Reactivating the Curriculum Advisory Committees

The Carpentries is looking for members to join the newly reactivated Curriculum Advisory Committees

In early 2018 The Carpentries launched Curriculum Advisory Committees, to provide high-level oversight, vision, and leadership for a curriculum and to guide large-scale updates. We are now relaunching the program in order to better support our current curricula and ensure that they remain up-to-date and effective.

If you are interested in being directly involved with the development and leadership of The Carpentries Curricula, joining one of the Curriculum Advisory Committees (CACs) is an excellent opportunity.

Curriculum Advisors complement the work of Lesson Maintainers, who are responsible for the day-to-day work of keeping lessons stable and teachable. Curriculum Advisors maintain a broader perspective on the state of the field and make strategic decisions about major changes to a lesson, for example, updating the technology being taught to take into account major advances in the field or changing the dataset used in the lessons to appeal to a broader group of learners.

In order to answer any questions about the program, the Curriculum Team will be holding two Community Discussions on

CAC Member Roles and Responsibilities

A Curriculum Advisory Committee (CAC) is composed of 5-8 people with significant domain expertise who represent the breadth of the field that a curriculum is intended to reach. For example, the Data Carpentry Geospatial CAC includes researchers in ecology, limnology, environmental sciences, and sociology, along with university staff leading institutional GIS education efforts. Multiple career levels are represented, from PhD candidates at the end of their graduate work, to mid-late career professionals. At least one member of the CAC should be actively teaching in the field, so they can bring a practical perspective about what skills students and early-career researchers need. Each CAC should include at least one Lesson Maintainers from the relevant curriculum as well as members from multiple geographic regions and cultural and linguistic contexts, to ensure that the curriculum meets the needs of our global community. For a full list of the CAC roles and responsibilities, please visit the relevant section in The Carpentries Handbook.

Highlighting the Accomplishments of Past Curriculum Advisory Committees

Past Curriculum Advisory Committees have done much to support the mission of The Carpentries. We want to take this opportunity to thank all past and current members of the CACs for their invaluable contributions and efforts.

Some of the major accomplishments of past CACs include updating both the dataset and alignment software used in the DC Genomics curriculum and shifting from base R to ggplot and determining prerequisites for the DC Geospatial curriculum.

For more detailed information, please visit each Lesson Program’s respective CAC page:

Curricula Needing CAC Members

We will be recruiting CAC members for the following curricula:

Applications will open in early September. Please watch The Carpentries’ blog and our newsletter to be notified when applications open.

If you have any questions about the Curriculum Advisory Committees’ responsibilities or joining, please contact Erin Becker, Associate Director of The Carpentries.

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