Almost Ready: The Carpentries’ new websites and Handbooks

Introduction

We shared that The Carpentries is on a journey towards consolidating its resources and lesson programs - Data Carpentry, Software Carpentry, and Library Carpentry - under one unified identity. To achieve this goal, we migrated the blog posts from the three lesson program websites to The Carpentries main blog. Shortly after that, we announced that the content on these lesson programs’ websites was pared down to only display each lesson program’s lessons, past and upcoming workshops, and its governance structure, with all other content incorporated into the main website of The Carpentries.

In both announcements, we iterated that these efforts were driven by our upcoming transition out of fiscal sponsorship to operating as an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit organisation. Furthermore, we mentioned that as part of this journey, we were also in the process of redesigning our main website and Handbooks and that we will update the community on the progress of the redesigned resources closer to the time of their relaunch.

New websites and Handbooks launch!

We are pleased to announce that we are now closer to the relaunch of the main Carpentries website and the Software Carpentry, Data Carpentry, and Library Carpentry websites, with 18 November 2024 set as the relaunch date!

We are also planning to relaunch the new Carpentries Handbooks shortly afterward on 9 December 2024!

This is really exciting news for us and the community. The theme and layout of the current Carpentries website have not been updated since 2018, and over the years, the website’s content has also grown substantially in volume. The themes for the lesson program websites are even older and have not been updated in many years. As a result, it was not always clear to ascertain the ongoing usefulness of some information contained therein to the community, our sponsors, funders, and the general public. There was also an overlap between the website and the Handbook content and clarity on where to find what between the two resources was not always clear cut.

Content distribution between websites and Handbooks

With the redesign, we have divided the content into:

Websites: The new main website is designed primarily for the general public, Carpentries members organisations, funders and sponsors, and anyone who is new to its community or would like a refresher on its core operations and its community. It is meant to offer an overview of The Carpentries, its lessons, workshops and training events, its community and early steps on how to get involved in its activities, details about membership and sponsorship opportunities and pricing for all its offerings, and its organisational structure and governance, including its relationship to its three lesson programs.

The lesson program websites have been subsumed into the main website, with each lesson program having a tab on the main site containing its brief history, lessons, past and upcoming workshops, and governance structure. All three lesson program websites now have the same look and feel, and navigating them is a consistent experience across all three sites.

Handbooks: The new Handbooks are primarily designed for active members of the community or anyone who would like to be an active member of the community. The Handbooks are separated by onboarded roles that are available to members of the community - Instructor Trainers, Instructors, Curriculum Advisors, Lesson Developers, Maintainers, Lesson Program Governors, and Community Session Hosts - as well as by resources available to our volunteer community to carry out the duties of the various roles and contribute in other ways - Tip Sheets, Communications Resources, Curriculum Resources, and Workshops Resources, etc.

How the new websites and Handbooks are designed makes relevant information more accessible to find and maintain.

Work in progress and what you can do.

The November 18th and December 9th website and Handbooks relaunches will not be the final iterations of these two resources. We have already scheduled further updates early next year to add more materials that we will not be able to access before these relaunch dates.

As such, we ask you to please:

Share a testimonial: One brief sentence with your photo that we can add to the website’s testimonial section. We would like to update these testimonials once every quarter to showcase the diversity of our community. Please email your testimonial to community@carpentries.org.

Share feedback: If you see something that is not working as it should or is unclear about the new websites and Handbooks, or any other feedback you may have for us, please submit an issue on GitHub directly from the resource or email us at team@carpentries.org.

Thank you

This project was funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation through Grant GBMF8628 to Community Initiatives (The Carpentries’ fiscal sponsor) to support the work of creating accessible resources to meet the needs and broaden engagement of The Carpentries’s diverse community of instructors and data scientists.

We are excited to share these updated resources with you on November 18th and December 9th!