Build a local Carpentries institutional framework

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.
Written on June 26, 2019