Hi community, At the University of Oslo (UiO), we have an ongoing process that will result in a Masterplan for IT at the university. I am part of the task force responsible for writing this plan, and have been tasked to contribute to a section on skills training. We have a large Carpentries effort at UiO, regularly teaching one-day workshops with one lesson of the Software Carpentry stack each (including make and testing/continuous integration), very popular two-day R (tidyverse), and occasionally Data or Library Carpentry lessons or full two-day workshops. Many at UiO are now seeing the need to offer this kind of skills training more widely and organized as formal course offerings, potentially with students earning credit.
I am very happy with this development as it is a recognition of the skill gap that exists amongst researchers, and a testament to the success of The Carpentries and our local effort in filling it. However, I also worry that we may lose something in the process of scaling up offering these workshops. By making Carpentry workshops a core offering across departments, with students able to earn credit from them, my fear is that the spirit of the volunteer effort gets lost or may become reduced. Making our workshops into required courses may change (reduce) the motivation for learners and instructors. So here are my questions to you: ⁃ Have other universities made the same move, or are they planning this, and if so, how are they organizing this effort? ⁃ How to keep learners motivated if they feel they are required to take a Carpentries workshops? ⁃ How to keep the quality of instruction, and instructor motivation, high, if workshops become organized like regular courses? I’d appreciate any suggestions that will help us become succesful scaling up our Carpentries skills training! Regards, Lex Nederbragt ------------------------------------------ The Carpentries: discuss Permalink: https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/Tad9e416c2ec4742e-M3c6d988d25ad7f3c3b283d04 Delivery options: https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/subscription
