Opportunities to co-create with CSCCE in 2022

Co-creating resources with members of our community of practice is an important part of what we do here at CSCCE. It adds depth and breadth to the resources we publish while also being an opportunity for members to both gain a citable publication and give back to the community. In many cases, working on a CSCCE project also leads to new professional connections and working relationships that persist long after we publish the final product. 

So, as we continue our series of forward-looking blog posts, we’re thinking about the co-creating and collaboration opportunities that will exist over the next few months. If any of these opportunities pique your interest, let us know by emailing info@www.cscce.org

Co-create with us! Photo by Alice Dietrich on Unsplash
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Reflecting on some highlights from 2021

Happy new year! We hope that you got a bit of a break over the holiday period. Before we outline what’s coming up at CSCCE in 2022, we wanted first to reflect on 2021 and another busy 12 months for the CSCCE team. 

While this post summarizes a few of CSCCE’s “greatest hits,” from the year, it has also been an emotionally and logistically challenging year, with many of us operating under conditions of radical uncertainty and yet always trying to show one another care. As we continue to operate in the midst of a global pandemic, we want to acknowledge that while it’s important to celebrate our successes, 2021 has been difficult too.

Before we dig in, a heartfelt thank you to everyone we’ve worked with over the past year; members of our community of practice, learners in our online trainings, and clients and colleagues. We appreciate every joyful opportunity to learn and grow alongside you as we work to professionalize and institutionalize the role of the community manager in STEM. 

We’d also like to thank our major funder, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, for their continued support, guidance, and commitment to the importance of building communities in STEM. 

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Inclusive language to support community building in STEM: A new “active glossary” grows from CSCCE collaboration

In October of 2021, CSCCE’s Lou Woodley and Katie Pratt hosted a session at the Inclusive SciComm Symposium to talk about inclusive language. As a result of that session, and several follow-up co-working sessions with participants and members of the CSCCE community of practice, today we’re releasing a new “active glossary” to support community managers as they work to build inclusive and welcoming communities in STEM. 

You can read more about the session at the Inclusive SciComm Symposium here. In this post, we focus on the glossary itself, the process we employed to create it, and our plans for a larger glossary on all aspects of STEM community management. 

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CSCCE in Japan (virtually!): Making a PACT for more engaging virtual meetings and events

The Japan SciCom Forum took place online 26-27 October 2021. The event was hosted by the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) in Tokyo, and focused on giving participants practical tools for communicating about science in English. 

CSCCE’s Lou Woodley and Camille Santistevan facilitated a workshop at the forum, sharing our PACT framework for virtual event planning, and staying up way past their bedtime to participate on Tokyo time! In this post, we share a little bit more about the event, our workshop, and how you can request a similar workshop for your organization or event. 

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New community profiles collection in collaboration with the Science and Technology Innovation Program at the Wilson Center

Today we’re releasing the first few CSCCE Community Profiles in a new collection we’ve created in collaboration with the Science and Technology Innovation Program (STIP) at the Wilson Center. The collection was initiated to understand more about how communities involved in the hardware and open science ecosystem operate, as well as the ways in which they are connected. In this blog post, we share the goals of the project, what to expect over the next few weeks, and how you can work with us to create community profiles for your own domain or project. 

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October’s community call recap – Supporting community champions and running champions programs

Our October call focused on the role of community champions in creating engaged, welcoming, and productive communities. This post includes a summary of the call, as well as video clips of presentations from Vanessa Fairhurst (Crossref Ambassadors program), Iratxe Puebla (ASAPbio Fellows program), and Ailís O’Carroll (eLife Community Ambassadors program). 

Our next call will take place on 17 November 2021 at 4pm UTC / 11am EST (note: upcoming daylight savings time changes may affect the time of this call in your region). We’ll be focusing on community governance models. iCal | Google Calendar

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New CSCCE resource explores the role of champions in building and sustaining communities in STEM

Our latest guidebook explores the importance of supporting and encouraging the work of community champions, emergent leaders who take on additional roles within a community to ensure its success. The guidebook builds on our Community Participation Model, which describes how community members engage with community programming and the ways community managers can design activities and events that meet members where they are. It forms part two in a growing series of foundational resources, with more to come later this year.

What is a community champion? 

We define a community champion as: 

​​​​An emergent leadership role within a community in which a community member takes on more responsibility for the success, sustainability, and/or running of the community.

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July’s community call: Adding to the collection of CSCCE community profiles

Our July community call focused on one of CSCCE’s ongoing research projects: Creating scientific community profiles. We heard from Lou Woodley and Katie Pratt, who led the project, as well as three of the scientific community managers who took part in the project. In this blog post we briefly recap why we’re doing this work, what’s coming in the next few months, and share videos of the three community manager presentations. 

If you are interested in creating a profile for your community, please let us know by filling out this short form

A selection of some of our newest community profiles. Image credit: CSCCE
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Announcing a second collection of scientific community profiles! A year in the life of 14 STEM communities

This week we published 14 new community profiles in our growing collection that describes different STEM communities. Each profile is a free-to-download infographic that provides a snapshot of the community’s structure and programming, as well as a look at its outputs, challenges, and plans for the future. 

These profiles are part of a research project we began last year, to provide a resource to describe and discuss STEM communities – and inspire community managers, senior managers and funders alike about the possibilities of community-based projects. In addition to 13 profiles created in 2020, we are conducting a meta-analysis to investigate trends observed across the dataset, as well as building out additional resources to complement the collection. 

Some of the profiles included in our newest collection. Image credit: CSCCE
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July’s Community Call: CSCCE community profiles round two

This month, we’re showcasing a new collection of community profiles on our community call, and have invited four of the community managers who took part in this project to share their experiences. Join us on Wednesday, 21 July 2021 via Zoom, and read on for more details about the call. 

Join us to learn more about research into STEM communities. Image credit: the CSCCE. 

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