Angelique Trusler on The Carpentries

Share Your Feedback in The Carpentries 2026 Community Survey

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Last week, we launched The Carpentries 2026 Community Survey and invited community members to share feedback about their experiences in our community. If you have not yet completed the survey, there is still time to participate.

The survey helps us better understand how community members engage with The Carpentries, the benefits they receive from participating, and how the Core Team can better support our global community. The results will inform future planning and help us identify areas for improvement in programs, communications, resources, and community support.

The Carpentries’ New Partnership Program is Launching in April!

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Introducing the new Partnership Program

With much-valued input from our community, we have been working over the past few years on ways to improve our Membership program to meet the needs of our community’s partner organisations and institutions. After considering and engaging with feedback from our community surveys from September 2024 and again in September 2025, we are so pleased to announce that we have redesigned our Membership program into a new model called the Partnership program that can be tailored to suit varying institutional needs. Plans are underway to launch the redesigned program in April this year!

Subcommunity Spotlight: CarpentriesOffline

Wed, 28 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Subcommunity Spotlight blog series aims to raise awareness of the many vibrant subcommunities within The Carpentries and highlight their activities. A subcommunity brings together a subset of the broader Carpentries community. It may be local (e.g., a university-based Carpentries Club), regional (e.g., The Carpentries in Africa), or special interest-driven (e.g., HPC Carpentry, Carpentries-es, CarpentriesOffline). The series aims to foster connections among members, whether they live in the same region, speak a common language, or share similar interests. To learn more or get involved in a subcommunity, join the subcommunity channel on Slack (#subcommunity) or reach out via email at community@carpentries.org. If you lead a subcommunity and would like to be featured in a future edition of this series, we’d love to hear from you!

Design your subcommunity's logo by modifying The Carpentries logo!

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Dear Community,

We would like to encourage our local, regional and special interest Carpentries subcommunities that do not yet have a subcommunity logo to design one! A logo is a wonderful way for our subcommunities to visually “brand” their activities. Once designed, please share it with the The Carpentries Community Engagement Team for approval and to add it to our growing list of subcommunity logos. This, in turn, will help us visually showcase the global diversity of our subcommunities!

Subcommunity Spotlight: Ukraine

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The Subcommunity Spotlight blog series aims to raise awareness of the many vibrant subcommunities within The Carpentries and highlight their activities. A brings together a subset of the broader Carpentries community. It may be local (e.g., a university-based Carpentries Club), regional (e.g., The Carpentries in Africa), or special interest-driven (e.g., HPC Carpentry, Carpentries-es, CarpentriesOffline). The series aims to foster connections among members, whether they live in the same region, speak a common language, or share similar interests. To learn more or get involved in a subcommunity, join the #subcommunity channel on Slack or reach out via email at community@carpentries.org. If you lead a subcommunity and would like to be featured in a future edition of this series, we’d love to hear from you!

Building a More Inclusive Glosario: Celebrating Our 2025 Milestones

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Over the past year, with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Carpentries has made incredible progress in improving Glosario, our open, multilingual glossary for computing and data science terms.

In 2025, we focused on making Glosario more accessible, inclusive, and community-driven. Guided by feedback from our community, we enhanced the ways our community members can contribute, learn, and be recognised for their work.

Join Our Final 2025 Co-Working Session

You are invited to the next and final Glosario Community Co-Working Session for 2025.
🗓 Wednesday, 5 November 2025
🕒 15:00 UTC

Subcommunity Spotlight: Africa

Tue, 28 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Subcommunity Spotlight: Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand

Fri, 15 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The Subcommunity Spotlight blog series aims to raise awareness of the many vibrant subcommunities within The Carpentries and highlight their activities. A subcommunity brings together a subset of the broader Carpentries community. It may be local (e.g., a university-based Carpentries club), regional (e.g., The Carpentries in Africa), or special interest-driven (e.g., HPC Carpentry, Carpentries-es, CarpentriesOffline). The series aims to foster connections among members, whether they live in the same region, speak a common language, or share similar interests. To learn more or get involved in a subcommunity, join the #subcommunity channel on Slack or reach out via email at community@carpentries.org. If you lead a subcommunity and would like to be featured in a future edition of this series, we’d love to hear from you!

You are Invited to Our Next Community Session Host Onboarding Call

Tue, 05 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Are you passionate about sharing knowledge and building connections within The Carpentries community? Do you enjoy discussing open education, inclusive teaching, or community building? Are you interested in helping others learn more about how The Carpentries works and how they can get involved? Then consider becoming a Community Session Host! Join us on August 19 at 14:00 UTC for our next Community Session Host Onboarding Call.

We are seeking community hosts to lead brief community sessions:

Recognising Our Global Contributors: Glosario’s Next Chapter

Wed, 21 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

At The Carpentries, every contribution matters. Our community includes individuals from many countries, languages, and backgrounds. Together, we are building Glosario, a free and open glossary of computing and data science terms in many languages. By the end of 2024, Glosario included translations in more than 26 languages. This would not be possible without the hard work and time shared by our global contributors. As Glosario grows, we want to make it easier for more people to join in, and ensure everyone’s work is recognised and appreciated.

Help us Improve Glosario: Share Your Feedback!

Mon, 17 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

At The Carpentries, we are committed to building a more inclusive and accessible world for learners and researchers working with data and computing. One of our initiatives in this effort is Glosario, a multilingual glossary developed to help individuals understand key computing and data science terms in their preferred language.

To ensure Glosario meets the accessibility needs of our global community, we are surveying to gather feedback from current and potential users. Your insights will help us understand how to improve accessibility and enhance usability.

Expanding Our Community: Subcommunity Invitations and Progress Update

Thu, 06 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The Community Development Program, launched in 2022, continues to support The Carpentries’ growing network of subcommunities within our larger community that are local (e.g., University Carpentries Clubs), regional (e.g., Carpentries in Africa, Carpentries in the UK), domain-specific (e.g., HPC Carpentry), language-based (e.g., Carpentries-es), or interest-driven (e.g., Carpentries Offline). Subcommunities built around formal Carpentries roles (e.g., Instructors, Maintainers) fall outside this definition.

Join Our Subcommunity Registry!

Our community requested a subcommunity registry that captures ongoing activities, websites, and communication channels. We are excited to announce that our subcommunity registration form is open all year round! If you have not registered your subcommunity yet, now is the time.

Upcoming Changes to Self-Organised Workshops: Ensuring Sustainability and Continued Community Impact

Thu, 27 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

We are writing to inform the community about changes to Self-Organised workshops (SOWs). Due to rising costs, The Carpentries is introducing a fee for Amazon Web Services (AWS) instances used in Data Carpentry Genomics workshops. Furthermore, we have updated the definition and submission guidelines for SOWs. These workshops are vital in advancing The Carpentries’ mission and vision, significantly contributing to the organisation’s overall impact. We sincerely appreciate your efforts in organising and supporting them, as we recognise that they provide an accessible opportunity to teach Carpentries material.

Carpentries Core Team Promotions: Congratulations Angelique and Danielle!

Tue, 11 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A Message From SherAaron Hurt

Cheerfully, I get to share some exciting news! Two of our outstanding and well-deserving Core Team members have advanced in their roles at The Carpentries, Inc.

Danielle Sieh, Workshops & Training Manager

Danielle Sieh, who joined The Carpentries in February 2021 as a Workshop Administrator, has been promoted to Senior Program Manager for the Workshops and Instruction Team. Over the past year as Junior Program Manager, Danielle has showcased exceptional leadership within the Instructor community, demonstrated outstanding organisational skills in shaping content for our new website and Handbooks, and successfully managed the Self-Organised Workshops project. In her new role, Danielle will take on additional leadership responsibilities, focusing on planning and process improvement within her areas of oversight.

Building an Inclusive Future in Data Science: The Carpentries' 2025 Glosario Expansion

Tue, 28 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Glosario, The Carpentries’ open source multilingual glossary for computing and data science terms, has already made remarkable strides. By late 2024, Glosario included translations in over 26 languages, with significant contributions from our global community. However, as Glosario has grown, we have identified challenges that limit its accessibility and scalability. Contributions to the glossary, currently managed in a YAML format, can be intimidating for newcomers and time-intensive for reviewers. Additionally, we have recognised the need to provide meaningful recognition to contributors, a cornerstone of The Carpentries’ commitment to valuing diverse contributions.

Thank you for Breaking the Language Barriers in Data Science and Programming

Thu, 17 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to everyone who contributed in the Glosario Codefest, an event that highlighted the importance of breaking down language barriers in data science and programming. Your contributions have helped create a more inclusive learning environment, advancing our vision of accessibility for the global community. This event, supported by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, reflects a significant step forward in making data science knowledge available to all.

Postponing the Hybrid CarpentryCon 2025 Event in South Africa

Thu, 11 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Dear Community,

Over the past few months, The Carpentries Core Team members have been discussing our team’s capacity to support a hybrid CarpentryCon event for 2025. CarpentryCon is our biennial community-building and networking event, and the last event was the virtual CarpentryCon @Home event in 2022. We had already announced in February last year the decision to host the next CarpentryCon in South Africa as a hybrid event in 2025 instead of 2024 after an assessment of our community’s needs and priorities, and our organisation’s capacity at that point.

Sharing the 2023 Community Survey Evaluation Report

Thu, 14 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In 2023, The Carpentries launched a community survey to inform and prioritise our work and that of the Core Team so we can better serve the community. We asked community members to take 5 minutes to provide feedback on their experience as Carpentries community members, seeking feedback that will help us better understand the benefits community members get from their participation and inform areas of improvement.

We received 200 responses to the survey. It is difficult to identify a response rate without an exact count of the number of active community members. However, this represents 5% of The Carpentries Slack workspace members and 7% of those subscribed to Carpentries Clippings, our newsletter.

Breaking Language Barriers in Data Science: Glosario Codefest Event

Mon, 19 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In data science and programming, breaking down language barriers is pivotal for creating an inclusive learning environment. We are excited to announce an event that aligns with this vision – the Glosario Codefest! This event, made possible by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, marks a step forward in advancing data science knowledge and accessibility for our diverse global community.

Developed in 2020, Glosario has become a resource for learners worldwide. Glosario’s commitment to accessibility is exemplified by its open availability online. Released under a Creative Commons Attribution license, Glosario’s content is stored in a structured plain-text format (YAML), ensuring machine-readability.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation approves grant for Glosario

Thu, 18 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

To advance data science knowledge and accessibility for our diverse community, we developed Glosario. Today, we are pleased to share that the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation recently approved a grant for use over 12 months (November 2023 through October 2024) to support an upgrade to Glosario, the open-source, multilingual glossary for computing terms.

Since Glosario was developed in 2020, our global community has translated computing and data science terms into more than 24 languages, comprising more than 450 pull requests and 90 GitHub issues. The glossary helps learners attend workshops and use our lessons to make sense of computational and programming jargon written in English by offering it in their native language. Translating data science terms also provides a teaching tool for Carpentries Instructors to reduce barriers for their learners.

Wins and Challenges of Running a Carpentry Workshop in South Africa during Load shedding

Wed, 03 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Millions of people in Southern Africa are left without power for up to 12.5 hours daily due to load shedding. This is when a power supply can not provide enough electricity for all at once, and to avoid a total blackout, power is turned off in part or parts of a power grid. In the wake of COVID-19 in early 2020, The Carpentries transitioned to fully online workshops and still, most workshops offered in Southern Africa are online. One can only imagine the impact of running a Carpentries workshop online during load shedding.

CarpentryConnect South Africa 2021 - A global event

Thu, 28 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The first virtual CarpentryConnect South Africa 2021 took place from 6 to 17 September. The event included 2 Carpentries workshops, 1 Carpentries instructor training event, 2 networking events, 1 learning session and 1 opening address.

The main goal of CarpentryConnect South Africa 2021 was to build capacity for workshops through instructor training and bring together newer and more experienced community members to share knowledge, network, develop new skills, and develop strategies for building strong local communities around digital and computational literacy in Africa.

Glosario: African contributions

Mon, 29 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

During the last 12 months, the African Carpentries Community and other global members have mobilised efforts to translate English data science terms into the online, multilingual glossary of terms called Glosario. Translations were done into, among many others, Afrikaans, Amharic, Bahasa Indonesia, Setswana, isiXhosa, isiZulu and Kiswahili. These efforts build on the successes of Hacktoberfest 2020.

The glossary has grown into 17 languages in the past two years, most languages spoken in Africa. What follows highlights the African Carpentries Communities’ efforts during 2021.

Announcing The Carpentries African Capacity Development Manager, Angelique Trusler

Tue, 05 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

For the past two years, Dr. Angelique Trusler has served as The Carpentries Regional Consultant for Southern Africa thanks to the generous support from the South African Center for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR). Angelique joined our team bringing depth, knowledge, and experience not only as a Carpentries instructor and community member in South Africa but also as a social sciences researcher and practitioner.

Developing a strategy for building The Carpentries community across Southern Africa has been Angelique’s passion and pride. Specifically, her leadership has helped us make progress on the following goals:

CarpentryConnect South Africa 2021 - A global event

Thu, 30 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The first virtual CarpentryConnect South Africa 2021 took place from 6 to 17 September 2021. The event included 2 Carpentries workshops, 1 Carpentries instructor training event, 2 networking events, 1 learning session and 1 opening address. The main goal of CarpentryConnect South Africa 2021 was to build capacity for workshops through instructor training and bring together newer and more experienced community members to share knowledge, network, develop new skills, and develop strategies for building strong local communities around digital and computational literacy in Africa. The virtual event was attended by more than 120 attendees and volunteers (i.e. trainers, instructors and helpers) from 28 countries worldwide, including 16 countries in Africa. An estimated 300GB of mobile data was provided to 71 attendees over 19 African network providers.

The Carpentries Community Facilitators Program: 6-months in

Thu, 29 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

In September 2020, The Carpentries introduced the Community Facilitators Program. This new initiative sought to create new pathways for active involvement in everyday community activities by more community members. This program was developed to sustain the growing Carpentries community and support other core programs that contribute to the advancement of our mission. In November 2020, we met The Carpentries Feedback Facilitators, who were onboarded as our first cohort of Community Facilitators, focussing on feedback facilitation.

Highlighting our strategic plan efforts to support local community building

Tue, 27 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

At the end of each quarter the Core Team spends time individually and collectively reflecting on the progress the organisation has made toward our Strategic Plan for 2020-2025. This exercise is truly meaningful for us as it speaks to our commitment to one of our 9 Core Values: Act Openly. By sharing semi-regular updates about our strategic plan with our community, we hope to keep you engaged in our growth and development. To follow this work closely watch our strategic-plan GitHub repository.

Recruiting Instructors for Self-Organised Workshops

Wed, 23 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The original blog post was posted on 2020-08-05, what follows is an update to the original post

While Self-Organised workshops are not managed by The Carpentries Workshop Administration Team, we want to be able to provide you with resources to make the load lighter. When hosting a Carpentries workshop there are many steps in the coordination process. One of the most important components is ensuring you have Instructors to teach your workshop. This can be even more difficult when you have to recruit the instructors for a Self-Organised workshop.

Registration for CarpentryConnect South Africa 2021 now open!

Mon, 21 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

What is CarpentryConnect?

CarpentryConnect events are regional Carpentry Community meetups that take place outside of the main international CarpentryCon meetup. The second South African CarpentryConnect will be held virtually and will bring together newer and more experienced community members to share knowledge, network, develop new skills, and develop strategies for building strong local communities around digital and computational literacy at universities.

The main goal of CarpentryConnect South Africa 2021 is to build capacity for workshops through instructor training and establish a network for the regional Carpentries community. The first South African CarpentryConnect took place in Johannesburg, South Africa in September 2018. CarpentryConnect South Africa 2021 will build on the successes of that first event, to bring together and grow the Carpentries community in Africa even further. Workshop fees and mobile data for African participants is funded by Code for Science and Society Event Fund.

Lessons Learned - Data Carpentries Workshop for SADiLaR (August 31, 2020)

Wed, 07 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

The call went out for instructors and helpers to cover the Data Carpentries Workshop from 31 August to 4 September 2020. Five instructors and two helpers were selected. We had two instructors from England (Jannetta and Varshita), one from France (Samuel), one from Kenya (Benson), one from Japan (Maggi), and two from South Africa (Marissa and Lactatia).

Preparation for the workshop

The workshop was organised by Angelique Trusler, the Regional Consultant for Southern Africa. Attendees were sent instructions in an email on how to download and install the data and software required. A couple of weeks before the workshop the instructors and helpers were put into contact with one another via email to decide who would do what during the workshop. We used a shared online spreadsheet to indicate which parts we would like to teach and who would be able to act as helpers on what days.

Carpentries Community Discussion Host Onboarding Now Open!

Mon, 27 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Carpentries Community Discussions are not only part of the check-out process but also provides a platform for all instructors (new and experienced) to discuss any questions (i.e. online workshop administration, how to adapt or using cloud instances they might have; or the opportunity to share unique teaching experiences post-workshop. With the move towards more online workshops, debriefing and sharing what worked and what didn’t is an important process of our community. The current number of hosts is a small fraction of our community so we are looking to expand the number and diversity of perspectives of hosts. If you are interested, please help us grow the community of discussion hosts.

Pre- and Post-workshop discussions : Six months into 2020

Fri, 17 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The Carpentries Community Discussions are designed for everyone in The Carpentries community interested in learning, educating and advocating for teaching foundational coding and data science skills globally. Pre and Post-workshops discussions are designed for those getting ready to teach or having recently taught to come discuss their workshop with the community. Many Carpentry workshops globally are now hosted online due to the COVID-19 pandemic; these discussions also allow instructors to share unique online teaching experiences to instructors in-training who join the call during their check-out process.

Learners' Experiences from South Africa's Online Workshop

Thu, 28 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

COVID-19 has had an impact on in-person meetings globally, and South Africa’s Carpentries workshops are no exception. Under an ongoing national lockdown, tertiary institutions are closed leaving students without access to internet and computer laboratories. The General Household Survey of South Africa (2018) indicated that only 10.14% of households have access to internet at home.

There is a silver lining, some universities have stepped up to bridge the digital divide and are offering access to laptops and mobile data for students to continue the academic year online (on loan or reduced prices). SADiLaR used this ‘chopportunity’ to host its first three-day Online Data Carpentry Workshop from May 5-7. Six learners from South Africa and the United Kingdom attended the online workshop, which covered Data Carpentry’s R for Social Scientists curriculum.

A Brief Guide to Lists in The Carpentries' TopicBox

Thu, 23 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

COVID-19 has had a big impact on the global Carpentries community. The following are various channels to subscribe to based on the information you might need as we monitor and respond to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic.

The Carpentries TopicBox has many channels of threaded discussions. The most general and broad discussions revolve around teaching, pedagogy, technology, and tools. More specific channels are aimed at trainers, maintainers as well as instructors. Standalone channels are also available for local Carpentries community discussions.

More Community-Contributed Tips for Teaching Online

Mon, 30 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

We recently published a first round on community-contributed tips for teaching online. Today, we are publishing the second and final round of tips from our community members.

As communicated by Omar Khan on TopicBox on 26 March, The Carpentries has now set up a COVID-19 Response Task Force, and a more elaborate set of recommendations will be shared by its members in the coming weeks.

This post has been made possible by contributions from Julie Vecchio, Hanna Varachkina, Darya Vanichkina, Angelique Trusler and two anonymous contributors. Thank you!

With Thanks from Carpentries Instructors in Africa

Thu, 12 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

The African Instructors Community is made up of individuals who volunteer their time to teach foundational coding and data science skills to researchers on the continent. Ending 2019 on a positive note, not only was there a growth in the number of trained instructors, an increase in African countries joining The Carpentries community, but a Regional Consultant for Southern Africa has also been appointed to support the team of volunteer instructors across the continent.

Introducing our new Regional Consultant for Southern Africa.

Tue, 12 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

We are delighted to welcome Dr. Angelique Trusler to The Carpentries team. Angelique joins the team through support from the South African Center for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR). Her work will advance SADiLaR’s community and workshop efforts in Southern Africa with a particular focus on advancing the development and deployment of Digital Humanities workshop materials. More broadly, Angelique will be developing strategies and workflows to adapt The Carpentries’ membership and workshop programs to function optimally in Southern Africa. She brings her experience and passion in data and software skills training to this role, and will advise The Carpentries on how to best adapt our programs to thrive in Southern Africa. Angelique will also assist and advise in developing a plan to create and support a strong team of volunteer instructors across the region. We are thrilled to have her on the team!