Hi Lex, all, thank you for bringing this up. In my reply I am not answering to your questions directly but I am offering our experience at the University of Edinburgh, where we are in the same process, perhaps at an earlier stage.
Edinburgh is one of the bases of the Software Sustainability Institute (SSI), which is the UK coordinator of the Carpentries. Edinburgh is home to several Carpentries instructors and generally very rich in resources, both human and of other kind, which can be useful for scaling up the Carpentries in the institution. We observe a general demand for Carpentries training at all levels of UoE: undergraduates, postgraduates, PI’s, staff, librarians, all show enthusiasm when offered the possibility of attending these workshops or collaborating in some capacity. Clearly there is a ‘market’ and there are resources. What is missing is coordination, and this is what we are trying to achieve. Like Lex says: ‘making Carpentry workshops a core offering across departments’. We have just started and, despite the general sense of optimism, we are aware that the difficult part will be to devise a plan for the scalability and sustainability of this endeavour. The most immediate difficulty, in my opinion, is sourcing people wanting to help in all roles, as instructors, helpers, organisers. There is always a degree of voluntary participation in Carpentries workshop, so, in order to ensure a longer term stability of the training, the plan needs to be endorsed and supported by Faculty/College (or whatever structure is in charge). Enabling students to earn credit from Carpentries workshop is something we are not considering yet (would assessment come into play in this case, or, would an attendance certificate suffice?). In the UK there are a few Universities offering regular Carpentries. It might be interesting to gather together (including any other non UK institution interested in this) for a one day workshop and discuss our respective experiences, problems and solutions. Regards, Giacomo Peru — — — Project Officer - The Software Sustainability Institute EPCC, University of Edinburgh, The Bayes Centre, 47 Potterrow, Edinburgh, EH8 9BT, UK t. +44 131 650 5856 www.software.ac.uk<http://www.software.ac.uk> www.epcc.ed.ac.uk www.bayes.ed.ac.uk<http://www.bayes.ed.ac.uk> On 3 Oct 2018, at 08:55, Lex Nederbragt <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: 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-M7129de063f2d223de11c9f15 Delivery options: https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/subscription
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
