speaking publically about Data and Software Carpentry
• Running our Virtual Assessment Network
• Organizing our Mentorship Program
• Serving on the mentoring subcommittee, trainers group and bridge subcommittees

If you’re interested in helping with any of this ongoing work, or would like to make suggestions about what to tackle in our next cycle, let us know! Please post an issue on our conversations repo or email ebecker@carpentries.org.

Our next two cycles will be:

• Cycle Ganymede - July 24th through September 15th
• Cycle Callisto - September 18th through November 10th