CSCCE Blog Editor, Author at CSCCE

Facilitating community activities using Github – CSCCE Open-Source Tools Trial 1

In the first Tools Trial of this new series exploring open-source tools that support community building in STEM, we’re going to take a look at three use cases for how Github repositories can be used to facilitate community collaborations.

Github is one of THE platforms for open-source software developers, a place where they share code, fix errors, and suggest new features. However, you don’t need to be an expert developer to reap some of Github’s benefits as a place to manage distributed collaborations “out in the open.” – and indeed many OS community managers have found ways of using the platform to meet their coordination needs, and meet their members where they’re already working.

In this Trial, we’ll start with a short intro to Github in case you’re new to the platform. Then, we’ll hear how three different communities, Data Umbrella, The Turing Way, and rOpenSci, are connecting and collaborating in Github to create a community-sourced blog, organize community events, and plan engaging community calls, respectively. There will be plenty of time for Q&A and discussion, so come prepared to engage with our speakers!

Tools Trial Info:

Date: Wednesday, 30 August 2023
Time: 11am US EDT / 3pm UTC (90 minutes)
Speakers: Reshama Shaikh (Data Umbrella), Anne Lee Steele and Danny Garside (The Turing Way), and Yanina Bellini Saibene (rOpenSci)
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Join us for CEF23F! Head into the new “school” year with some updates to our foundational training course

Today we opened general registration for the next offering of Scientific Community Engagement Fundamentals (CEF), our foundational course on community management in STEM. This course is relevant to anyone convening communities in the STEM ecosystem, whether new to the work or more experienced.

Sign up by 4 August and enjoy a 25% early bird registration discount (use the code EARLYCEF23F at checkout)!!

CEF23F will run on Tuesdays and Fridays starting on 8 September and ending on 27 October. More information about the course can be found here.

If you have any questions about CSCCE’s professional development training courses – including about information in this post – please email training@www.cscce.org.

Investigating open-source community platforms – CSCCE Tools Trials return!

Online platforms are continually appearing and evolving, and as a community manager it can feel like a constant effort to stay up to date with what’s out there. We started CSCCE Tools Trials in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic instigated a large-scale shift to online convening, as a way of working together to figure out how best to use online tools for community building. And we’re bringing them back (again!) to gain a deeper understanding of the range of open-source tools that support communication and connection in STEM.

Starting in August, with the support of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, we’ll be convening a series of Tools Trials to explore various community-focused OS platforms (think Github, Jitsi, or Mastodon). And we’d love to hear from you if you would be interested in sharing your experience convening STEM communities using open-source tools, or if there are specific tools that you are interested in learning more about. Please email info@www.cscce.org if you would like to get involved.

New CSCCE tip sheet highlights 12 guiding questions to improve the accessibility of your next virtual event

The COVID-19 pandemic transformed virtual events. Connecting online suddenly became the only way to convene groups large and small, for short meetings or multi-day conferences, and community managers often found themselves developing new meeting formats or learning to use new platforms and tools.

Fast forward to June 2023, and a lot has changed. Platforms have evolved (and sometimes dissolved), event organizers have mastered their own suites of engagement tools, and, as participants, we’re more seasoned (although “you’re on mute!” remains a frequent refrain in Zoom meetings!).

We’ve also gained a much deeper appreciation for what it means to host a truly accessible online event. While online events opened up spaces to many people who’d previously been excluded (e.g., through reduced registration, travel, or childcare costs), for others, it made it even harder to participate.

In a new resource we’ve been working on with community members Rebecca Carpenter, Sara Kobillka, Casey Wright, Yanina Bellini Saibene, and Hao Ye, we offer 12 guiding questions to help you think about the ways that you could improve the accessibility of your community events. And in this blog post, we share our three top tips.

DOWNLOAD THE TIP SHEET HERE

Planning and launching a new champions program – and online community platform – at the Michael J Fox Foundation

Over the last few months, we’ve been working with Josh Gottesman and Leslie Kirsch at the Michael J Fox Foundation to plan a new online community of practice intended to support conversations about the sharing and reuse of data related to Parkinson’s Disease Research.

As is the norm for many community projects, we’ve been taking a phased approach to the launch of this Data Community of Practice (DCoP) – working to understand the needs of the nascent community and then identifying a small group of community champions to help test the online platform and seed initial conversations before opening the community to a wider membership.

In this blog post, we share more about how we supported MJFF through member research, the selection and design of a new online community platform, resource creation and scaffolding for their new Data Community Innovators (DCIs) program, and the planning and hosting of a DCI kick-off meeting at MJFF’s offices in NYC.

Preparing for large, multi-stakeholder collaborations – a two-part CSCCE workshop

In May 2023, CSCCE’s Director, Lou Woodley, and Director of Learning, Camille Santistevan, ran a two-part workshop as part of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI)’s Central Science Training Series. The series included training and discussion on topics related to leadership, career development, science communication, and more, with a range of experts sharing their knowledge and experiences.

The workshops Lou and Camille developed, which ran for 2 hours each on 10 and 24 May, focused on preparing for large, multi-stakeholder collaborations, with a particular focus on the beginnings of projects as a crucial time for establishing collaborative relationships, understanding expectations, and defining working norms.

In this blog post, we share a little more about the workshops. If you’d be interested in taking these workshops as an individual, or contracting with us to offer them in your organization, please let us know by emailing training@www.cscce.org.

How do you measure the impact of a community champions program?

This post was co-authored by Yanina Bellini Saibene and CSCCE Staff, and can also be found on the rOpenSci blog.

How do you measure the impact of a community champions program? This was the central question of a working session at CZI’s Accelerating Open Science in Latin America workshop, convened by rOpenSci’s Community Manager Yani Bellini Saibene and attended by CSCCE’s Founder and Director, Lou Woodley.

Measuring the impact of any kind of community program presents a series of challenges :

What is the impact that you’re hoping your program will have?
Is the impact you hope the program will have something that can be measured?
What types of instruments can be used to measure impact? (e.g., surveys, focus groups, etc.)
How many times can you reasonably ask your participants to give feedback?
How do you (or can you?) reliably follow up with participants months or even years after a program has concluded?

CSCCE offers a private CEF cohort “in Australia!”

Earlier this year, we had the pleasure of delivering a private cohort of our foundational training for STEM community managers, Scientific Community Engagement Fundamentals (CEF), in collaboration with the Australian Biocommons.

This was the second private CEF cohort we’ve offered, having run one for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s Essential Open Source Software program last Summer (and a second CZI cohort will start in early July). CEF cohorts are always unique, and custom cohorts are particularly engaging, allowing colleagues and collaborators to explore concepts in community management, and their own shared goals and challenges, together.

June’s Community Call – Annual Mid-Year Social!

As the academic year winds down for many of us, and we head into the season of conferences, field work, and vacations, it’s time for CSCCE’s fourth annual mid-year social!

Every year around this time we invite you to join a community call that’s focused on helping you to meet other members of the CSCCE community of practice who are interested in some of the same community management topics as you are. In brief, you tell us the topics that you’re hoping to connect around, we work behind-the-scenes to make everyone a personalized list of pairings, and then we all spend the call enjoying meeting the people on our virtual “networking dance cards!” Read on to find out more about what to expect and how to sign up, and do reach out to info@www.cscce.org if you have any requests or suggestions

Date: Wednesday, 21 June 2023

Time: 11am EDT / 3pm UTC

Register before 14 June: click here

Zoom link to join: click here

Add to calendar: click here

*Join us for the opportunity to get to know other members of the CSCCE community of practice! Image credit: CSCCE.*

May Community Call Recap – Discourse Tools Trial

Whether you’re a new community manager tasked with standing up an online space for your members, or you’re just not happy with the platform you’ve been using for years and need to find a new one, picking the right software or application for your community is a big deal.

There are a number of different tools available, all with their own features, quirks, and costs, and it can be daunting to get started with your market research, budgeting, and, eventually, implementation. That’s where CSCCE tools trials come in! In 2020 and 2021 they were a semi-regular event as communities necessarily embraced online connection – and now they’re more of a pop-up event as needs arise.

At this month’s community call/tools trial, thanks to a thread that took off in the CSCCE Community of Practice Slack, we took a closer look at Discourse. Discourse is an open-source community discussion platform that can be tailored to meet the needs of a range of communities. A brief tour of the platform by CSCCE’s Maya Sanghvi was followed by two demos from members of the CSCCE Community of practice: Andra Stratton (Program Manager for the Rare as One Network at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative) and Isaac Farley (Technical Support Manager at Crossref).