Belinda Weaver on The Carpentries

Library Carpentry Curriculum Advisory Committee Announces New Lesson: Introducing Computational Thinking

Wed, 23 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

The idea for the Introducing Computational Thinking lesson came from my own experiences of teaching Software Carpentry lessons and learning to code. While Software Carpentry taught the fundamentals of task automation and coding, it did not directly address how to break problems down or how to apply a coding mindset to research questions. As a result, when I tried to apply what I had learned, I found it challenging to break problems down into computable chunks. I therefore saw a lesson on computational thinking as a necessary precursor to learning how to code.

The Magic of Etherpads

Tue, 16 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

When I compiled the What is a Workshop? page for The Carpentries website, I tried to list the many features that make our workshops special.

Etherpads came a long way down the list, yet they are an essential tool for making things work. In an earlier post, I said the Code of Conduct was the most important of our teaching practies, but workshops would not run half so smoothly without etherpads.

Etherpads in workshops

When I teach, I preload the workshop etherpad with links to all the lessons to be taught. I provide a link to the workshop website, and to the installation/troubleshooting page, and to the Reference page of the lesson for those who want to keep open a tab with that extra help. I also add the names and Twitter handles of the Instructors and helpers (and various flavours of Carpentry, depending on what workshop is being taught). I add the workshop hashtag, and a list of those attending (from the workshop sign in list). Wifi connection details go on there, as do recommendations for where to find the best coffee on campus. The pad can fit it all.

Help Us Plan for CarpentryCon 2020

Fri, 28 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The CarpentryCon Task Force met on 25 September to answer questions from community members interested in planning CarpentryCon 2020. It was great to welcome community members from the UK, New Zealand, and South Africa to the call. We hope those people will be joining the Task Force. While most of the current Task Force members will continue serving as well, we would still like to see more members joining the Task Force.

My Pathway in The Carpentries

Tue, 25 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

What does Carpentries involvement bring to your life? In the first of what we hope will be a series of posts on how people can get (or already have been) involved with The Carpentries, either globally or locally (or both!), Belinda Weaver, the Community and Communications Lead for The Carpentries, explains her own pathway to involvement.

In the beginning …

I have been involved with The Carpentries since 2014. Yet, when I first heard about Software Carpentry - which was my doorway into involvement - I had never learned to program in any language, and had never dipped a toe in GitHub, much less used any kind of tool for version control.

CarpentryCon – Post-conference Report and Call to Action

Sun, 09 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The first CarpentryCon

From 30 May to 1 June, 2018, the first ever in-person Carpentry conference, CarpentryCon 2018, took place under the theme “Building Locally, Connecting Globally”, with a vision to bring community members together under the same roof.

The conference was held at University College Dublin in Ireland and comprised keynote talks as well as many excellent unconference sessions suggested by the community members. The unconference sessions included 12 breakout discussions, six skill-up topics, six technical workshops and many impromptu birds-of-a-feather events (see the complete program here).

What constitutes a Library Carpentry workshop?

Tue, 07 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Library Carpentry website

By Chris Erdmann, Belinda Weaver, John Chodacki, Juliane Schneider, Jez Cope, Kayleigh Lino, Tim Dennis, Cam Macdonell

Given that Library Carpentry currently has nine lessons on its books, and a couple more in draft form, the question of exactly what constitutes an ‘official’ Library Carpentry workshop is timely.

On 17 May, Belinda Weaver opened an issue about this question, proposing what lessons should be taught for a workshop to be badged as Library Carpentry. The issue asked others in the community to comment. The issue received 10 comments from Chris Erdmann, Jez Cope, Kayleigh Lino, Juliane Schneider, Veronica Ikeshoji-Orlati, Greg Wilson, James Baker, and Lauren Ko. Out of the current Library Carpentry lessons, the bulk of comments identified Introduction to Data, the UNIX Shell, Introduction to Git, and OpenRefine as the core lessons that should be taught at a Library Carpentry workshop.

Seventy-One Workshops... and Counting

Wed, 01 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000

By Belinda Weaver, Chris Erdmann, Tim Dennis, Juliane Schneider, Carmi Cronje, Jez Cope

Seventy-one Library Carpentry workshops have now been taught around the world, including one-day, two-day, and multi-day events, with future workshops being added every day.

With this milestone behind us, it is important to pause and appreciate what has been achieved so far by the community. Since 2015, more than 102 instructors and 123 helpers, 225 in total, have contributed to Library Carpentry training events in 13 countries. We have collaboratively developed open educational lessons to teach software and data skills for anyone who works in libraries or similar organisations.

Sydney ResBaz - A Big Success

Mon, 30 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000

On 3-5 July, Macquarie University hosted the 2018 Sydney Research Bazaar (ResBaz). Macquarie University became a member organisation of The Carpentries, joining in 2016 as the first supporting member organisation in Australia. Associate Professor Shawn Ross, Director of Data Science and eResearch at Macquarie, welcomed attendees to the event.

Research Bazaar (ResBaz) is a worldwide festival promoting digital literacy emerging at the centre of modern research. Every year, ResBaz events are held at university campuses across the globe. The aim of these events is to equip researchers from all career stages with digital skills and tools to make their research faster and smarter.

Eight Days, Four Workshops, Two Islands, One Earthquake

Wed, 18 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Library Carpentry website

By Belinda Weaver

Teaching four Library Carpentry ’express’ workshops within eight days might sound quite taxing but the enthusiasm of the people I taught made it pretty easy. I also had some help from Jonah Duckles with workshop one at the University of Otago in Dunedin (this formed part of the Dunedin ResBaz event) and from Aleksandra Pawlik with the workshop at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch.

Dunedin ResBaz

Fri, 13 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Two Days of Skills Workshops

When we learned that Belinda Weaver was coming to New Zealand to deliver a Library Carpentry roadshow to academic libraries in New Zealand, we decided to run a second ResBaz of the year in Dunedin, involving librarians and expanding the ResBaz community at The University of Otago. Mik Black, Murray Cadzow, and Jonah Duckles worked to put together a three-day event. Two days of workshops, and a day of community-building talks.

Join an Onboarding Session for Hosting Discussion Sessions

Tue, 26 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Instructor discussions are important to our community to help Instructors prepare to teach, to debrief after Instructors have taught, and to help new Instructors complete their certification as Carpentries Instructors. Sessions are regularly run and are generally well-attended. Feedback to the Mentoring Subcommittee proves they are highly valued.

Toby Hodges recently put out a call to recruit new session hosts so we can meet continuing demand for these sessions.

Why it is worthwhile

As someone who has hosted a few in her time, I would say that, far from being hard work, these sessions are a joy to run and be part of. Meeting new people in our wide global community is always stimulating. People in discussions I have hosted have ranged from ‘old hands’ coming back to share their workshop experience to new members of the community about to teach for the very first time and bursting with questions. Attendees have been based in Japan, the US, South Africa, South Korea, New Zealand, Singapore, Australia, Canada, the UK, the Netherlands … the list goes on.

Library Carpentry Community Update

Wed, 20 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Library Carpentry website

By Chris Erdmann, Belinda Weaver

Report-back from CarpentryCon and the latest governance call

Things are moving along nicely in the Library Carpentry community, helped by regular meetings of the governance group and lots of face to face talking at the recent CarpentryCon event in Dublin, where we ran a Library Carpentry Onboarding Workshop. Many people at CarpentryCon were keen to talk Library Carpentry. We are now firming up our ideas about our audience, and what constitutes a workshop, and we are currently discussing how we can get more workshops organised and more instructors trained. (We hope to announce an instructor training event shortly.)

CarpentryCon 2018 Wraps Up

Mon, 04 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Warm. Open. Diverse. Welcoming. Inspiring.

Those words go some way towards summing up the three fantastic days of keynotes, lightning talks, skill-ups, breakout discussions, workshops, and networking that comprised the first-ever CarpentryCon held at University College Dublin. This event drew an audience of more than 110 people from right round the globe.

After a welcome from the CarpentryCon Task Force, the event kicked off with Valerie Aurora’s keynote, Focus on Allies, which taught us all some new strategies to support diversity and inclusion. As James Baker tweeted, “I didn’t expect #CarpentryCon2018 to start with a keynote on inclusion and diversity and targets and ally skills, but it sets the scene beautifully: not just “We have a CoC” and move on, but an hour on how we can understand, improve, and action the CoC as a community.”

Opening discussions about Library Carpentry being a Lesson Organisation with The Carpentries

Mon, 21 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

On 1 January, 2018, Software Carpentry and Data Carpentry officially merged to form a new project called The Carpentries.

The original projects remain as distinct lesson entities, but governance, staffing, assessment, and a range of other matters now come under the merged identity - The Carpentries - which is typified by the new website and handbook.

Many in our community might have heard of Library Carpentry, a project that began when Dr. James Baker and others adapted Software Carpentry workshop materials to teach librarians software and data skills at a London workshop in 2015.

Opening discussions about Library Carpentry being a Lesson Organisation with The Carpentries

Mon, 21 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Library Carpentry website

By Tracy Teal and Belinda Weaver.

On 1 January, 2018, Software Carpentry and Data Carpentry officially merged to form a new project called The Carpentries.

Have your say

Fri, 18 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Library Carpentry website

By Belinda Weaver

The Library Carpentry governance group has created a governance repository on GitHub to list members, meeting minutes, and other things relevant to the future of Library Carpentry.

See the minutes of our May meeting.

The group meets monthly on the second Monday/Tuesday of the month (date and time depending on time zones).

Asking for your input

We want to deal with issues of relevance to this community. Feel free to suggest agenda items on our governance call etherpad.

Library Carpentry Hackathon a Great Success

Wed, 16 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Library Carpentry ran a two-day hackathon over 10-11 May as part of the annual Mozilla Global Sprint.

This was the third hackathon run by the worldwide Library Carpentry community. As ever, it was a great success, pulling in a number of people new to this community. Sprint participants from Melbourne had attended their first ever Library Carpentry workshop only a week before.

Pre-sprint, all the repositories formerly housed in data-lessons were moved over to the new Library Carpentry organisation on GitHub.

Library Carpentry at The University of Melbourne

Fri, 11 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Library Carpentry website

Post by Belinda Weaver.

Peter Neish and I taught a one-day Library Carpentry workshop to around 24 library staff at the University of Melbourne on 4 May.

We covered jargon busting, regular expressions for pattern matching, the Unix shell, and OpenRefine. This was a fairly ambitious program for a single day, but we managed to get through it, losing only a little skin as we tore through the shell lesson. Things went a little off the rails when the main projector started switching on and off randomly. This resulted in a total rearrangement of the room with a subsequent loss of visibility for some learners.

Launching The Carpentries Website

Wed, 25 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Data Carpentry website

Website Launch

We are excited to announce that The Carpentries website is now live!

The new website celebrates our merged identity as The Carpentries.

The new website will give you access to all things ‘Carpentries’, in other words, it will give you easy access to what is common information across the merged organization. The sorts of things you will find there include our Code of Conduct, information about instructor training and assessment, a range of shared policies, including our privacy policy, details of staffing and project governance, and a whole lot more.

Launching The Carpentries Website

Wed, 25 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

We are excited to announce that The Carpentries website is now live!

The new website celebrates our merged identity as The Carpentries.

The new website will give you access to all things ‘Carpentries’, in other words, it will give you easy access to what is common information across the merged organization. The sorts of things you will find there include information about instructor training and assessment, a range of shared policies, including our privacy policy, details of staffing and project governance, and a whole lot more.

Poster, Program, Participation

Tue, 24 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

CarpentryCon 2018 in Dublin is little more than a month away! This inaugural community-building and networking event for The Carpentries should be a major highlight of the year, with a great program of speakers and workshops to keep people engaged. CarpentryCon will run from 30 May to 1 June, 2018.

To help people get excited about what is coming, the Task Force are running a daily Twitter countdown through the dedicated CarpentryCon feed. You can also join an upcoming community call where members of the Task Force will answer any questions you might have. There will be two calls you can join, both on 3 or 4 May, depending on your time zone.

Running workshops on limited budgets

Fri, 13 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Anelda van der Walt and co-host Toby Hodges ran the first themed discussion session in March to brainstorm ideas about running workshops with little to no funding. Attendees from Australia, the US, the UK, and Canada joined to hear and contribute ideas.

Existing Funding Models

The Brisbane model is to use Eventbrite to charge a low fee (around AUD $60) for attendance at workshops. This has a few benefits - waitlists can be managed, the booking widget appears in the workshop website, fees can be easily refunded up to a week before the workshop, and attendance is generally good because people have paid out of their own pockets or have been sponsored by their school to come. The fee covers the costs of room hire and the fairly lavish morning and afternoon teas that keep people from wandering off in search of sustenance during breaks. The Brisbane instructor pool is fairly large so there is no need to fly people in, which means we don’t have to factor in those costs. One drawback is having to pay the catering and room hire costs up-front by personal credit card as the Eventbrite payout comes only after the workshop. This is a break-even charge - we could charge more and return some money to The Carpentries, but our main interest is in keeping costs low.

Building Library Carpentry Community and Development

Thu, 12 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Data Carpentry website

We are excited to announce that Chris Erdmann has been hired as the Library Carpentry Community and Development Director starting May 4, 2018.

Chris has worked in libraries for more than 21 years to integrate data management and workflows in database and library systems. Through training, consulting and tool development to build programs, he has tried to empower people in research and library communities to work effectively with data. Chris received his MLIS at the University of Washington iSchool while working at the University’s Technology Transfer Office, where he helped automate workflows and develop the unit’s web presence and analytics. He spent roughly ten years working alongside astronomers at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics to advance library data-mining and linking services, e.g. ESO Telescope Bibliography. Also during this time, he led an experimental training series called Data Scientist Training for Librarians (DST4L) geared towards teaching librarians data-savvy skills to help transform their library services to meet the needs of their research communities. He recently joined the Library Carpentry governance group.

Launching our New Handbook

Wed, 11 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Data Carpentry website

As The Carpentries, we’re excited to announce that we have consolidated and updated many materials and resources to more easily share them online and be a community resource.

Today we are launching an all-new The Carpentries Handbook. We will also be tweeting regularly through a new Carpentries Twitter account.

The Carpentries Handbook

We are excited to release our new Carpentries Handbook! Historically, information and resources have been spread across various websites, Google docs, GitHub repos, and more. We now have a one-stop shop that consolidates all these resources. In one place, you can now find information on how to run a workshop, how to develop and maintain lessons, and how to participate in an instructor training event. You’ll also learn about getting the word out about Carpentries activities through our communication channels, and how to get involved in our global community. Many, many thanks to all the community members who helped develop this site.

Launching Our New Handbook

Wed, 11 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

As The Carpentries, we’re excited to announce that we have consolidated and updated a whole raft of materials and resources that we want to share online with our community.

Today we are launching an all-new The Carpentries Handbook. We will also be tweeting regularly through a new Carpentries Twitter account.

The Carpentries Handbook

Who Belongs at CarpentryCon 2018? You Do!

Fri, 23 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

CarpentryCon 2018 will be the key community building event in The Carpentries’ annual calendar. To be held in Dublin from 30 May - 1 June, 2018, CarpentryCon will be three action-packed days of skill ups, breakout sessions, talks, social events (there will be a conference dinner), and workshops.

Who do we want to see there?

YOU!

Grad student? Tick.

Post-doc? Tick.

Working in industry? Tick.

Project or lab leader? Tick.

CarpentryCon - Hotel Accommodation Options

Wed, 28 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Hotel Accommodation for CarpentryCon 2018

We have two hotel options for you for CarpentryCon 2018. Both hotels are offering us a special CarpentryCon rate.

The special rates will be valid for the period of the event and available until the cut-off date; anyone looking to book after that date will be offered the best available rate at the time.

So please book before 18 April if you want to lock in the cheaper rate.

Library Carpentry Governance - An Update

Tue, 20 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Eight of us from Australia, the UK, the US, Canada, and South Africa met last week via zoom to discuss taking the Library Carpentry project forward.

We discussed the creation of a new website to replace this one, talked about what constitutes a Library Carpentry workshop, discussed who can teach the material, and and started thinking about what kind of governance structure we need to lead the work from now on. There was an update on the status of the IMLS-funded Library Carpentry Coordinator role to be based at CDL.

Valerie Aurora to Keynote at CarpentryCon 2018

Wed, 14 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

The Carpentries are excited to announce that Valerie Aurora will be one of four keynote speakers at this May’s CarpentryCon in Dublin.

Valerie is a software engineer turned diversity and inclusion consultant.

We want CarpentryCon 2018 to be a truly global, diverse and inclusive event, which is why we are so happy that Valerie has accepted our offer to speak there.

Valerie Aurora to Keynote at CarpentryCon 2018

Wed, 14 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Data Carpentry website

The Carpentries are excited to announce that Valerie Aurora will be one of four keynote speakers at this May’s CarpentryCon in Dublin.

Valerie is a software engineer turned diversity and inclusion consultant.

We want CarpentryCon 2018 to be a truly global, diverse and inclusive event, which is why we are so happy that Valerie has accepted our offer to speak there.

Making the Case for CarpentryCon

Thu, 08 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Getting a PhD is, was or will be a major career milestone for many in our community.

Yet getting a PhD, momentous as that achievement is, is really just the first step on the career ladder. Employers increasingly want other skills as well.

In all kinds of surveys, the same key skills keep popping up:

Communication skills. Teamwork. Problem solving. Ethical and intercultural understanding. Leadership. Critical thinking.

Unveiling Our New Logo

Wed, 07 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

It must be the worst-kept secret in cyberspace - that the Carpentries have a new logo.

Now that Software and Data Carpentry have merged, we wanted a new logo to celebrate our coming together as the Carpentries, and to give that project its own distinct identity.

The new logo retains a ‘Carpentry’ feel - at the basic level, it represents a wrench around a hexagonal bolt. Yet it also conveys a sense of exhilaration and celebration - that magic moment when you ‘get’ something and your arms shoot up in celebration. There are many such ‘aha!’ moments in Carpentries’ workshops, so it is fitting that our logo represent not just the hard work of learning (the wrench) but the satisfaction of achievement and mastery that we gain (the ‘Yay!’).

Unveiling the Carpentries Logo

Wed, 07 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Data Carpentry website

Now that Software and Data Carpentry have merged, we wanted a new logo to celebrate our coming together as the Carpentries, and to give that project its own distinct identity.

Be our Advocate

Wed, 24 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Dear members of our community, we need your help.

Most of you probably know that our inaugural CarpentryCon will take place from 30 May - 1 June, 2018 at University College Dublin.

We would now like to ask for your help in helping us find sponsors to support this event.

We have written blog posts that lay out the case for support from commercial enterprises as well as from support from foundations and other grant-making bodies.

Foundations and Funders: Why Should You Sponsor CarpentryCon 2018?

Tue, 23 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

CarpentryCon 2018 planning is now well underway. We have chosen a venue and a date, identified keynote speakers, and roughed out a program, but we are still missing one vital piece:

SPONSORS!

CarpentryCon 2018 will teach the practical skills people need to lead 21st century research within academia and industry. By supporting us, you will help develop that next generation of research leaders, people who will attend CarpentryCon to develop the skills needed to take research forward.

Why Should You Sponsor CarpentryCon 2018?

Thu, 18 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

The inaugural CarpentryCon 2018 will take place on 30 May-1 June at University College Dublin.

Planning is now well underway. We have chosen a venue and a date, identified keynote speakers, and roughed out a program, but we are still missing one vital piece:

SPONSORS!

CarpentryCon 2018 will teach the practical skills people need to lead 21st century research within academia and industry.

The Centrality of the Code of Conduct

Wed, 10 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

This is the first in a series of posts about Carpentries’ teaching practices. Subsequent posts will cover the other practices - live coding, sticky notes, helpers, challenges, etherpads - that make Carpentries’ workshops the success that they are.

I gave a talk recently for the Australian National Data Service on ’teaching the Carpentries way’. Originally I planned to cover six reasons why our workshops are effective, but ended up covering thirteen, with the thirteenth being the Carpentries’ Code of Conduct.

The Centrality of the Code of Conduct

Wed, 10 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Data Carpentry website

Fourteen and Counting - People's Favorite Tools

Mon, 08 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Thank you to all the people who have sent in short posts about their favourite tools. We are up to fourteen now, and the variety of tools is great to see. Finding out what other people use - and possibly more importantly - why they use it, and for what, is a great shortcut for researchers. There are a bewildering number of research tools around. Getting a tip from someone in your discipline, or from someone who is doing a similar task to you, can really help.

My Favorite Tool - Twitter

Mon, 08 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Why do I like Twitter?

At the risk of sounding like a shallow person with a short attention span, Twitter really is a favourite of mine. I tweet as cloudaus.

It’s not really Twitter’s fault that people use it for shameless self-promotion, for marketing, or for fighting culture wars. That side of it has probably turned many people off, which is a shame because Twitter has so many practical uses.

Green Stickies for 2017: Report from the Happy Holidays Green Sticky Party Calls

Thu, 14 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

When Carpentries’ staff score a win, we call it a #greensticky. So for our final community calls for 2017, we hosted two Happy Holidays Green Sticky Parties to celebrate wins we have had this year. The calls highlighted successes, both personal ones, and wins for the wider community.

Among the pluses reported were:

The upcoming Data and Software Carpentry merger
Plans to bring Library Carpentry into the fold
Planning for our 2018 CarpentryCon event
Starting bi-lingual (English/Spanish) teaching demos
Getting ideas for starting a community from the Community Champions calls
Teaching a Software Carpentry workshop for the first time
Successfully using Carpentry-style teaching in an undergraduate programming course
Getting to meet community members in person

Tracy Teal said that calls like these are the #greensticky, and no-one disagreed.

Poster Competition Now Open

Mon, 11 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Design a Promotional Poster for CarpentryCon 2018

The Carpentries are excited to announce our poster design competition where some lucky member of our community will win a free registration for CarpentryCon 2018.

Are there any artists out there who could design a fantastic poster? If so, we want to see your design!

The winning designer will take home some fantastic Carpentries swag and gain free registration to CarpentryCon 2018. This includes registration for the conference only. It does not include travel to and from Dublin.

CarpentryCon 2018 - Website is Live!

Thu, 07 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

We are excited to announce that our website for CarpentryCon 2018 is live.

CarpentryCon 2018 will take place at University College Dublin from 30 May - 1 June, 2018, with the overarching theme of “Building Globally, Connecting Locally”.

The three-day event will focus on professional development, community building and networking, as we aim to help skill up the next generation of research leaders through a combination of talks, workshops and breakout sessions.

Celebrate the Wins of 2017: Join the year's final community call

Tue, 05 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

When Carpentries staff get a win, we call it a #greensticky. These are things to celebrate with a resounding ‘Yay!’

So we decided to turn our regular December community call (our last for the year) into a Happy Holidays GreenSticky Party.

2017 has been a BIG year for our community. We negotiated the Carpentries merger, got planning underway for 2018’s CarpentryCon, trained a whole bunch of new instructors and trainers, and restarted our mentoring groups - and of course a ton of workshops were taught all round the globe. As we wind down for the holidays, it is worth taking time out to think over the great moments of the year.

Open Con Berlin - Impressions

Mon, 04 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Data Carpentry website

Along with fellow Software Carpenters Rayna Harris and Paula Martinez, I attended OpenCon 2017 held over the weekend of 11-13 November, 2017 in Berlin. The conference was held in the Harnack Haus in Dahlem, the home of the Max Planck Society, where the friendly ghosts of Einstein, Heisenberg and other stellar scientists smiled on our endeavours to promote open access, open education and open data.

Upcoming Membership Webinar

Mon, 04 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Organizational memberships are a great way to build your local Carpentries’ instructor community.

Members organizations can run Software and Data Carpentry workshops more often, and can organize workshops for specific communities within their institution. As part of our membership services, we provide members with instructor training and mentorship, and give you easy access to pre- and post-workshop assessment surveys. As your organization leverages their membership to grow your pool of experienced instructors, we seek to find opportunities to connect common needs across our membership.

Community Building Catchup

Thu, 30 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

The last Carpentries’ Champions call led by Jonah Duckles was well attended, with representatives from Australia, South Africa, Ethiopia, the US, the UK, New Zealand and Norway.

After the introductions and a review of the last call, attendees were divided up into four breakout rooms to discuss (while keeping the following three questions in mind) an event that promoted a sense of excitement about new research tools.

OpenCon in Berlin - Impressions

Thu, 30 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

People's Favorite Tools

Wed, 29 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

A big thank you to everyone who has responded so far to the call for short posts about their favourite tools.

So far we have had Paula Martinez on R, with Bianca Peterson enthusiastically seconding, Jeff Oliver sharing his love of Git and GitHub, Kellie Ottoboni talking up IPython, and Thomas Arildsen on how the Jupyter Notebook facilitates his teaching. Juliane Schneider weighed in on the wonders of OpenRefine. Clifton Franklund likes RStudio, while Francesco Montanari is a fan of emacs.

Our Steering Committee Candidates

Sun, 26 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Eight people have nominated to serve on the 2018 Steering Committee of the new, merged Carpentries.

The nominees so far are:

Samantha Ahern (UK)
Martin Callaghan (UK)
Auriel Fournier (US)
Amy Hodge (US)
Lex Nederbragt (Norway)
Raniere Silva (Brazil, but currently in the UK)
Juan Steyn (South Africa)
Jessica Upani (Namibia)
Elizabeth Wickes (US)

There is still time to put your name forward. Nominations will close on 1 December.

Meet the Candidates

Tue, 21 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Data Carpentry website

Eight nominations have come in so far for the 2018 Steering Committee of the new, merged Carpentries.

The nominees so far are:

Samantha Ahern
Martin Callaghan (UK)
Auriel Fournier (US)
Amy Hodge (US)
Lex Nederbragt (Norway)
Raniere Silva (Brazil, but currently in the UK)
Juan Steyn (South Africa)
Elizabeth Wickes (US)

There is still time to put your name forward. Nominations will close on 1 December.

Nominating for 2018 Steering Committee

Mon, 13 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Three nominations have come in so far for the new 2018 Steering Committee of the merged Carpentries.

The nominations received are from Juan Steyn (South Africa), Auriel Fournier (US) and Elizabeth Wickes (US).

There is still time to put yours in - nominations close on 1 December. Here is all the information you need to nominate.

There will be a Meet the Candidates opportunity on our upcoming community calls on 16/17 November (date and time will vary, depending on time zones).

Running effective online meetings with Zoom (or Google Hangouts, or ...)

Wed, 08 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Online meetings are a fact of life for most of us in the Carpentries and other distributed projects. So how do we make them as effective as we can?

This post came about after the Twitter discussion generated by this tweet from Titus Brown.

Here are some points I have thought of to make things work more smoothly. Feel free to comment.

Before the meeting:

Familiarize yourself with the agenda for the meeting. Are there things you need to prepare or figure out beforehand? Are there things you are wondering about? If there is no agenda, ask the chair to send one out.

Pack Your Bags for Dublin!

Fri, 03 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Data Carpentry website

The Carpentries are excited to announce that the 2018 CarpentryCon will take place from 30 May - 1 June, 2018 at University College Dublin (UCD).

Yes, we are going to Ireland for the inaugural CarpentryCon!

A huge thank you to UCD for their bid - we are confident that this will be a fantastic venue.

We are also grateful to all the other community members who proposed bids to host CarpentryCon. All were compelling, and it was very hard to select one from so many fantastic options.

Pack Your Bags for Dublin!

Thu, 02 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

The Carpentries are excited to announce that the 2018 CarpentryCon will take place from 30 May - 1 June, 2018 at University College Dublin (UCD).

Yes, we are going to Ireland for the inaugural CarpentryCon!

A huge thank you to UCD for their bid - we are confident that this will be a fantastic venue.

We are also grateful to all the other community members who proposed bids to host CarpentryCon. All were compelling, and it was very hard to select one from so many fantastic options.

People's Favourite Tools

Mon, 30 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Data Carpentry website

A big thank you to everyone who has responded so far to the call for short posts about their favourite tools.

So far we have had Paula Martinez on R, Jeff Oliver sharing his love of Git and GitHub, Kellie Ottoboni talking up IPython, and Thomas Arildsen on how the Jupyter Notebook facilitates his teaching. Juliane Schneider has now weighed in on the wonders of OpenRefine.

Expect more posts as people contribute further favourites. Even if your tool has already been mentioned, we would still welcome a post about it, as your use of the tool may be different.

Library Carpentry: Update from the Community Calls

Tue, 17 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Library Carpentry website

Community members came together on 10-11 October for two calls about the future direction of Library Carpentry.

You can see the discussions from those calls on the calls etherpad.

It was great to have such a good roll-up for both calls, and we managed to make some important decisions about the future.

Website redesign

We voted to move ahead with Richard Vankoningsveld’s proposed redesign of the existing Library Carpentry website. John Chodacki would prefer the logo be white or grey rather than yellow, and Richard still has some work to do to get the blog to render in the same Agency theme.

Blogging for the Carpentries - We Want to Hear From You

Mon, 16 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

This is an open invitation to our community members to share their knowledge.

We have a global community working in many different disciplines using a vast range of tools. On our blog, we would like to tap into that community experience and then share that hard-won knowledge.

This kind of information could help people new to a discipline, or might inspire others to try out a tool they have never used before.

Blogging for the Carpentries - We Want to Hear From You

Mon, 16 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Data Carpentry website

This is an open invitation to our community members to share their knowledge.

We have a global community working in many different disciplines using a vast range of tools. On our blog, we would like to tap into that community experience and then share that hard-won knowledge.

This kind of information could help people new to a discipline, or might inspire others to try out a tool they have never used before.

All about Membership

Sun, 08 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

We are fortunate in the Carpentries to have many member organizations who support our work. However, if we are to continue reaching out to new disciplines and to build communities in under-served countries, we need a broader and more diverse membership base.

What are the benefits of membership?

Members receive priority access to instructor training and guidance about capacity building at their organization. Once institutions have a pool of local instructors, they can readily run low-cost local workshops that teach foundational computational and data skills to their staff and students. Memberships give Software and Data Carpentry revenue to ensure the ongoing development and maintenance of the lessons demanded by research communities. We work to give your local instructors support, ongoing mentorship and a forum for community lesson development. In addition, we have just launched round two of a targeted mentorship program to help new instructors develop their skills.

Mentoring is Back! Round Two of the Carpentries Mentoring Program begins October 25th

Thu, 05 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Mentoring groups provide experienced instructors with the chance to help small groups develop confidence in teaching, lesson maintenance and community building

The inaugural Carpentries mentoring program was a great success, and we have used the feedback we received from both mentors and mentees to craft a new and improved mentoring experience in round two. The next round will run October 25th - January 10th.

Round Two of the Carpentries Mentoring Program begins October 25th

Thu, 05 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Data Carpentry website The inaugural Carpentries mentoring program was a great success, and we have used the feedback we received from both mentors and mentees to craft a new and improved mentoring experience in round two. The next round will run October 25th - January 10th.

According to round one participants, the benefits of mentoring included greater understanding of the challenges new instructors face, more clarity about why we teach what we teach, getting timely responses to questions, and community engagement.

The Carpentries' In-Person Staff Meeting

Thu, 21 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Data Carpentry website

The Software and Data Carpentry staff teams met for a two-day in-person meeting on 12-13 September in Davis, California. This was a very productive meeting - more on this below - and it also provided some staff the opportunity to meet others face-to-face for the first time. The team is geographically scattered with staff in the US, Australia and New Zealand. At the meeting, we welcomed new Workshop Administrator SherAaron Hurt, Business Administrator Elizabeth Williams, and Deputy Director of Instructor Training Karen Word (all part-timers) to what will be a merged staff team from 2018, when the planned merger of the two Carpentries will be complete.

The Carpentries' In-Person Staff Meeting

Mon, 18 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

New Trainers On Board

Fri, 01 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Data Carpentry website

Software and Data Carpentry now have a brand-new batch of Trainers. The new Trainers completed their training this week and will start to train new Instructors soon. Adding this new cohort takes us up to 40 in Trainer numbers.

For those not familiar with our terminology, Trainers are the people who train other people to be Data and Software Carpentry Instructors. This is done through a two-day instructor training course that may be delivered in person or remotely. Trainers are vital to increasing our Instructor numbers, and thus to building our community worldwide.

All About CarpentryCon

Wed, 30 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

What is CarpentryCon?

CarpentryCon aspires to become a major learning, skill-building and networking event for our global Carpentries community. We want to help Carpenters develop the skills they need to get the careers they want. We want to help them create supportive local communities based on our values of openness and sharing. We also want to give newcomers the chance to network with more experienced people in our community, so that a range of hard-won knowledge can be passed along to a new generation of leaders.

Feedback of Champions

Thu, 24 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Jonah Duckles and I hosted our first Community Champions call on 22 August (23 August for us southern hemisphereans). Twenty-five people signed up for the call. We had attendees from the US (several locations), the UK, Canada, the Netherlands, plus me in Australia and Jonah in New Zealand. We also had a range of expertise - some old hands, and some keen to kickstart a brand new community.

Instructor Curriculum Updated

Mon, 14 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Sixty-seven pull requests were successfully merged during the recent update of the Software and Data Carpentry instructor training curriculum. Most of these PRs were merged during the recent 24-hour Bug BBQ that ran over 3-4 August. More than 20 instructors and trainers were involved with the update. A few pull requests remain to be merged before the material is ready to be re-released. This should happen by the end of August.

The Champions League

Mon, 07 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

When people sign up for our newsletter, Carpentry Clippings, many mention community building as one of their key interests. We are lucky in the Carpentries to have so many people who want to build local groups. These people are our community’s champions. They are the hard workers who volunteer their time to organise and run local workshops, recruit new instructors and helpers, teach and maintain our lessons, serve on committees and task forces, and generally help further the Carpentries’ mission of skilling up researchers to do more efficient, reproducible science.

Bug BBQ to Update Instructor Training Materials

Thu, 27 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Data Carpentry website

A new version of the Carpentry Instructor Training curriculum is scheduled to be published on 10 August.

To prepare for this release, we ran an Issue Bonanza on 13-14 July to identify bugs and issues such as typos and broken links. Now that these issues have been organised into a plan of work, we plan to resolve them with a Bug BBQ on 3-4 August. Help make sure the final product is polished and complete by getting involved.

Keep Calm and Write a Blog Post

Tue, 25 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Writing a blog post should not be hard. A blank screen can seem very daunting, but if you populate it with a few questions, such as Who? What? Where? When? Why? and How?, then you have the genesis of a post.

Workshop report? Once you’ve answered the questions above, you’re pretty much done. Throw in something that went well or a funny story about something that didn’t, and that’s it.

Feedback on feedback

Thu, 20 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

When I started as Community Development Lead, I posted a Google form to ask people in our community for feedback on what they thought was the main issue I should address.

I got a range of responses, from concerns about lesson maintenance to a call for more briefings to help people stay connected.

Also raised were instructor retention - how do we prevent burnout so good people don’t leave? - and instructor involvement - how do we increase the numbers of instructors reading our blog posts, signing up for the newsletter, getting involved in community calls and committees like mentoring?

Meet the Folks

Sat, 08 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Data Carpentry website

Conferences can be lonely places, especially for first-timers who don’t yet have solid networks in place. The bigger the event, the worse the problem. With so many people milling around, how do you find like-minded people, much less start a conversation?

The issue can be compounded if you’re in a minority. When you’re from an under-represented group, conferences can seem even more intimidating.

Open Channels

Thu, 06 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

I was writing a talk about community building in the Carpentries for the ANDS Tech Talk series, and found myself surprised at how many things we do.

Obviously, workshops are our key community-building activity. They help us reach new learners, give instructors the chance to practise teaching, and draw in new helpers. Many learners and helpers go on to become instructors themselves, which builds further momentum.

Library Carpentry chatrooms proliferate

Mon, 03 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Library Carpentry website

After the massive success of the 2017 global sprint, the Library Carpentry community decided it was time for create new chatrooms to handle the increasing volume of posts.

There are now three rooms - the Lobby which is a bit of a social, ‘meet-and-greet’ kind of place; lesson-dev for discussing lesson ideas, planning and maintenance; and a third room, workshops, for questions, discussions and debriefs about workshops past and upcoming.

Why be a helper at Software Carpentry workshops?

Sat, 01 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

“I’m not an expert on R”, “I don’t know any Python”, “I’ve never used Git” - these may be true statements but they should never stop you from helping out at a Software Carpentry workshop.

Even the workshop instructors themselves may not be “experts” - and all the better if they are not!

Experts don’t necessarily make the best teachers. Many have lost sight of - or, worse, patience with - the beginner mindset.

Job Posting: Workshop Administrator

Tue, 27 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Data Carpentry website

With the growth of Carpentry workshops all over the world, we are excited that Maneesha Sane is moving from Program Coordinator to Program Manager of Software and Data Carpentry. As Program Manager, she will continue to be involved in workshop coordination and instructor training and will oversee and ensure the quality and consistency of program operations. She will also work to develop processes, infrastructure and communications to consistently improve the workshop experience for instructors, hosts and learners.

Job Posting: Workshop Administrator

Mon, 26 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Instructor Training at Macquarie University

Tue, 20 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Software Carpentry Executive Director Jonah Duckles and I ran instructor training for new member institution Macquarie University in Sydney on 19-20 June.

There were a few firsts at this workshop - Jonah’s first time as an instructor trainer, my first day in the job as the new Community Development Lead for Software and Data Carpentry, and Macquarie’s first-ever instructor training event.

We may also have had the biggest-ever workshop etherpad, coming in at 1400+ lines, but that would be a tough claim to substantiate. Certainly the eventual size of the etherpad mirrored the deep engagement of attendees, who all worked very hard.

The Endless Sprint

Wed, 07 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

The recent Library Carpentry sprint exceeded my expectations, and then some!

Around 107 people signed up on our organising etherpad, either to work remotely or to contribute at one of the 13 sites in seven countries around the globe. That’s a big step up from the 2016 numbers of six sites and around twenty people working on the material.

The sprint was organised as part of the 2017 Mozilla Global Sprint. Library Carpenters comprised around one-sixth of that sprint workforce, and our more than 850 GitHub events - pull requests, forks, issues raised, commits and merges - outpaced the rest of the field by miles.

New Community Development Lead

Tue, 06 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

I am very pleased to be starting as the new Community Development Lead for Software and Data Carpentry. Building communities, helping people connect, fostering skills and learning, brokering solutions - these are the things that drive me.

Jobs I have had include librarian, repository manager, newspaper columnist, Internet trainer and IT project manager. I ran the library system for the City of London libraries in the 1980s, and have just finished working for a non-profit organisation making eResearch infrastructure available to university researchers. In my spare time, I like to read (a LOT), bake bread (and cakes), see as many films as I can, especially foreign/art house ones, and grow herbs and vegetables in the garden.

Library Carpentry sprint in June

Wed, 26 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Lesson maintenance is necessarily an ongoing task, especially with fledgling lessons where workshops taught reveal gaps or issues with existing material. Development of new lessons may also spring from the same source. Who hasn’t thought, after teaching: “Wouldn’t it be great if we could add x?”

But lesson maintenance and new development are probably best done as a shared activity, which is why the Library Carpentry community has signed up to work on lessons intensively during the 2017 Mozilla Science Lab global sprint on 1-2 June. Check out our sign up etherpad for information about our plans.

What's new in Library Carpentry

Thu, 06 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

There is lots of current Library Carpentry activity. Our big news is Library Carpentry won the British Library Labs award in 2016 for teaching and learning. The prize money has since been used to fund Library Carpentry workshops in the UK, with one in Sheffield just completed, and another upcoming in Taunton in June.

Tim Dennis (UCSD) and I are running Software Carpentry instructor training for 30 librarians in Portland, Oregon, on 4-5 May, after csv,conf. I am then teaching Library Carpentry at MIT with Juliane Schneider (ex-UCSD, now working for Harvard) on 15 May.

2017 Election: Belinda Weaver

Fri, 23 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Hello everyone. I am standing again as a candidate for the Steering Committee, having served on it this year for the first time.

About me

I have been involved with Software Carpentry for about three years. I organised the first workshop in Brisbane in 2014. I certified as an instructor myself in 2015 and taught at two workshops that year. In 2016, I taught at eight workshops, all of which I either organised or helped to organise. During 2016, I and other Queensland instructors have taken Software Carpentry to five cities in Queensland - Brisbane, Townsville, Toowoomba, Gold Coast and Rockhampton - a huge improvement on the number of workshops run in 2015 (three).

A Tale of Two Workshops

Fri, 22 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Brisbane and Toowoomba are 125 km apart in Queensland. Software Carpentry workshops were held in both cities a week apart (11-12 July and 18-19 July). I taught at both.

The Brisbane R workshop was held at The University of Queensland. This was a tie-in workshop for the annual UQ Winter School in Mathematical and Computational Biology. Attendees are generally very keen to learn as they want to emulate the amazing computational work they have seen demonstrated during the week by the stellar speaker line-up at the Winter School. We had no trouble filling a workshop with 40 places, and no-one left the workshop. It was one of the best workshops I have organised - the buzz in the room was palpable and the feedback was overwhemingly positive.

Teaching Library Carpentry

Wed, 22 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

## Teaching Library Carpentry

I ran a two-day ‘Library Carpentry’ workshop for librarians at The University of Queensland on 13-14 June. The class covered

jargon-busting and data structures
writing and using regular expressions
command line tools to find data in files
version control
OpenRefine for data cleanup

Eighteen people from six organisations attended, out of a pool of 26 who intially expressed interest. (In the small lab I was using, I only had room for 18.)

Workshop Satisfaction Survey

Wed, 22 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

## Calling all Software Carpentry workshop attendees!

I’d like 10 minutes of your time to complete a survey about the Software Carpentry workshop you attended.

Why should you bother?

The data will be useful for Software Carpentry in the future planning of workshops.

While individual Software Carpentry workshops are assessed at the time of delivery, no long term follow-up study has been done on the efficacy of the training delivered, nor of any impact the training might have had on attendees’ work practices, further skills acquisition, or subsequent career paths.

Updating Library Carpentry

Mon, 06 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

A global team worked to update the [Library Carpentry](https://github.com/LibraryCarpentry) curriculum and lesson material at this year’s [Mozilla Science Lab Global sprint](https://science.mozilla.org/programs/events/global-sprint-2016).

The work kicked off in Brisbane, where Clinton Roy, Natasha Simons and I worked with Carmi Cronje in Sydney to start the ball rolling. Matthias Liffers came online in Perth two hours later. At 5.30 pm our time, we handed over to teams in South Africa, the Netherlands, and the UK, led by Anelda van der Walt, Mateusz Kuzak, and James Baker respectively.

Software Carpentry in Brisbane

Sat, 14 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Brisbane Software Carpentry sputtered into life some time in 2014 when scattered local supporters finally met and began to form a group. Having heard about the initiative via Twitter, I managed to contact Nathan Watson-Haigh who got me on to the Aus/NZ mailing list. Then I met Philipp Bayer (now in Perth) and we started planning our first workshop at The University of Queensland. PyCon Australia was coming up in Brisbane and we were able to get Damien Irving from Melbourne and Tim McNamara from New Zealand to teach for us as they were in town for that. So we ran our first ever Software Carpentry workshop with Python at UQ in July 2014.

2016 Post-Workshop Instructor Debriefings, Rounds 04 and 05

Thu, 10 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

On February 23, Rayna Harris, Sheldon McKay, and Tiffany Timbers ran the 4th round of post-workshop instructor debriefing. On March 8th, Rayna Harris, Raniere Silva, and Belinda Weaver ran the 5th round of post-workshop instructor debriefing.

New lesson materials

Data Carpentry Genomics Lesson. Greg Wilson recently sent out an email about updating the lesson maintainer roles for Software Carpentry to jump-start finalizing the Ecology and Genomic lessons. These aren’t final yet, but the Iowa State University instructors spent about considerable time putting together a genomic lesson. You can view the Git repository with their lessons here.

A Proposal for Helping Instructor Trainees Finish

Tue, 08 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Instructor training is one way we grow our community worldwide. Yet many people who go through instructor training never go on to teach at a Software Carpentry workshop. Can that be fixed? I suggest that shepherding people though the final stages might help with completion rates.

When the idea of running instructor training in Brisbane was originally mooted, I set up a survey, very early on, to record expressions of interest from people who might want to train. I tweeted that several times in the months leading up to the training. The survey captured name, email address, institution, discipline and how each applicant had heard about the survey. I wish now I had also asked ‘why do you want to train’ or ‘why do you deserve a place over someone else?’ as that would have helped me sift through the candidates.

2016 Election: Belinda Weaver

Tue, 15 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

I co-organise, run and teach at Software Carpentry workshops in Queensland, Australia, and frequently tweet about them and other Software Carpentry activities as @cloudaus

I first heard of Software Carpentry on Twitter in 2013 and thought it was a great initiative. Through the A/NZ mailing list, I made contact with Australian Software Carpentry trainers, and was able to organise the inaugural Brisbane bootcamp in July 2014, flying in instructors from Melbourne and Auckland.

A Workshop in Brisbane

Wed, 07 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

A sea of green stickies: that really sums up the 28-29 September Brisbane Software Carpentry bootcamp—it ran extremely smoothly. We had 40 people signed up (with a waitlist of six) but lost one at the last minute to acute appendicitis—ouch—and another to project deadlines. The remaining 38 comprised post docs (7), Master's candidates (2), PhD candidates (19), research technical support (4), and four people from industry (one from an NGO and three from a virtual lab). We also had one undergrad (a first for us) and one very bright high school student.

What I Learned in Brisbane

Tue, 07 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Not a single negative was recorded about the people either teaching or helping out at the Brisbane Software Carpentry bootcamp last Thursday and Friday (2-3 July). There were a lot of positive comments though:

The workshop is great with passionate instructors
All the helpers in the room are very helpful and fun
Excellent support from helpers
Instructors readily available to help especially when falling behind or [we] need help understanding codes

Belinda Weaver on The Carpentries

Library Carpentry Curriculum Advisory Committee Announces New Lesson: Introducing Computational Thinking

Introduction

The Magic of Etherpads

Etherpads in workshops

Help Us Plan for CarpentryCon 2020

My Pathway in The Carpentries

In the beginning …

CarpentryCon – Post-conference Report and Call to Action

The first CarpentryCon

What constitutes a Library Carpentry workshop?

Seventy-One Workshops... and Counting

Sydney ResBaz - A Big Success

Eight Days, Four Workshops, Two Islands, One Earthquake

Dunedin ResBaz

Two Days of Skills Workshops

Join an Onboarding Session for Hosting Discussion Sessions

Why it is worthwhile

Library Carpentry Community Update

Report-back from CarpentryCon and the latest governance call

CarpentryCon 2018 Wraps Up

Opening discussions about Library Carpentry being a Lesson Organisation with The Carpentries

Opening discussions about Library Carpentry being a Lesson Organisation with The Carpentries

Have your say

Asking for your input

Library Carpentry Hackathon a Great Success

Library Carpentry at The University of Melbourne

Launching The Carpentries Website

Website Launch

Launching The Carpentries Website

Poster, Program, Participation

Running workshops on limited budgets

Existing Funding Models

Building Library Carpentry Community and Development

Launching our New Handbook

The Carpentries Handbook

Launching Our New Handbook

The Carpentries Handbook

Who Belongs at CarpentryCon 2018? You Do!

CarpentryCon - Hotel Accommodation Options

Hotel Accommodation for CarpentryCon 2018

Library Carpentry Governance - An Update

Valerie Aurora to Keynote at CarpentryCon 2018

Valerie Aurora to Keynote at CarpentryCon 2018

Making the Case for CarpentryCon

Unveiling Our New Logo

Unveiling the Carpentries Logo

Be our Advocate

Foundations and Funders: Why Should You Sponsor CarpentryCon 2018?

Why sponsor CarpentryCon?

Why Should You Sponsor CarpentryCon 2018?

SPONSORS!

Why sponsor CarpentryCon?

The Centrality of the Code of Conduct

The Centrality of the Code of Conduct

Fourteen and Counting - People's Favorite Tools

My Favorite Tool - Twitter

Why do I like Twitter?

Green Stickies for 2017: Report from the Happy Holidays Green Sticky Party Calls

Poster Competition Now Open

Design a Promotional Poster for CarpentryCon 2018

CarpentryCon 2018 - Website is Live!

Celebrate the Wins of 2017: Join the year's final community call

Open Con Berlin - Impressions

Upcoming Membership Webinar

Community Building Catchup

OpenCon in Berlin - Impressions

People's Favorite Tools

Our Steering Committee Candidates

Meet the Candidates

Nominating for 2018 Steering Committee

Running effective online meetings with Zoom (or Google Hangouts, or ...)

Before the meeting:

Pack Your Bags for Dublin!

Pack Your Bags for Dublin!

People's Favourite Tools

Library Carpentry: Update from the Community Calls

Website redesign

Blogging for the Carpentries - We Want to Hear From You

Blogging for the Carpentries - We Want to Hear From You