Just to clarify, this isn't a paid workshop - instructors are being
asked to volunteer their time, just as they do for any other workshop,
while Monsanto covers travel & accommodation (just as hosts always do).
There are a handful of instructors who've taught privately for pay, but
the SCF stays out of those arrangements...
Thanks,
Greg
On 2015-03-04 3:16 PM, Ted Hart wrote:
+1 to the apprehension. I certainly wouldn't be comfortable with SWC
coming into Apple and giving a training for nothing. It also seems
like a quick way to breed discontent among volunteers if a certain
subset are able to go after paying contracts. Who decides what
instructors work for free at Uni's, but others go to Monsanto and get
$$$ (if I'm understanding Matt's comment)? That to me seems like an
issue of fairness that is worth addressing.
To Greg's points.
1). I agree with this point, it seems like it would be tremendously
difficult to be the moral arbiter for a loose collective of
volunteers. Especially not on an adhoc basis. Perhaps if there was a
mission drive morality clause in the by-laws, but that's not the case
(perhaps it should be?).
2). This seems like a less complicated issue though. Surely the
executive committee could come up with guidelines. Harvard may have a
$29 billion endowment, but Monsanto's net in 2014 alone was on the
order of $15 billion. Surely there could be a sliding scale for
private industry based on revenue. Or even for university by
endowment or type (public/private or size).
3). The budget for scientists in industry (in my experience anyway) to
attend trainings etc is at least an order of magnitude (or two) than
what I could spend as a graduate student. Should SWC just leave that
money on the table when it could take a small slice to remain sustainable?
On Wed, Mar 4, 2015 at 10:22 AM Matt Davis <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Greg can clarify, but I expect this means that Monsanto is looking
for instructors to run Software Carpentry-style workshops for
money, not that Monsanto is asking Software Carpentry to run
workshops on their behalf. It's not unusual for corporations to
need SWC-style instruction and we've been open to connecting
interested instructors with those corporations, after which we
step out of the way and let the interested parties negotiate rates
and organization.
- Matt
On Wed, Mar 4, 2015 at 10:06 AM Turner, Stephen D. (sdt5z)
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
I'll second the apprehension about providing free labor to
corporations who can very easily pay for it. And I wouldn't
blow this off as a one-off thing, a "let's just do it this
time and figure it out later if it becomes a problem" -kind of
thing. When word gets out that we're providing training worth
big money for free to any corporation who asks for it, I'd
imagine we'll have lots more Monsantos knocking at our door
(and not just global multibillion dollar corps). I'd suggest
some serious discussion amongst the steering committee and
everyone else on this list about what a policy should look like.
Stephen
-----------------------------------------
Stephen D. Turner, Ph.D.
Bioinformatics Core Director
University of Virginia School of Medicine
bioinformatics.virginia.edu <http://bioinformatics.virginia.edu>
On Mar 4, 2015, at 12:25 PM, Jason Moore <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
This is the first time I've noticed one of the workshops for
a billion dollar corporation. What is SWC's policy on
providing volunteer labor for corporations? I can get behind
helping grad students at universities for free, but this
seems very different. Corporate training is big money. For
example, my girlfriend's place of business just paid $20k for
a lousy two day workshop a couple weeks ago. Seems like this
kind of thing would be ideal to do to fund SWC's more
altruistic goals, but I'm not sure that having volunteers
teaching it is necessarily what everyone has in mind. Not to
mention, Monsanto isn't the most liked of companies. I'd
potentially feel ok volunteering for corporate training if I
knew it meant a strong pay off to our non-profit.
That's just a thought. Sounds like something worthy of a
board discussion if it hasn't happened yet. At the last
non-profit I worked at, these topics certainly kept us at the
meeting longer than we'd wished.
Jason
moorepants.info <http://moorepants.info/>
+01 530-601-9791
On Wed, Mar 4, 2015 at 6:43 AM, Greg Wilson
<[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Hi everyone,
We've been approached by Monsanto to run two or even
three workshops side by side on April 20-21 in St Louis.
They're looking for instructors with backgrounds in
stats, genomics/bioinformatics, or both - if you're
interested and available, please add yourself to
https://swcarpentry.etherpad.mozilla.org/instructors-US
<https://swcarpentry.etherpad.mozilla.org/instructors-US>. They
have a lot of scientists who need our skills, so I'm
hopeful that a good first showing will lead to repeat
business...
Thanks,
Greg
--
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<mailto:[email protected]>
Software Carpentry | http://software-carpentry.org
<http://software-carpentry.org/>
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