This is a speed-blog post written upon a workshop held at the CarpentryConnect 2019 conference in Manchester.

Useful guidance

https://www.software.ac.uk/speed-blogging-and-tips-writing-one

========= notes =========

Domain-specific issues (Marc)

Red stickies (issues)

• Open Research: different opinions and definitions. ALthough there is one (ish) term, there are many components to open science/scholarship. Who choses ? What priority?
• Humanities/Library: how to seem relevant/rewarded(?) in my role as library within the community?
• Mental Health: many studies done on/about a community but without their inclusion. Leads to patronising/offensive badly aligned research goals.
• Librarians: identity as research partners, authority. Not knowing how much data upskilling is required.
• Social sciences: examples of digital scholarship practice that could be applied here e.g. TDM entity extraction for methods that lead to interesting research questions.
• Libraries: difficult to change methods of working to take advantage of new technology (including training staff).
• Librarians: language.
• Data scientists: getting people involved (the community is too broad).
• Humanities: identify the granularity domains to which solutions should be addressed i.e. work in a heterogeneous domain.
• Biology: Lack of prerequisite skills + desire for advanced applications.
• Biology: Lots of conceptual/stats knowledge needed to become proficient.
• Biology: Huge files.
• Biology: Heterogeneous kinds of data, analysis and tools.
• Humanities: engage with researchers about digital practices if they are not involved in them already.
• Human neuroscience: needs lots of data to do the most cutting edge research….but not incentivised to share (1st & last author priority).
• Data Science: people with domain skills don’t have a common language so tend to find it hard to work together (talking across, patronising)
• Bioinformatics: standardisation.
• Bioinformatics: software reusability.
• Libraries: engaging a typically non-technical community to become interested in the digital.
• Libraries: skills & knowledge gaps.
• Libraries: Showing values to upper management / stakeholders.
• Libraries: showing value to upper management / stakeholders.
• Libraries: funding for digital infrastructures & training.
• Biology: engaging busy academics to participate and keep participating into a domain-specific community.
• Climate: difficulty to engage them with the Carpentries because they think they know already (have the skills) but the fact is that they did not learn properly and have misconception.
• Making material that can span and be pertinent across multiple domains.
• Longitudinal evaluation of the efficacy of training.
• Bioinformatics: lack of skills in software engineering.
• Computer science: jargon (gatekeeping - newcomers shy away).
• Assumptions / lack of context (lead to layered complexity).

Yellow stickies (untried solutions)

• Start a repo for the issues. Comments in blog?
• Be open. Burn it all to the ground and start over with building/sustaining your community.
• Host “cross-domain” workshops to bring people with similar data across disciplines.
• Centralize curriculum maintenance & discoverability.

Green stickies (tried solutions)

None :cry:

Local issues (Mario)

Red stickies (issues)

• “I’m not a real programmer. I just write R scripts - I don’t need version control/ to share code/….” (impostor syndrome)
• Lack of centralized space
• One person/group/domain dominates a discussion - difficult to find air to breathe for other ideas
• Convenning costs logistics: venue, snacks, man-hours for largely invisible logistcs work
• Even if you’re in the same place it doesn’t mean you all work [at] the same thing
• Few incentives for local instructors & community today
• Uneven coverage, e.g. Edinburgh vs Glasgow
• How do we coordinate our local activities with global acitivities (online training, lessons maintainance, … ) ?
• Buy-in from faculty, institutions & funders - protecting and justifying time spent on teaching and learning
• Instructor/Helper recruitment
• Sustainability of leadership & succession planning
• Engagement/communication between/across research communities
• Funding(constraingts/barriers)/resource access
• Inclusivity/diversity
• Balancing content (eg @meetings) specific <—————-|—————> general “relevant to me or others”
• Laws and policies (certain tools are banned in specific spaces)
• Identify which communities you are in or can/should join
• LixoC(?) Commnity -> Resources in terms of survey and in terms of commitment
• Data sharing in an academic environment
• Embargoes or restricted data - how can this be made open?
• Learning from the outisde
• Helping students from exposure @workshop -> application @ their research
• Getting visibility and support from the University decision-makers (Dean, institute directors)
• Assembling a core team of people from different institutes (these institutes being all part of the same university)
• overriding: “not invented here”, SILOS solutions
• Local technological constraints
• Training that is sustainable, i.e. where does the support/money come from?
• evolving needs. What happens when our community members outgrow opportunities.
• difficult to coordinate across departments! (even when you’re in the same city)

Green stickies (tried solutions)

• Impostor syndrome. Evidence and validation from peers in co-domains - persistence may be required.
• Design inclusive training. research communities.
• Outreach + communicate best practice for data software management in research.
• Record your carpentry activities in your institution’s CRIS (Current Research Information System) for some measure of credit.
• Inlcude training and learning time as deliverables on grants
• More cross-disciplinary/cross-department communication to break down silos/remove barriers
• free foooooood!! Watch to make sure you have a broad range of dietary requirements, always have non-alcoholic options.

Yellow stickies (untried solutions)

• Locate “cohorts” of learners that can help each other as they move from exposure -> practice
• Be exlicit about which domains are dominating and LISTEN when under re communities speak. Solicit opinions
• Biggest contributors aare most visible - these are not necessarily the best people to compar ourselves to. Need to allow people to see their contributions in context of whole community.