Hi Lex, Let me agree first that this is a difficult issue. The Carpentries lessons and the Carpentries organizations are all about open science, open access, and community.
I very recently had a student take a Carpentries workshop, and then wanted to be awarded course credit. My personal feelings about that are irrelevant because Universities need tuition dollars and so they aren't going to give away credits for free. Our University also wants to create Carpentries lessons where college credit hours can be earned (and, by extension, tuition dollars pulled in). My opinion on mitigating the downsides is to only offer lessons fully or mostly online (flipped or otherwise). This is enabling for learners who might otherwise not be able to get to campus. It also costs less per credit hour. AND, our Carpentries group will continue to offer the workshops on campus for free. In this structure, if students just want the knowledge they can get it for free. If they need the credits they can get them for a reduced cost. If they desperately want to learn the material but can't come to a campus workshop this is the best alternative. As a bonus, the answers to almost all the challenges are online (which seems motivating to students when taking courses). The Carpentries community atmosphere combined with freedom to adjust lessons based on learner feedback (and using pre-course polling) are the best tools we have to keep students engaged. It would be the instructor's responsibility to keep the material updated and fresh. Even if offered in a traditional classroom, the pedagogy of active instructor participation is much better than death by powerpoint, and will help prevent unmotivated instructors (hopefully). my $0.02, Peter Hoyt Oklahoma State University On 10/03/2018 2:55 AM, Lex Nederbragt 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-Mf583f6c2e939923bcb68b4b3 Delivery options: https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/subscription
