Online Communities Archives

CSCCE Open-Source Tools Trial 4 Recap: GitHub and Bitergia to support research and developer communities

For the fourth of our open-source Tools Trials, we took a closer look at some of the specific needs of research and developer communities.

In this blog post, we briefly recap what we learned about how to use GitHub to collaborate on technical documentation, how GitHub teams can support member management, and the kinds of user metrics Bitergia Analytics can gather so that you can stay informed about the health of your community activities. You can also watch each of the presentations from the call, and access a collection of related resources.

GitHub and Bitergia for supporting research and developer communities – CSCCE Open-Source Tools Trial 4

For the fourth Tools Trial in our open-source series, we’re taking a closer look at research and developer communities. Our speakers will be sharing how they use GitHub and Bitergia to connect across teams and understand member behavior.

This will be the third Tools Trial at which GitHib is making an appearance, so if you’d like a primer on the platform, take a look at the recap blog posts for Trial 1 and Trial 2. But don’t worry if you don’t have time – we’ll make sure that you have the background you need to follow the technical aspects of the presentation during the call.

Tools Trial Info:

Date: Wednesday, 11 October 2023
Time: 10am EDT / 2pm UTC
Speakers: Sanket Verma (Zarr), Paul Nagy (OHDSI), Georg Link (Bitergia), Julia Koehler (Rosetta)
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You can find all Tools Trials announcements and recap blog posts on the CSCCE blog.

Exploring OpenReview and its various applications – CSCCE Open-Source Tools Trial 3

In the third Tools Trial of our series focused on open-source tools for community building, we’re taking a look at OpenReview, an open-source platform that supports open peer review, primarily for conference abstracts. Andrew McCallum and Melisa Bok from OpenReview will be joining us to take us through the key features of the platform, and CSCCE’s Emily Lescak will share an overview of some of the different ways it has been used in STEM communities – including for reviewing grants, and program applications.

Tools Trial Info:

Date: Thursday, 28 September 2023
Time: 11am EDT / 3pm UTC
Speakers: Andrew McCallum and Melisa Bok (OpenReview), and Emily Lescak (CSCCE)
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Zoom link to join

You can find all Tools Trials announcements and recap blog posts on the CSCCE blog – including a summary of the first Trial in this series which focused on GitHub.

CSCCE Open-Source Tools Trial Recap: Using GitHub to facilitate community activities

On Wednesday, 30 August 2023 we held the first of our new series of five Tools Trials focused on open-source tools for community-building. The series is funded by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and is intended for anyone interested in exploring open-source tools – including community managers who’ve never tried them before!

In this first trial, we focused exclusively on GitHub – one of the go-to platforms developers use to share and build open-source software. At CSCCE, we often say “meet your members where they are,” and for open-source communities, that often means you’ll find them using GitHub.

In this blog post you can find the recordings of all of the presentations from the call, as well as a summary of some of the (really interesting) discussion that took place both in the Q&A at the end of the call and in the chat and the shared virtual notes doc. Over the next few weeks, CSCCE staff will also be collaborating with the presenters to create a tip sheet that distills some of the key takeaways from the call; especially technical tips and tricks to help you explore implementing some of these GitHub-based community solutions.

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.

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).

May’s Community Call / Tools Trial – Discourse

This month, we’re hosting an impromptu Tools Trial for our community call. In response to significant interest from the members of our community of practice (find out more about our community), we’ll be getting together in Zoom on Friday, 26 May 2023 at 10am EDT / 2pm UTC to share expertise and explore the functionality of Discourse.

Date: Friday, 26 May 2023

Time: 10am EDT / 2pm UTC

Zoom link to join: click here

Add to calendar: click here

*For our May Community Call, we’re convening an impromptu Tools Trial to discuss and explore the utility of Discourse for STEM community building. Image credit: CSCCE*

April Community Call Recap – A conversation about the future of STEM communities online

This month’s “salon-style” call focused on the changing landscape of social media, and how STEM professionals are engaging (or not) on platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and more. Lou and Katie created a loose scaffold to facilitate the call, drawing on their many, many years of life online, and we thoroughly enjoyed the conversation that unfolded.

We did not record this month’s call, so that everyone who participated could feel comfortable sharing their opinions and experiences, and this recap is intentionally free of identifying information. We’ve also collected the resources shared on the call at the end of this post – from books to blog posts to suggestions of people to follow – so scroll on to find out more!

April’s Community Call – The internet is breaking – what’s next for building community online?

The last few years have seen a shift in how people behave online. More and more, we see individuals announcing that they will leave this platform or that, either for new websites or for a life lived less online. Relatedly, spaces that are more private are increasingly replacing public ones for conference back channels and subject-specific discussions. While these changes may be understandable, as community managers, this shift away from sharing and connecting in public forums presents very real challenges.

During this month’s salon-style community call, we will investigate how the upheavals in social media platforms (and how people engage with them) are impacting community-building activities online. Please come ready to share your experiences and opinions, as well as any ideas you have for what’s next. This month’s call will not be recorded, but a recap blog post will be made available shortly after.

Date: Wednesday, 19 April 2023

Time: 11am EDT / 3pm UTC

Zoom link to join: click here

Add to calendar: click here

A blue graphic with umbel flowers in the background. White text reads "The internet is breaking- what's next for building community online?" — *How do we engage members on social media when social media networks are less and less places people want to be? Image credit: CSCCE.*

Making a PACT for more accessible resources – a workshop for rOpenSci

Over the past few months, we’ve been delighted to work with Yani Bellini Saibene at rOpenSci as she’s designed and built a brand new champions program. One of the ways we’ve been supporting that work is by delivering an online training for the new champions in how to design and host successful meetings. This month we used our “making a PACT” framework for more engaging meetings and events – and after reaching out to the participants to ask about their accessibility requirements, we were prompted to make some adjustments to how we facilitated the workshop and shared materials.

Community managers are always learning about new tools and making improvements to how we support community members – and this approach is no different for CSCCE staff! So in the spirit of “working out loud”, this blog post includes more information about the PACT framework and how we updated our existing workshop to make it more accessible.