Testimonials

We strive to provide trainings, events and other experiences that are stimulating and contextualized for your needs. Here’s what some of our community members, Fellows, and clients say about the activities that we host and support.

CSCCE Community of Practice members

Co-creation and trust are so important when forming and nurturing a community. Through the CSCCE, I’ve found colleagues who are inclusive, who support open dialogue, who listen and learn from each other, and who engage collaboratively to develop and share resources that support our work.

Alycia Crall, National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON)

I joined the code of conduct working group because I wanted to learn how to create one in a community-centered way. We worked collaboratively to identify our community’s values and use them to shape our guidelines. I now have the skills and resources to provide guidance to others who are developing or refining their communities’ codes of conduct.

Emily Lescak, Code for Science and Society

Starting a position of a community manager in a new organization was a daunting task for me. I was very excited and motivated to do my work well, but I soon noticed that my unique role made me feel somewhat isolated. The CSCCE CoP helped me feel like a part of a global team – every time I was struggling with self-doubt, I turned to my CSCCE colleagues and received advice and encouragement that I needed. Thanks to the safe, friendly environment I could learn from the others and share with them the insights I gained, the links I found useful, my successes, and even my failures. For me, being part of CSCCE CoP is a precious way to stay connected to a large group of wonderful, smart, talented people that do similar work to mine, experience similar struggles, and share some of my main values.

Lena Karvovskaya, Free University of Amsterdam

The CSCCE community of practice has been valuable as a go to resource for any questions I might have around community building activities. When I was pulled into a working group on virtual meetings at my organization, CSCCE’s Slack was the first resource I turned to. They also have great publications around many topics – and more to come.

Anne Kornahrens, American Physical Society (APS)

The CSCCE Slack groups connects me with a community of enthusiastic and knowledgeable practitioners with whom I can discuss and exchange ideas. I appreciate the connection with people beyond my everyday sphere, helping to lift my perspective above the immediate and urgent horizon of everyday work.

Laura Wilkinson, Crossref

Clients

I learned about CSCCE just at the right time as we began transitioning away from a traditional marcomms approach to a community engagement approach. The CSCCE resources, staff, and community have since become an invaluable resource both for tactical tips and for a strategic sounding board. I recently contracted with CSCCE to help recruit a senior position and the advice was vital; we wouldn’t have succeeded without their consultation.

Ginny Hendricks, Crossref

To sustainably advocate for open science, greater integrity and equity across science, eLife Community Ambassadors must truly connect with the communities around them. The CSCCE team delivered two excellent training sessions enabling each Ambassador to uncover their own community engagement strategy. Lou and Camille’s valuable insights, flexibility, and personal manner made it a very enjoyable experience that I would highly recommend for all community champion cohorts.

Ailís O’Carroll, eLife

As a new community manager of a relatively new project, it can often be daunting to set and manage expectations. I had already discovered important resources and tools through CSCCE’s fundamentals course and their community of practice, but partnering more closely with CSCCE has been invaluable. Their guidance fundamentally helped me develop an approach to community management with built-in flexibility. This was transformative not only for the success of the programs, but also for my own personal development. I’ve been so lucky to have CSCCE as a thought partner since day 1, and I’m excited for what else we can co-create together.

Pajau Vangay, National Microbiome Data Collaborative

Online course participants

One of the strongest features of this course is how it builds on work over time in a tangible and practical direction. It’s like stepping around a circular path that continues up a hill, which enables a new perspective with each round. Your facilitation was superb, well informed by the pre-course profile and survey, and I appreciated your encouragement, thoughtful appreciation and insight into our contributions as we made our way through the course.

Community Engagement Fundamentals participant, July 2024

Your use of tech tools was exemplary. It was a demo lab to show how these techniques could work well. (Not aim of course, but a lovely added consequence).

Community Engagement Fundamentals participant, July 2024

The course is well-designed, and the instructors are knowledgeable, humble, and kind to everyone. Plus, there are plenty of chances to engage with fellow learners and expand our knowledge together. And best of all, we leave the course with tangible templates and a fully-realized product that showcases all the pieces coming together beautifully.

Community Engagement Fundamentals participant, March 2023

Very high quality content and organization and facilitation. Facilitators used superior listening skills and were able to respond insightfully to just about every comment made. I also think that “(scientific) community management/engagement” is way larger than most people realize, and could serve people in many roles quite well.

Community Engagement Fundamentals participant, March 2023

I really appreciated how application-based the activities were. None of it felt like busy work, and it allowed me to take the time to strategize in ways I may not have planned for on my own.

Community Engagement Fundamentals participant, March 2023

I am amazed at how much I’ve learned, how many ideas I’ve generated, how much more confident I feel about the value of my work and my expertise after such a short course with such a manageable workload and time commitment! It is NOT EASY to design a great course but CSCCE really knocked it out of the park with CEF.

Community Engagement Fundamentals participant, November 2022

Camille and Alice exceeded all my expectations. They were organized and managed course time to the minute while the pace felt calm and measured. Each had their own style and together they made us feel welcome every day, shared extensive know-how and resources, and spread positive energy throughout the course. What a team!

Community Engagement Fundamentals participant, November 2022

This is one of the most well-organized and professional courses I have ever taken.

Community Engagement Fundamentals participant, November 2022

It was great to be able to apply what we learned each week directly to my current community. It made the concepts/frameworks we learned much more concrete and easy to understand, and the opportunity to discuss all of the above with classmates reinforced that.

Community Engagement Fundamentals participant, November 2022

THANK YOU! This course has been extremely valuable for me. Now I feel more empowered to call myself Community Manager and I have the right tools and frameworks to bring my community closer to their goals. Moreover, I would love to keep in touch with CSCCE community of practice and start to contribute as well.

Community Engagement Fundamentals participant, October 2021

It was a very enjoyable, interesting and inspiring course! It also helps to fill a gap in training opportunities in scientific community management (which, I now realise, is a part of many different roles!). Thank you Lou, Camille, and the CSCCE team for organising such a great course.

Community Engagement Fundamentals participant, October 2021

Incredibly professional in every aspect; I couldn’t think of one detail in structure or facilitation that wasn’t perfect!

Community Engagement Fundamentals participant, December 2020

Amazing effort by the course leaders to create such an IRL feeling in an online course!

Community Engagement Fundamentals participant, December 2020

I love the way you lead by example. The way you plan lessons, design exercises, and make homework short, up to the point, and doable is so inspiring.

Community Engagement Fundamentals participant, December 2020

Workshop participants

Thank you for the well-executed training on Monday. It gave me a lot of food for thought on how to improve virtual meetings within my own organization.

Mini-workshop participant, July 2021

Big thanks for your thoughtful planning and execution, and keep up the excellent work!

Mini-workshop participant, July 2021

Wonderful experience! It would be nice to have more!

Online workshop participant, May 2020

Thank you for this fantastic webinar…I have loved this meeting today. I feel very energized.

Online meeting participant, May 2020

Thank you for this [workshop] series. It’s been very useful and has helped me to gain a more holistic view of the programs we run and how the different components of our activities fit together.

Workshop series participant, April 2020

I really enjoyed it… I thought Lou did an excellent job and really helped me think more deeply about this effort.

Workshop participant, February 2020

Your session was very well received, multiple people came up to me later in the day to say that it was their favorite session of the day, got them thinking about aspects of their project they don’t normally think about…

Workshop participant, November 2019

CEFP Fellows

Being a part of the CSCCE community engagement fellowship program this year has been formative for me. Exploring the different aspects and unique challenges of managing and developing scientific communities with a group of peers has been invaluable for my professional and personal development (as well as a lot of fun!). It’s encouraged me to think deeply and creatively about my approach to my work and given me the opportunity to try my hand at podcasting. Learning and mentorship in the fellowship has extended beyond cohort weeks and, I hope, beyond the fellowship year as well. 

Arielle Bennett-Lovell, CEFP2019 Fellow

Beyond the specific training I received during my CEFP fellowship, what I value most is connecting with people who share an understanding of and excitement about the unique opportunities and challenges of community engagement as a professional pursuit. Through the CSCCE, I continue to connect with my peers online, individually and in groups, to talk through challenges, get and give advice, and encourage each other. 

Stefanie Butland, CEFP2017 Fellow

The CEFP program was critical to my professional growth: I was able to put a name and a frame to what I do in facilitating research collaborations, and I gained tools and skills to do this work more impactfully. Most importantly, however, it connected me to a community of my peers, with whom I continue to learn and grow.

Jennifer Davison, CEFP2017 Fellow

Through CEFP, I’ve developed regular co-working relationships with several like-minded people who also care about good community management in the scientific and open science contexts, which have been invaluable to me as I work remotely and often alone. I’ve made leaps and bounds from the insight that has come from sharing thoughts and workflows with these lovely people.

Naomi Penfold, CEFP2019 Fellow

As a researcher transitioning to community management, and the only full-time employee of my organization (based in north Iceland!), the CSCCE Community Engagement Fellows Program (CEFP2017) gave me a valuable cohort of kindred community managers to share experiences, exchange skills, and work together to professionalize scientific community management.

Allen Pope, CEFP2017 Fellow

CEFP gave me a new framework for looking at my day-to-day work, not just the “how” of it, but the why, too. Leaving the fellowship year with a new cohort of colleagues and friends was perhaps the most valuable outcome to me; a nascent community of practice I had no idea could exist in our scattered and varied profession. 

Katie Pratt, CEFP2017 Fellow

The CEFP program gave me a platform for moving my organization towards a more collaborative manner and view. This enabled us to increase community engagement, and later to rebuild our organization patterns from scratch. We are much more efficient now in our community building, which helps both the community members and us.

Malin Sandström, CEFP2017 Fellow

Participating in the CEFP 2017 year was a transformative breath of fresh air. The unique type of camaraderie I found in the group of fellows was one that made me feel both supported as well as inspired to approach my work in community management and engagement with a new level of confidence and creativity.

Rosanna Volchok, CEFP2017 Fellow

The 2017 CEFP was transformational in how I think about scientific collaborations, the importance of community engagement in cultural change, and the strategic space necessary to evolve this professional niche. It was enlightening and empowering, while also being new and terrifying. I am grateful for the confidence it gave me to be where I am now, and I know it will continue to be a source of strength and inspiration as my journey evolves.

Elisha Wood-Charlson, CEFP2017 Fellow