Carpentries Workshops on The Carpentries

Our tips and tricks for online workshop teaching

Tue, 01 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Who we are

We are Alessia, Flavia and Stefania, part of the King’s College London Carpentries Instructor Team. We run regular Carpentries-like workshops on Unix and Git (8 so far, more to come!) and we are here to share some tips and tricks with the community!

Background

Some background first. We teach our workshops online: we started doing so during the pandemic, but we found that the format suited our personal needs, so we are planning to keep them online for the foreseeable future. This also seems to widen accessibility for our participants, allowing extra flexibility (e.g., working from home, childcare, etc.). The Unix workshop is structured in 3 half-day sessions (3 hours each), plus an optional short exercise session (~1 hour); the Git workshop counts 2 half-day sessions plus an optional exercise session. Workshops are normally open to internal participants from King’s College London and the NHS trust, however, we allow external participants in some instances (e.g., Global South collaborations). We aim for about 15-20 participants per workshop (as we have found this to be a manageable number for online sessions), with the three of us instructing plus one or two helpers, if available. We take turns for leading the session (we all have favourite sessions/topics), but we can be flexible to cover for each other should the need arise. The instructors who are not teaching at a given time take care of breakout rooms (for individual help to participants), of questions in the chat, and of taking notes.

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.

University of the Western Cape’s first Data Carpentry Workshop of 2021

Mon, 24 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This blog post was originally posted on the University of the Western Cape’s eResearch Office website. The UWC eResearch Office promotes and supports the use of advanced information technologies to enable better, faster and higher-impact research. As research becomes increasingly data-driven, researchers in all fields require new skills in order to be able to manage their data effectively. This needs to happen throughout the research lifecycle, thus producing better, faster and higher-impact research. UWC Researchers can find resources and build solutions for their research data management needs with the help of the eResearch Office.

Our First Workshop - Bioinformatics Hub of Kenya

Tue, 18 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This blog post was originally posted on the Bioinformatics Hub of Kenya website. The Bioinformatics Hub of Kenya aims to bridge the gap between well-established bioinformaticians and aspiring ones through peer training and mentorship, so as to enhance collaborations to foster quality scientific research and innovations and promote the sharing of data, skills, and codes.

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” That is what we can say about our first R workshop, which was also our first workshop as the Bioinformatics Hub of Kenya (BHKi). We gathered the knowledge and experience we all had as a committee and put it together to deliver the two-day workshop. It happened on the 24th and 25th of March 2021, and it was such a journey. So let us take you through it.

Introducing our new Workshop Administrator Danielle Sieh

Tue, 02 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

We are delighted to announce that Danielle Sieh has accepted the job of Workshop Administrator with The Carpentries. Danielle is joining our team of workshop coordinators who manage workshop logistics, communicate with hosts and instructors, and respond to general workshop inquiries.

You will be seeing emails from her soon, and you can contact Danielle at workshops@carpentries.org. Welcome Danielle!

A message from Danielle

I am truly delighted to be joining The Carpentries team in the role of Workshop Administrator. I am based in Columbus, Ohio (USA) and I am relatively new to The Carpentries organisation and mission. However, after a lot of research and a whole lot of reading, I became quite enamored with The Carpentries and everything the organisation embodies. Having a background largely involved in education and community relations, I was excited to see the emphasis on evidence-based teaching, inclusivity and diversity, and a strong focus on getting information across to the learner in a way that works for them. I am thrilled to be working for such an incredible organisation and can’t wait to see what amazing opportunities this role brings.

Alpha testing a Jekyll Pages lesson

Tue, 19 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

In the past several months, we have been developing a lesson, Building Websites with Jekyll and GitHub Pages, in The Carpentries Incubator. In November 2020, we taught this material for the first time in two mini-workshops hosted by UW-Madison.

The first time a lesson is taught is always an important step in its development. It is a chance to really assess how well the lesson objectives and material fit the target audience.

It is also usually the first time exercises have been tested by learners, and can expose weaknesses in the material that are difficult to spot from our perspective as a lesson author. In the life cycle of a lesson, The Carpentries refer to these initial trial runs undertaken by lesson authors as alpha pilots.

Thank You SO MUCH Carpentries Community!

Tue, 15 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The image above is a composite of our Core Team’s photos - from left to right,
first row : Zhian, Talisha, Sher!, Angelique, Kelly, Karen, Toby
second row: Serah, Omar, Maneesha, Kari, Erin, François

TL;DR

What a year! As we come to the close of 2020, in all our reflection and retrospectives and reporting and winding-down and planning for 2021 - the most accurate sentiment to sum up how we feel about our community in THANK YOU. There is so much we can collectively say as a team, in fact, we started to co-author our thank you notes to all of you, and seven pages into our collaborative document, we still have more to say, and the wise words of many of you at the back of our minds - short and succinct, that is how all Carpentries posts should be!

Back to the future: Online Carpentries Workshops now and in 2021

Mon, 14 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

On 13 July The Carpentries released a second version of the Official Guidelines for Taking Your Carpentries Workshop Online. The Carpentries Core Team has since then undertaken various initiatives to support remote versions of all Data Carpentry, Library Carpentry, and Software Carpentry workshops.

The quarter in review

The Infrastructure and Curriculum Development teams collaborated in creating an online infrastructure to serve as scaffolds or safety nets for learners who were unable to install software onto their computers using cloud services from MyBinder and RStudio. The workshop website template was also adapted to facilitate workshops scheduled to take place over more than two days which includes a custom schedule file.

We are Hiring Three New Team Members. Join Our Team.

Mon, 26 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The Carpentries is hiring!

The Carpentries is searching for two new full-time team members, and one temporary employee or contractor to join our global, mission-driven organisation. These new roles will work with and serve our volunteer community - comprising approximately 70,000 learners, 2,500 instructors, 100 Trainers, and 85 partner organisations from research institutions around the world. See below for descriptions and links to apply.

Director of Partnerships / Deputy Director of Partnerships

We are hiring a Director or Deputy Director of Partnerships to provide planning, vision, and implementation of the partnership program and represent the needs of partner organisations in planning and strategic development. Individuals with work authorisation in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, or the United States should apply.

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.

How to Recruit Instructors for Self-Organised Workshops

Wed, 05 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It has been nearly four months since The Carpentries started offering online workshops. With the release of version two of the online workshop recommendations, we have been able to offer resources for all instructors to effectively organise a workshop.

The Carpentries Workshop Administration Team has seen an increase in workshop activity, particularly for Self-Organised workshops. Being able to offer Carpentries workshops online allows organisations to reach a wider audience and we are extremely excited.

Lessons Learned - Teaching Carpentries Workshop Online UCLA Spring 2020

Tue, 16 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This blog post was originally posted on the UCLA Library website. As a member of the Carpentries, we offer Carpentries and Carpentries-styled workshops.

Introduction

Between April 10 and May 1, the UCLA Library Data Science Center offered four online 3-hour sections in R programming from Software Carpentry’s R for Reproducible Scientific Analysis. Our usual in-person workshops have a capacity of 30 learners and a typical waitlist of 20. Our attendance for the online course ranged from 30-50 with a waitlist of 250. Our learners primarily consisted of UCLA graduate students in business analytics and social sciences.

Increasing Researchers' Digital Literacy in Ethiopia

Tue, 05 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Ambo University in Ethiopia conducted its first ever Carpentries workshop from 17-19 October 2019 at the Main Campus which is located 100km from the Capital Addis Ababa (Finfinne). The Workshop was organized by Team Carpentries Ethiopia led by Dr.Margareth Greferer founder of R-Ladies Addis Ababa and Yared Abera Ergu (Library Carpentry Advisory Board Member 2019-2022) in association with Ambo University Academic Vice President, Ass. Professor Mulu Kitaba.

During the workshop three active instructors – ¹ Mr. Yared Abera Ergu ² Dr.Margareth Greferer, and ³ Bonny Adane – and one helper – ⁴Miss Yirefu Teferra Tekilessilase (PhD Student Addis Ababa University) – executed an amazing team effort teaching Data Carpentry Training. The participants were members of the University senior academic staff, Librarians and Researchers in different fields from across the University.

Having a Great Online Learning Experience: A Guide for Students

Fri, 24 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This blog post was originally posted on the Sydney Informatics Hub/Darya Vanichkina’s blog.

With the advent of COVID-19 we’re all having to do the unthinkable, which for an instructor like me means moving hands-on, practical coding workshops online. In this post, I’ll outline a few key things you can do as a learner to have what is hopefully the best possible experience attending synchronous online training.

Mapping & Planning a Live Coding Workshop for Digital Delivery

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

This series of two blog posts was originally posted on the Sydney Informatics Hub blog here & here, and at Darya Vanichkina’s blog here & here. These posts were written in preparation for an ARDC Community call, where I shared my experience adapting our team’s training for online delivery at short notice. This is what I wanted to get out on the page and not talk about, because in my talk I instead focus on the “bigger picture” aspects of the training (pedagogy, design, on-stage activity and feedback), and on the personal experiences of my team and I. The video/slides of that talk are also available online.

Running University College London's First Online Git Workshop

Tue, 21 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This blog post was originally posted on University College London’s blog.

Tl;dr: We successfully ran a 3-hour workshop for 11 learners with one instructor and five helpers. We used Blackboard Collaborate as our main tool and shellshare to “look over the shoulders” of the learners.

Our team has been running training workshops since its start. Enabling researchers to make better software is one of our core goals. Most of our training benefited from The Carpentries’ methodology and material. We were early adopters and supporters of those - UCL became one of the first affiliate institutions of the Software Carpentry Foundation.

Lessons Learned from Running Code Refinery's First Online Workshop

Mon, 20 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This blog post was originally posted on the CodeRefinery website. In the CodeRefinery project we teach research software engineering tools and workflows, using the Carpentries style.

April 7-8, 2020, we gave our first online workshop on introduction to Git (2 x 3 hours) with 22 participants and we plan to deliver many more such workshops on a number of topics based on our lessons.

The workshop went well. Online feels slower, but has a different set of advantages (we discussed later whether we actually covered significantly less than during an in-person workshop and we were not sure the pace was actually slower).

Official Guidelines (V1) for Taking Your Carpentries Workshop Online

Tue, 07 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

On March 17, The Carpentries convened a Task Force to address the urgent demand for remote Carpentries workshops as communities have shifted to distance work across the globe. The Task Force concluded on April 1, with an initial set of guidelines for teaching, supporting, and communicating about fully remote versions of all Data Carpentry, Library Carpentry, and Software Carpentry workshops.

Task force members:

Angelique Trusler (Task Force Lead)
SherAaron Hurt (Workshop Administration Team Lead)
Serah Njambi Kiburu (Community Development Team Lead)
Karen Word (Instructor Training Team Lead)
Juan Steyn (Executive Council Liaison)
Elizabeth Wickes (Secondary Executive Council Liaison)

The guidelines for teaching these pilot-phase workshops now have a home on [The Carpentries website]({{ site.url }}{{ site.baseurl }}/online-workshop-recommendations/). We expect to update these guidelines regularly, and will announce major changes to the community. We also plan to host themed Discussion sessions and, ultimately, to offer short training opportunities for current Instructors who wish to advance their teaching skills online. We do not yet know whether online instruction will become a permanent addition to The Carpentries’ supported workshop offerings – this will be evaluated in view of the feedback we receive once in-person workshops become possible again.

Teaching a New Geospatial Python Lesson

Tue, 10 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

On February 6-7, 2020, the NASA DEVELOP program at Jet Propulsion Laboratory(JPL) hosted the initial run of Introduction to Geospatial Raster and Vector Data with Python, a Carpentries incubator lesson. This lesson was imagined as a Python complement to Introduction to Geospatial Raster and Vector Data with R, an existing Data Carpentry lesson.

Kunal Marwaha and Ryan Avery, the lesson authors, served as instructors. We had 8 attendees; the small learner size helped us work through hiccups in the new material. Most attendees were recent graduates in a field related to remote sensing or geographic information systems. We had a range of previous experience level, including folks who use Python daily, weekly, and never.

Piloting Automated Emails for Carpentries Workshops

Wed, 19 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Organising a Carpentries Workshop requires many steps - not only for the workshop organiser and instructor, but also for the Regional Coordinators.

So far this year, The Carpentries has scheduled 59 workshops. On average, Regional Coordinators must complete 17 steps when organising a Self-Organised workshop and 31 steps for Centrally-Organised workshops. The [Workshop Administration Team (WAT)]({{ site.url }}{{ site.baseurl }}/core-team-projects/#workshop-administration-team) recognises this can be overwhelming and have been working to make the workflow more efficient.

Feedback: Remote Teaching of Genomics Data Carpentry Curriculum

Fri, 24 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The People

A Genomics Data Carpentry Workshop was organised by and taught at the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology ICIPE in Nairobi, Kenya. Daniel Ouso was the on-site instructor, while Bianca Peterson taught remotely from South Africa. We also had amazing local helpers: Caleb Kibet, Careen Natoire, and Gilbert Kibet

We had one completed BSc., three continuing Ph.D.s, one completed M.Sc., and the rest of the participants were continuing M.Sc.s. The main fields of study of most participants were genetics, genomics and bioinformatics. Participants were mostly Windows users and a little under 40% had zero programming experience. We had more females than males attending the workshop.

We Appreciate the Regional Coordinators!

Fri, 20 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

How did The Carpentries oversee 543 workshops globally this year?! Two words…. Regional Coordinators! Around the world, Carpentries workshops are organised by a team of eight Regional Coordinators.

Regional Coordinators are the front face of The Carpentries, promoting our work and our culture in their geographical area. They manage workshop logistics, communicate with hosts and Instructors, and respond to general inquiries. The Regional Coordinators work together to support each other and ensure communities can thrive locally while maintaining quality and consistency globally.

A Better Experience for Workshop Surveys

Mon, 21 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Assessment is a key element of our operations. Today, we are excited to announce that we are revamping the tools behind our pre- and post-workshop surveys to provide a better experience to our learners and to our instructors. This change also greatly reduces the time needed for the workshop administration team to generate the links they share with instructors to access the results. The changes outlined here only affect our regular workshops, but in early 2020, they will also affect Instructor Training events.

Tips for Organising Your First Carpentries Workshop

Mon, 14 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

How This Blog Post Came About

Angela: We’re wrapping up the Fall 2019 set of mentoring groups, and I’m so proud of the work that the Organising Workshops Mentoring Group did over the past three months. Through the group, I was able to meet Carpentries community members who were going through the process of putting on their-first ever workshops, something I had recently begun to do at my own research center. The conversations I had with my mentees allowed me to reflect on how the Carpentries community is about so much more than teaching specific technical skills; it’s about sharing knowledge in a community of practice, whether that knowledge is organising individuals to start a new initiative, or wrangling a university department to fund a much-needed resource.

Q3 and Q4 Project Work at The Carpentries

Wed, 25 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

In May, we shared our vision and goals for our core team’s work in Q2. In this post, we lay out our accomplishments on that work, and also on our Q3 projects. There’s a lot that we’ve been working on! If you’re interested in a particular team’s work, you can navigate directly to their projects using the links below.

Business Team
Community Development Team
Curriculum Team
Instructor Training Team
Infrastructure Team
Membership Team
Workshop Administration Team

The projects we select for our quarterly cycles are designed to give us time to focus on our operational priorities (operational efficiency, accessibility, revenue generation, and compliance), while continuing to perform all of our ongoing work. Ongoing work includes supporting workshops, instructor training events, lesson development and maintenance, communications, and much more! Over the course of the quarter, we share our accomplishments and challenges with each other, stay in touch on how our individual work affects the whole team, and learn from each other.

Introducing Updated Workshop Request Forms and More

Tue, 17 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I am sooooooooooooooooo excited! I get to be the first one to tell you that the update to the Workshop Request Forms and the Workshops page of the Carpentries website is COMPLETE! Wooohoooo!!!!!

Updated Workshop Request Forms

With the new changes, workshop organisers no longer have to complete long forms with fields that are not applicable to them. We have made it so that you provide us with only the information needed to process your workshop. We have separated the Workshop Request Forms based on the various kinds of workshops that you organise:

Upcoming Updated Forms for Workshops & Workshop Section of The Carpentries Website

Tue, 20 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Have you had a desire to request a Carpentries workshop but weren’t sure where to go? Wanted to notify us of a Self-Organised workshop without having to complete an extensive form? Taught a Self-Organised workshop that was shorter or longer than the standard, or mixed and matched curriculum? Have you had questions regarding the logistics of a workshop and weren’t sure where to go?

If you said YES to any of these questions, then continue reading! In the upcoming weeks we will be updating several processes as it relates to The Carpentries workshops. We want to be sure you are aware of the changes before they happen :)

Software Carpentry at York

Wed, 07 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Last month a Software Carpentry workshop organised by the Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre (EPCC) at the The University of Edinburgh in collaboration with ARCHER and the Software Sustainability Institute was held in York. We had around twenty attendees from various backgrounds such as genetics, physical sciences, and engineering among others. My EPCC colleague Mario joined me as my fellow instructor and we also had the valuable support of three knowledgeable helpers from the Department of Physics at the University of York: Phil Hasnip, Peter Hill, and Killian Murphy.

Carve Your Niche with The Carpentries

Mon, 05 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Illustration above by Connie Clare

{:style=“float:left”}Victor Koppejan is a PhD student in computational Bioprocess Engineering. His doctoral research involves the purification of proteins from biological matrices for industrial use using expanded bed adsorption. Koppejan employs open source computer simulation tools to model the dynamics of fluid and particle flow in a fluidized bed using the Dutch National Super Computer.

Reflections from a Carpentries Train the Trainer Workshop

Mon, 01 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

This post was originally published on Alexander Refsum’s personal blog.

I have spent the two last days at a “Train the Trainers” workshop organised by The Carpentries project. Here I will summarise some thoughts on the workshop, and things that I will take with me for my own teaching practice.

The Carpentries

The Carpentries project comprises the Software Carpentry, Data Carpentry, and Library Carpentry communities, with a shared mission to teach foundational computational and data science skills to researchers. I have taken several Carpentries lessons over the last years, organised by volunteers here at the University of Oslo.

Teaching reproducible science with R to a wide range of experience levels

Fri, 21 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Carpentries Workshop attendees, Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, Portugal in May 2019. Photo credit: IGC

My name is Phil Reed (Twitter and GitHub) and I am a relative new-comer to The Carpentries, having qualified as an instructor last autumn. I co-led a Library Carpentry event at The University of Manchester Library where I work as a Data Specialist. In May 2019, I travelled to the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC) in Oeiras, Portugal to co-lead my first Software Carpentry workshop. The title of this two-day session was “R for Reproducible Scientific Analysis”, covering R and some version control with Git, for bioinformatics researchers and students. Below is a brief evaluation from me, the other co-lead Eric Persson and the head of training at IGC, Pedro Fernandes.

Workshop Participant Fees

Thu, 20 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Workshop Participant Fees

A frequently asked question by people running their first Carpentries workshop is whether or not they can (or should) charge people to attend.

This blog post outlines some of the workshop organisation logistics that can help determine whether or not it makes sense to charge for a workshop.

Workshop Costs

One of the major reasons to charge for a workshop is to cover costs. Common costs for a workshop can include:

Q2 Project Work at The Carpentries

Mon, 27 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Some of The Carpentries team at an Improv session in January 2019

Zip Zap Zop is a team building activity that The Carpentries team loved and stressed over in equal measure at an Improv session we all attended in January 2019. Standing in a circle, the game started out slow and we all felt comfortable with it, enjoyed it even. But as time went by and our facilitator nudged us to pick up the pace, we all experienced the adrenaline and pressure that comes with increased urgency and demand for our attention and whittled-down focus in any activity, and had the opportunity to empathise with the overwhelmed among us, and marvel at the resilience of a select few.

Tips and Tricks for Teaching R

Fri, 17 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Following a few Data Carpentry workshops, we (a.k.a. Bianca and Katrin) shared some of the strategies we employ to enhance participants’ R learning experience in a Community Discussion with other Carpentries Instructors from Africa. In this post, we will expound on some of these strategies and welcome you to try them in the workshops you facilitate, and share your outcomes with the broader Carpentries community.

Pen-on-paper exercise

In the R episodes on Data Manipulation and on Visualisation, code and challenges become quite complex and may contain new concepts of coding as well as of data analysis for novices. Individual code blocks can easily run over several lines when using pipes (%>%) or when building plots with ggplot, thus increasing cognitive load for learners. To enhance understanding of the concepts behind the R commands and also to give participants a break from sitting in front of the computer, we included group exercises with pen and paper. We divided participants into groups of four to five and gave each group a blank sheet of paper (it works particularly nice with big sheets stuck to a wall so the groups can stand around it). We then wrote a challenge on the Workshop Etherpad/whiteboard and asked the groups to discuss and write down the steps (not necessarily the commands) they would need to subset their data accordingly.

Introducing The Carpentries' Regional Coordinators

Tue, 05 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

There are many roles in The Carpentries community. You may be familiar with some of them: Instructors, Maintainers, Trainers, and Mentors, just to name a few. What about Workshop Administrators?

The role of Workshop Administrator may seem obvious: they organise The Carpentries workshops. While that is true, they do far more than that. They are the face of The Carpentries in their region - building local communities and promoting the work of The Carpentries.

To communicate better about the work they do and how integral they are to community building in their respective regions, we are announcing the title change of our Workshop Administrators to Carpentries Regional Coordinators, and sharing a new way for you to connect with them.

Sher! Transitions into new role: Workshop & Logistics Manager

Mon, 11 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Five hundred twenty-nine is a very exciting number… Can you guess what it is?!

That’s right, 529 is the number of days I have worked for The Carpentries to date. It has been an amazing experience. On August 31, 2017 I began working part-time as the Workshop Administrator. From my very first virtual meeting, I soon discovered that I belong in The Carpentries.

I never dreamed of having a desire to learn to code and even use the shell as part of my daily routine. After my first Software Carpentry Workshop I was so eager to learn more. I always thought the black screen with all the code was terrifying. Now, even though I am still a novice, I find myself trying to impress my family and friends with my skills. I will have the shell open and type ls, ../, cd, whoami, or pwd several times, just to fill up my screen and to look cool. :)

Want to Organise a Workshop on Image Processing?

Mon, 17 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I wanted to organise a workshop on image processing for PhDs in the medical domain. I usually use Software Carpentry lessons in my workshops, but there are no lessons on image processing. Before starting to re-invent the wheel, I thought I should ask the Software Carpentry community if anybody had given a workshop like that recently.

Hey guys, image processing lesson anyone?

I was hit by a wave of suggestions and existing materials — and although not everything fitted in the scope of my workshop, it sure made my life a lot easier! Here is a summary of some of the useful links which were shared.

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.

No More Self-Organised Workshop Fees

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

To bring Software and Data Carpentry Self-Organised workshop fees into agreement with one another, the 2018 Executive Council passed a motion to eliminate the $500 fee charged to host organisations for Self-Organised Data Carpentry workshops.

Why eliminate the Self-Organised workshop fee?

Until 2018, Data Carpentry and Software Carpentry operated side-by-side but independently, each with their own governing bodies and executive directors. While the two organisations shared some processes and staff, decisions about things like workshop fees were made independently. Along with the 2018 merger came a need to unify and streamline operations. Data Carpentry required a $500 fee, while Software Carpentry required no fee for Self-Organised workshop but rather requested an optional $500 donation. To eliminate the confusion this has created within our community and to encourage Self-Organised workshops, we have brought these two policies into alignment by eliminating the $500 host organisation fee from Self-Organised Data Carpentry workshops as well as the suggested $500 donation for Self-Organised Software Carpentry workshops.

The Carpentries' Programmatic Assessment

Tue, 19 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Starting this year, we are releasing quarterly programmatic assessment reports (see this blog post). These reports will share information about the growth rates of our workshops and instructor training programs, our geographic impact, and other metrics. We are happy to announce the publication of our first report.

This first report follows activity around Carpentries’ workshops, Instructors, and Trainers from 2012 through the first quarter of 2018 (January - March). From 2012 through March 2018, 58 Trainers badged 1,480 Instructors. Carpentry Instructors taught 1,332 workshops, reaching more than 37,000 learners in 44 countries. The report also highlights our significant geographic expansion, such as the growth of an active community of Instructors and Trainers in eight African countries.