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US Midwest Community Call


Connection : 
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81573878113?pwd=ajU1VUIzV2NsMVlsNWdaN2ozSmxZUT09

Currently meeting the first Wednesday of the month at 12 pm CT / 1 pm ET

Our next meeting is Wednesday February 4 at 12pm CST/1pm EST/18 UTC



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PARTICIPANTS: Please complete this form after the session: https://forms.gle/TqBQ8yrLfsktr2F9A

December 3, 2025


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Agenda



Notes




November 5, 2025


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Agenda



Notes




October 1, 2025


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Agenda



Notes:

Things that have happened and we found a solution and plan for the future
You don't have to invent this yourself - formal institutions might have student office or academic office, or accessibliity office where you can consult with expert resources for students that need acommidation
Carpentries has the Toolkit of IDEAS - Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accesiblity Strategies - things to take into account when you are teaching/hosting a workshop in person or online
There are standards that you can use too - W3C WebContent Accessiblity Guildines - tool called wave that assesses your resource - for example google slides - and it gives recommendations to improve it - example don't use link to only the word "here" - when screen readers go though this they skip link to link and more context helps differentiate links
Start with accessiblity from the beginning, you will have to redo work otherwise - accessiblity chain concept - from the start through the end of the class
Don't assume, ask - people with the disability will know better what they need
Accessiblity helps everyone - every effort you put to make your teaching more accessible will have. apositive impact for all learners
Do not assume people with disability will use the same strategies to learn (even if they have the same disability)
Be flexible and repsonsive, change format as needed
Examples from courses
Build friendly space - clear is kindess
Feedback after each class
Question: Sometimes accomodations that work well in one group might make things more difficult for another group. E.g. Etherpad in Instructor training can be useful because it helps them follow along and can participate without being verbal. Some people are overwhelmed by the etherpad because of the amount of text. How can we balance or address that?
Question: Coding in areas with a lot of white space can be difficult for individuals who have visual impairments. Have you had anyone bring tools to help them with coding?

Other tips:
Blog post - https://ropensci.org/blog/2024/09/05/screen-readers-tools/
* iRigMic Lav is very nice quality and it was less than 90 USD at the time (2020).






September 3, 2025


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Agenda




June 4, 2025


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UW-Madison's ML + X: https://uw-madison-datascience.github.io/ML-X-Nexus/Applications/Videos/
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/artificial-intelligence-parameter-count
https://hai.stanford.edu/news/stanford-crfm-introduces-pubmedgpt-27b

Northeast
#local-us-northeast 
https://carpentries.org/community/get-connected/, Carpentries US-Northeast

May 7, 2025


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Agenda



Some discussion of US-RSE (and research software engineering movement in general): https://us-rse.org/

Suggestions for research software engineering reads:
https://third-bit.com/sdxpy/
https://alan-turing-institute.github.io/rse-course/html/index.html

An at-your-own-pace lesson we discussed: https://carpentries-incubator.github.io/python-intermediate-development/


A FAIR research software lesson we discussed: https://carpentries-incubator.github.io/fair-research-software/

Introduction to Computational Thinking: https://librarycarpentry.github.io/lc-computational-thinking/index.html

April 2, 2025


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Agenda



March 5, 2025


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Agenda




Feb 5, 2025


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Agenda:





December 4, 2024


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Notes


November 6, 2024


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Notes


October 2, 2024


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Q&A

Notes

Next steps:


August 26, 2024


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Q&A
Notes:


July 29, 2024


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Q&A
Have questions about the mission of MCC or sustainability? Drop them here:

Notes:




June 24, 2024



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Q&A
Have questions about the mission of MCC or sustainability? Drop them here:

Notes:


May 20, 2024



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Q&A
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Notes:


April 29, 2024


Topic: Continued discussion of long-term sustainability planning for the MCC.

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Q&A
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Notes:


March 25, 2024



Topic: Continued discussion of long-term sustainability planning for the MCC.

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Q&A
Have questions about the mission of MCC or sustainability? Drop them here:
What is important for promotional material (promoting the call)?

Notes:






















February 26, 2024


Topic: Long-term sustainability planning for the MCC

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Q&A
Have questions about the mission of MCC or sustainability? Drop them here:

Notes:

January 29, 2024


Topic: Long-term sustainability planning for the MCC

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Q&A
Have questions about the mission of MCC or sustainability? Drop them here:

Notes:


September 25, 2023


Topic: Getting started with The Carpentries: How does instructor training work?
Guest: Karen Word, Director of Instructor Training, The Carpentries

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Q&A

Notes
Topic: Data Curation Network (DCN) Data Curation Primers and Carpentries curricula
Guest: Mikala Narlock, Data Curation Network

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Notes

June 26, 2023 - Fall 2023 session planning


This month we're looking for community input on our fall session topics and guests. 

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Notes


May 22, 2023 - Hands-on skill development with CodePath.org


This month we'll talk with staff from CodePath (https://www.codepath.org/about) about their approach to hands-on skill development for students and look at similarities and differences with The Carpentries model.

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Notes



April 2023 - no meeting



March 27, 2023 - What's new in Library Carpentry?


This month we'll check in on recent work of the Library Carpentry Curriculum Advisory Committee, and explore other ways campus libraries are working with The Carpentries. Stephen Appel from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries and Cody Hennesy from the University of Minnesota Libraries will help lead the discussion.

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Notes


February 27, 2023 - Training synergies with the Delta Gateway


We'll explore similarities and synergies in hands-on training between the Carpentries curriculum and related skill development for users of HPC and CI resources like the NSF-funded Delta system (https://gateway.delta.ncsa.illinois.edu/)

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Notes

Monthly Carpentries Instructor Meetings: https://pad.carpentries.org/InstructorMeetings

Delta Science Gateway: Community use of GPU Resources
Computational resource that has project around it about more than just hardware.  Furthering GPU adoption is a goal
Moving beyond POSIX as data using reliable/scaleable systems
Interface work - trying to improve usability and accessibliity with several efforts in the project
Team at UIUC reviewing the accessiblity 

Delta is largets GPU resource in NSF portfolio 
different scales - notebooks to more complex projects

Data resource that combines POSIX filesystems with new tech called Aurora platform - reduce relance on POSIX systems - lots of locks for readers and writers in the system - most users can use without modification

Partnering with Science Gateways Community Institute
Supporting existing science gateways and using other interfaces - Open OnDemand for example
Developing practices for blending interactive and batch computing - support more interactive (reserved nodes) than batch

UIUC team that is leading evaluation of accessibility - hopefully will find some improvements for web and non-web interfaces

340 nodes with over 800 GPUS - also some large memory resources - mostly NVIDIA with one testing AMD box

Delta trying to identify communtities that aren't using gpu accelerated computing - also looking across institutions
Worked with Science Gateways community institute to implement their gateways


January 30th 2023 - Challenges in scaling up Carpentries offerings



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Notes


Fall 2022 Schedule:
Sept 26th:  Midwest Carpentries Interests Discussion
Oct 31st: The Maintainers' Perspective: How to improve the checkout process from issue to completed PR - Host: Jennifer AW Stubbs
Nov 21st:  Carpentries Workbench by Zhian Kamvar and Toby Hodges
Dec 26th: Canceled due to many University Holidays during this time

Spring 2023 Schedule:
Open to suggestions/nominations for topics and speakers. Send topics to wjohn@illinois.edu.


Nov 2022 -  Carpentries Workbench by Zhian Kamvar and Toby Hodges


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Announcements:


- No Meeting in Dec
- Looking for topics and guests for spring 2023! Send topics to wjohn@illinois.edu.
- 



Notes:


Link to lesson currently using the workbench - https://carpentries.github.io/lesson-development-training/01-introduction.html - Collaborative Lesson Development Training
These sites look very different.  Static website.  By default looking at the "learner view", for going through the workshop or as a reference after the workshop.
List of the episodes on the left contents side bar and the main content of an episode.  Sections are spaced out from one another.
Also have a button in upper right corner to switch to instructor view - it differs in a couple of ways - shows the estimated time, instructor notes (both inline and the full notes).  Really nice to be able to see the notes in-line as it gives them in the context of the lesson.  All pages instructor notes are linked in the top bar. Fully markdown compliant, anything that can be written in markdown can be added to instructor notes - for example a table that you can copy and paste for participants to work with.
This is all rendered from the back end in Github - can click the button to edit the page and it goes to github directly.  The header is now much smaller (compared to the previous styles template), after that there are questions which are in "fenced divs", open at least 3 colons with the type of section, closed with at least 3 colons.  Instructor notes are also "fenced divs".
The official lessons are slowly being transitioned to this new format - they are in the beta phase of this project.
Can compare between the old syles template and the new workbench using this guide - https://carpentries.github.io/workbench/transition-guide.html
We are currently in the beta phase of this project, a few lessons have volunteered to try out their lessons in the transtion to the workbench.  While in beta, there are two versions of these lessons, when you visit one you will be given the option to use one or the other.  For instructors, if you have any upcoming trainings where you can use any of the lessons that are currently in the beta phase, please try out the workbench version and give feedback.  Even if you don't use it please play around with them to help find issues while they are in beta. Lessons currently in beta phase - https://carpentries.github.io/workbench/beta-phase.html#timeline-lessons-entered-into-workbench-beta
Transitioning the lessons in April
If you have suggestions for how to improve the documentation please try it out and give feedback - https://github.com/carpentries/sandpaper-docs/issues/115

Questions and Answers: 
Question for Zhian: Will we, as the maintainers, need to create the glossary and handouts in the Workbench?  Or are those created through some markdown from the lesson itself?
What are the motivations for this change?
Volunteered to help with Central org workshop - library carpentries intro to the shell.  Hadn't realized it was in beta here.  Will plan to use the styles version because there was a hiccup in getting it into beta.
Please give feedback - https://github.com/carpentries/workbench/discussions/. In partiuclar, would like to get "friction logs", where instructors encounter difficulties, a narative of what you are going through when you are walking through something new.  https://github.com/carpentries/workbench/discussions/2 For example, I want to go and find in a lesson if there are any instructor notes for any episodes, you would slowly walk through that process, recording your mental states - I'm fine with this, this is a little weird but not a bit deal, I want to through out my laptop I'm so frusterated.  Example friction log - https://github.com/carpentries/workbench/discussions/33
What might change for isntructors not working closely with lessons or workshop hosts for the April change?
On the old system, there was a thing for a while where you could print the entire lesson in one page, is that in the workbench?
Note to Zhian: inside aio lookout, top "expand all" only opens the first episode.
Friction log - not the problems you encounter which you would just list on github as an issue/PR.  More about what you are feeling?










October 2022 - The Maintainers' Perspective: How to improve the checkout process from issue to completed PR - Host: Jennifer AW Stubbs


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Announcements:


- 16 November
    - Themed Community Discussion with @Danielle Sieh 3:00pm UTC
        - In person workshops are back! Join the call to learn more about what this means for the community
        - Sign up on the community discussion page! - https://pad.carpentries.org/community-discussions
- 18 November
        - Themed Community Discussion with @Danielle Sieh 12:00am UTC
            - In person workshops are back! Join the call to learn more about what this means for the community
        - Sign up on the community discussion page! - https://pad.carpentries.org/community-discussions

Notes:



Introductions with ice breaker about what we're looking forward to in the winter season.

Jennifer was onboarded as a maintainer this June.  Working on Library Carpentires lessons since July.  Once a month meeting.  Lucky to have Zhian Kamvar in charge of changing how the lessons look.  Part of instructor onboarding process is suggesting an edit to a lesson somewhere.  What does that look like on the maintainer side?  See also Sarah's tutorial on editing on GitHub - https://youtu.be/BpEWDg8AbPc

First prioirity of a maintainer is to support you as instructors.  Don't want your lessons to be completely different!  We try to demonstrate the same experience the students are going through.  Most edits are not major changes: tend to be pedagogical suggestions of fitting this better in places e.g. earlier.  Identifying conflicts between versions e.g. for OpenRefine.  Sometimes discussion of what should be in instructions for students and for instructors to put in Alt text vs the Caption so that students have it available to review later.

Problem with current onboarding process is many suggestions have been made and explaining why we've stayed with an old source.  When you open an Carpentries lesson there is a link at the top-right "Improve this page".  Making it easy for instructors to make edits.  2-3 years before it had to be a pull request of only comments without follow-up.  With this newer edit option you make specific requests with simpler process for instructors to make requests and maintainers to incorporate them. Creates a pull request on the maintainer side. Can comment on changes and can see edits.

Questions about this part of the process?

Q: What is the approx time commitment?
A: Not that much.  If you're comfortable with GitHub, probably less.  I'm still teaching myself and finding the coding language for making pop-up box and solutions box format correctly.  I'm supported by needing to have service as part of my tenure track position. I can go through this experience and document where the friction points are. We prioritize what we do to catch up with our backlog in the library Carpentries lesson and document what we troubleshoot.  Outside of that also passively think about what maintainers go through as a whole in this process.  Time responding to individual comments in a lesson spikes after instructor training: 2-3 comments.  Or something left over from a few months ago where we have time to get back [to a comment].  Reviewing pull requests to improve Zhian's process.  Lots of outstanding issues that we're looking at sun-setting or labeling / discussing between ourselves. 3 hours a month with an extra hour or 2 if there are things to explore.  Real part of a maintainer is guiding people to make these edits to have the agency to make a pull request so all we have to do is approve for it to come online

Moving onto the next part: how do we scaffold what we call "easy firsts".  Was your experience with GitHub easy or intimidating and what made it easy or intimidating?  Unmute or type in Etherpad.
Sarah Stevens:  My experience was doing blog posts in GitHub during instructor training.  I learned GitHub during instructor training.  I was nervous about messing something up, which is something a lot of people are nervous about git.  Messing up is harder to do with git especially if you don't have write permissions to a repository.
James Deaton:  I'm a big proponent to Hacktoberfest for a lot of people to come out with Git skills and using that  as encouragement to contribute to documentation.  Hopeful it does have a big positive impact.  You don't have to know git that well to comfortably do it.
Alycia Crall (Zoom chat): The Carpentries did Hacktoberfest in the past but decided not to do it this year.
Corwin Kerr: [missed taking notes :(]
Alycia: We do a lot within GitHub.  I was never exposed to GitHub.  Like Jennifer worked through things and learned as I went.  Realized that use of GitHub is a barrier to entering the community.  We don't want that to be the case.  Recent conversations about updating the instructor checkout process.  We're considering in community development to offer monthly or twice per month basics of using GitHub and walking through the process together.
Jennifer Stubbs: Good to hear this initial fear of "we're going to break it!" so that people can learn this assumed knowledge and understand that each lesson has their own sets of lessons.  Whereever you choose to make your contributions.  Struggled to learn the goals of OpenRefine of sticking to point-and-click because they'll move onto R, etc or to teach grell, etc.  Has changed a lot on GitHub in the last 1-2 years.  The GUI is much easier to make direct contributions.  Less intimidating to think about fork / branch.  I share Sarah's video about starting a pull request.  Maintainers rarely go into making those changes ourself.  New version of workbench coming out, there will be a student and instructor version of the lesson pages that won't conflict with eachother, except that instructors see everything and students only see what they need to.  They way you see a lesson is called "styles" which worked when we got started but now computer science developments allow us to do it this much better way going forward.
Sarah Stevens (Zoom chat): Here is an example of what the workbench looks like - https://carpentries.github.io/lesson-development-training/
Alycia Crall (Zoom chat): It's the new lesson infrastructure. Zhian has a series of blog posts about it. They start with “The Dovetail…” https://carpentries.org/blog/
John MacMullen (Zoom chat): The Nov 21 meeting of this group will be focused on the Workbench, with guests Zhian Kamvar and Toby Hodges
Jennifer: Heres my maintainer screen on GitHub.  Pull request in our specific lesson.  We can see the actual changes in "Files changed". Not just one maintainer making crazy changes; there is a review process. Once I became a maintainer I can make edits to OpenRefine.  If you're not a maintainer you can only make branches and cannot merge.  Any questions about this?
Sarah: I always think this is the polite way to collaborate on GitHub. I love getting someone else to review my changes before they're merged in. More of a suggestion instead of aggressively putting something in that's more reassuring.
Jennifer: For anyone who is less familiar with GitHub is there any suggestion for making it more clear that the change is a suggestion and not something that goes live immediately?
Sarah: "Suggest changes to this page"
Alycia: "Suggest an edit"+1
Corwin: A comment bubble instead of a pencil.
James: The suggest button looks blue for me. Theming?
Jennifer: "Suggest and edit" is concise.  One doesn't need to be an instructor to do this.  Even a student learner can make a suggestion.
Sarah (Zoom chat): I find the best time to suggest edits is when I'm prepping to teach. if I don't do it then I will probably forget
Jennifer: In addition to the videos or scheduling a time with me, what can we do to support new instructors to make lesson suggestions?
Sarah: Maybe themed discussion sessions would be good?  Melissa Liz Stoke ran one but at a time that didn't work for me.  "Introduction to making a contribution".  We could support that group more regularly with a monthly call.  Maybe Liz did the first hour of showing the contribution and then actually working on the contribution.
Jennifer: Maybe private e-mails between the 3 of us as discussions hosts come up between the quarter?
Alycia: That's what we are planning on developing/offering (a regular GitHub skill up) with time for making a contribution
Jennifer: Due to time constraints will skip last question of GitHub vs content.  For me it was the hurdle of Git.  I went through learning Git technically but the changes between how it looks between Git and GitHub and realizing what one can do in Git and GitHub.
Sarah: On content I'm always nervous about putting my thoughts out there.  Being the Carpentries community has made me a lot more comfortable about this by giving perspective in a kind way.  That's what I like about bringing a community of instructors together for making feedback for what's been tried but doesn't work to help me figure out what fits in the lesson. I unofficially maintain a few lessons in the incubator.  Hard to decide as a maintainer what to keep and what to not keep.  Not taking suggestions can be demotivating, but sometimes things don't fit.  The docker lesson I maintain is the furthest along and there's a strong push to add material.  Can make some content extra to teach e.g. to computer science students.  Other people can help you make these decisions.
Alycia Crall (Zoom chat): Link to Incubator: https://carpentries-incubator.org/
Jennifer: There is a balance between maintainers and curriculums community to prevent lesson creep (Curriculum Advisory Committees - https://docs.carpentries.org/topic_folders/lesson_development/curriculum_advisory_committees.html).  Plug for contributing to Carpentries at the curriculum level about what we use a particular example or dataset and if that's the most inclusive way to go about it.  Some contributions should be extras or instructor notes.
Sarah: Thank you Jennifer about your contributions as a maintainer and thinking about that "Improve this page" in GitHub. Biggest changes for next month's meeting are accessibility improvements that Zhian and Toby will tell us about.  We're meeting at a different time next month, so we moved it up a week: November 21st instead of last Monday.







Sept 2022 - Midwest Carpentries Community


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What would you like to discuss at Midwest Carpentries Community Calls?



Starting a Carpentries community at your local institution






Spring 2022 Schedule:
Jan 31: Development of the new program to support community building/management hosted by Alycia Crall
Feb 28: Demo of making a lesson contribution using Github by Sarah Stevens
Mar 28: Workshop Administration: How do other groups distribute the administrative duties for workshop planning and operation, etc?  - hosted by Kay Bjornen
Apr 25: Building the Midwest Library Carpentry capacity/community - hosted by Cody Hennesy 
May 23 (moved up due to Memorial Day): Instructor training best practices - hosted by John MacMullen
June 27th: Workshop Assessment hosted by Jamene Brooks-Kieffer
July and Aug: Break for summer, will resume in Sept

Fall 2022 draft schedule:
TBD: Great Plains Network lessons learned
TBD: Data Curation Network - Alignment of Data Curation Primers with Carpentries lessons (https://datacurationnetwork.org/outputs/data-curation-primers/)


June 2022 - Workshop Assessment


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Discussion questions and notes:


University of Minnesota -

MBDH - based at UIUC
Madison - post-workshop debriefs, minute cards, some views of Carpentries post-workshop survey (less participation in this). Hesitant to add too much more survey stuff for learners; there's already minute cards and Carpentries surveys. Wishes could follow-up long term with learners to find out if learners are using skills - Carpentries does this but it's hard to get participants. Struggle with debrief feedback to carry workshop to workshop - if is same topic and dataset is confusing, that's straightforward to follow up with, but many feedback items are unique to each set of learners and each classroom.

Oklahoma State - also provide postworkshop survey, teaching online using the sticky note reponses.  Talked about sending out a long term survey but haven't done.  Want to know if people could find the help and resources they need to develop their skills after the workshop.  In addtion to the thigns you've all mentioned, the other thing is you get conflicting reponses - too fast and too slow.  Hard to know what to do but have continued with that.  Also with the long-term survey.  Tend to roll with our resources for what workhsops we teach - lots of python instuctors so we teach a lot of python but want to identify and meet learner needs instead.  Good assessment could help us with that.

Thinking about the layers of assessment that can happen.  Question: Folks who are doing the organizing at your institution, do you collect data for your folks who take instructor training seats?  Or do any assessment in that regard? E.g At KU, for instructor training seats, I follow-up with that person to see what road-blocks they encounter or things they need.  In terms of what they need.  Also in terms of demonstrating impact having the data about how many of the people took instructor training, finished certification, taught a workshop, left KU (are they still active?).

Kay - do extensive amounts of that.  because when you pay for a membership - the worst thing is people who ghost us.  We do a lot of the following about the data.  Thought about if we wanted to try to get a variety of skillsets/expertise but not enough applicants.  Encourage them to do a practice teaching demo and send their dates and if they've completed certification.  To avoid ghosting, developed an agreement that they sign before we give them seats.  Try to make them aware of what they are committing to.  If you use a seat, it costs us.  

Sarah - Need for a mechanism for instructor peer feedback for improvement; a trained instructor can often give more constructive feedback than a learner

Carolyn - set up cohorts of learners to go through instructor training, and checkout together.  Also putting together a workshop together at the end.

Robert - went through open instructor training, was dishearted trying to get a carpentries culutree started at KState, hoping working with Carolyn will be helpful.  Trying to complete PhD in program evluation, think about assessment a lot - strongest thing I'm hearing right now is following up with instructors, a lot can go wrong getting immediate feedback from learners in a workshop, but keeping track of people who go through your program.  Very interested in hearing how people are working on that problem.

Sarah : Would people be interested in having a meeting to show our process and create and borrow things from one another.

Jamene: Lots of layers to the ways assessment can go.  Organization of Carpentries at your institution is not your only job - and you could spend full time on it if you wanted to.  Hard place for assessment would be.

Dorcas: We used to do surveys but throught the department we partner with but they've fail to give us the feedback so I basically get nothing. I would do my own using the Carpentries but require indiviual results which means about three surveys. 

Add your name and email address here if you would like to meet together and work on our assessment and sharing our plans for improved assessment.
 - Robert McCowen (mccowen@ksu.edu)
 - Sarah Stevens (sarah.stevens@wisc.edu)
- Carolyn Jackson (csjaxon@ksu.edu)
  Kay Bjornen* (kay.bjornen@okstate.edu) * I will be retiring in August but hope to continue participating as a volunteer
- John MacMullen (wjohn@illinois.edu)
- Jamene Brooks-Kieffer (jamenebk@ku.edu) - will join if I can; lots going on


Jamene: How insitituions get new instuctors?  How those seed new instructors?  Interesting question, who is being really effective here?

Caroline: Based on my experience, I initally had a lot of hesiteancy about becoming an instructors.  At KU monthly meeting, other participants who had done instructor training talked.  Process seems really intense and involved, not sure as a grad student I had time for it.  It was the work of the other grad students and post-docs who were just a couple steps ahead of me or were more established instructors, through their words - it is very feasible, don't worry about it.  And they offered to meet with me.  Hearing that from the local community that solidified me wanting to persue this.

Cody: Anecodtally, in terms of network effect, folks from other institutions who come to UMN, or folks who live here and work elsewhere.  They google around and have had that start to happen more.  Local co-hort is through this local node to connect to and teach.  Have had more new instructors through a grad student using this in their stuff and their regular teaching and faculty are reaching out for us to teach workshop connected with a grad seminar.  Hear from instructors that instructor training was huge for them in their teaching.

Sarah - processes for better communicating the local and regional opportunities for participation in the Carpentries instructor communities; can be challenging due to both Carpentries restrictions for privacy protection, but also abundance of opportunities (Slack channels, etc)

Things we should ask for from the Carpentries Team:
For organizers at individual institutions, have easier access to the instructor training seat usage. - This is in progress (Kay reports)


Things we could contribute back to the Community:
Instructor Assessment processes and other reusable assessment products/workflows


Other:
Sharing seats across institutions.
Building co-hort of people in this group to support each other


How are you analzying the data you collect from your actvities?  Formal methods?  Eyeballs? Textual reporting.

Struggle to do this in a statistical way.  Hard to get meaningful data - large sample set and well designed assessment.

Not something would want to try to do formal assessment on - longer = lower response rate. Suggest - Put togehter a one page, how did it work for you (1-5 scale), and look at qualitative comments.  Lot more prep work to get something that is amenable to a stats analysis.  Instead what is your sense of what has happened? 

Minute Cards and the what worked well and could be improved after a workshop - At KU had that during our next co-hort meeting after a workshop.  Hope that instructors, helpers and observers can help with that.  Have found those to be very helpful.  Esp as we started offering online workshops.  Sometimes hyper local feedback - teaching online we were able to accumulate a set of practices that worked well. + delta informal discussions











May 2022 - Instructor Training Best Practices


Sign-in: Name, Institution, contact info/email address (if you'd like to share), if you are here for instructor training checkout, please add checkout after your name



Relevant Carpentries links:
Become an Instructor
https://carpentries.org/become-instructor/
Instructor Training
https://carpentries.github.io/instructor-training/

Context:

Discussion questions and notes


April 2022 - Building the Midwest Library Carpentry capacity/community


Building the Midwest Library Carpentry capacity/community - hosted by Cody Hennesy 

Sign-In: Name, institution

Topic: Ideas for reaching wider Library Carpentry audiences across the Midwest and building LC communities. 


Notes: 
Cody : Been to a few LC workshops at institutions and not a large enough audience from a single instutituion. 2-5 people at single institutions vs 30-40 at one.  At UMN - have silver carpentires membership - 5/15 are people who work in libraries - public services, IT, cataloging and metadata (or similar renamed group).  Discussed it would be nice to do something LC since there are enough of us to teach.  This was March 2020. LibTech, regional conference devoted to all things tech.  Had worked with them and were going to do a 2 day pre-conference workshop - sold out at 30 seats.  Had to cancel.  In Nov 2020, reached back out to the folks who had signed up and offered a free zoom online version. Did once a week mornings (eg. Thurs mornings) over Nov.  Many did sign up.  Ended up with 45 people registered after some other advertising opportunities.  Did get people from all over the country, was public on Carpentries website.  Looked back at registration number - few folks at UMN (twin cities and morris) and many folks from a lot of other small institutions.  Not an opportunity for workshops like this at many of the smaller institutions.  Been talking about what else we can do in this space.  What are other folks doing?  Ideas for expanding curriculum?  
John: Can you say more about the goals for LC?  Focused on internal library opperations?  Learning it to help researchers on campus?  Scope?
Cody: 3 branches of Carpentries, Software, Data, and Library Carpentry (LC), LC focused on library and information related roles.  Dealing with library metadata in some of the lessons, other lessons on FAIR data, unix shell tidy data, git.  In my role, benefit from this in supporting researchers.  Training people to help support researchers.  Working with researcher who is publishing their code and keeping track of changes.  Can help people in a wide range of role in libraries, but focused less on tools and more on needs for these tools and research data management:
Sarah Question no notes
Kay: LC planning group OKACRL - encountered the same things as Cody - seemed pointless because there were a small handful of people at the institution.  We have offered these workshops right after the end of the semester and had really good update on open refine and a few other things (R).  Saw we didn't have as many last year as the first year.  Does that mean we've depelted the audience or something else.  maybe the problem is that a lot of people who are not data librarians don't really understand how this can help them.  Decided to do short video of each of us speaking up about how we use thse tools in our job.  Send that out to our memberhsip with a survey to see which tools they are interested in seeing workshops on.
Based on Kay's comments, maybe approaching state and regional profressional associations could be a way to identify a larger audience for workshops (ALA, SLA, ACRL, MLA, etc)
Cody: At UMN, had another person bringing the carpentries to the Uni.  Arranged a lunchtime lightning talks about people using these tools.  Similar to what Kay mentioned about making this relevant to different folks.  And be clear that this tech is optional.  Maybe do this more, reach back out again.
Caitlin: One of the reasons that was successfull is that it was grounded int he work folks were already doing.  working with Spreadsheets - how open refine can make your life easier.
Cody: maybe market around the tools instead of Carpentries (I second this reccomendation to lead off with what is in it for attendees.)
Wanda: will talk with Stacy about pre conference workshp we did with tech services conference.
Stacie: Electronic resources minnasota - small conference.  Electronic resources is a growning concern among institutions - lot they can get from this as most are working with spreadsheets.  Virtual conference in late Jan 2022.  Wanted a pre-conference workshop (very common for library conferences), having recently become an Carpentries instructor - shared all the options and they were excited.  Specifically pointed them to LC open refine lesson and LC tidy data in spreadsheets lesson but any LC or SWC are possible.  Planning commmitee excited by the tidy data workshop.  Taught the one lesson in afternoon before conference, 61/100(some) registered for this session.  Sponsoring org was minitex.  Following on success of the pre-conference workshop. Minitex folks are intersted in working with us to identify regionally more opportunities to get people involved who could benefit from LC in general.   Lot of attendees were from small colleges, 2 year institutions, where they are one of a handful of staff managing everything in the library.  They can really benefit from these skills to do their work more efficiently and effectively.  
Wanda: Good to tag these workshops onto existing conferences.  Sometimes workshops are misleading and this is really great because it is hands-on experience that people can take with them immediately. Reaching out to small conferences or other institutions.  Can be really powerful to save time for folks.  Midwest Data Librarian conference - saw Jamene's slow librarian talk - kind of the opposite of this.  Held an open refine session at Minnnesota - no or few library staff.  Some medical folks from labs were attending to ease their work.  Seemed very please with the couple of hours we were together.  More at academic instutions to reach out to labs and share tesimonals to help with outreach.
Cody: Agree pre-conference is a good setting to hook onto.
John: related to regional level contribution - regional and state professionals groups to achieve critical mass of people who can participate.  already there, why not add on continuing professional development as a part of it
Cody: Folks who are here in libraries - do you teach LC?
Stephen: Had one LC workshop at UWM.  We've been teaching git as a 2 day 4 hour workshop because that was in demand.  LIbrary staff is generally more intersted in Carpentries.  Put getting more instructors certified and reaching out to other units in stategic plan.  More interest in Data Carpentry generally.
Jamene: Have taught LC here once several years ago - for library cataloging, aquisitions, and resource sharing; and apprached supervisors to get people involved.  Bit of uptake because people have reached out for reminders after.  Didn't bring in many library folks as instructors though.  We do have some new folks who are interested.  Regarding Regional e-resources conferences, have there been preconference LC workshops for ER&L, main conference? (https://www.electroniclibrarian.org/)
Stacie: No.  Woud be a good opportunity though.  As member of the ER&L community, will suggest to organizers in the future.
Cody: Hoping to shift from specific institution to more instructors who are intersted in co-teaching.
Cody: Question, been bringing on a few new people from the libraries as intructors which meets our demend.  Not sure what the path is for people at smaller institutions.  Opportunities to build an instructor community across these organizations.
John: Goal with the community we are building here - build capacity of instuctors across the region with empahsis on small insttutions.  Including subcommunities like LC.  Use leverage as a regional org to build capacity going forward.  Would like to continue to talk about it.
James: We've maintained a Carpentries membership for a number of years to encourage instructor training.  Informal monthly calls.  Also approach to simplify for workshop setup - for example jupyterhub, compute nodes, so people at small institutions can turn on a jupyterhub instance and use post workshop.  
Stephen: Add on that we first got intersted in Carpentries at UWM when we started organizing a community of practice around collections as data.  We found that the library makes sense beacuse it has the interdiciplinary reputation where people come together from different parts of campus.  Librarians intersted as collections as data (using python in workflows and github pages as alt to libguides).  Training up librarians in some of these things and serving as a reserach hub.
Building and Sustaining Carpentries Subcommunities - https://carpentries.org/blog/2022/02/building-sustaining-community/
Sarah: Plan a LC for the midwest carpentires community
Cody: happy to facilitate if folks would like to teach it.
John: happy to have the hub support that activity.  Couple of options for support - through carpentries memberhsip or community development and engagement funding.
Short thoughts about putting together slow librarianship with computing skills.  Let the computer do the computing things so librarians can focus on the people things.

Next Month: Hear more from Great plans or talk more about community engagement - one of those two topics.




March 2022 - Workshop Administration


How do other groups distribute the administrative duties for workshop planning and operation, etc?  - hosted by Kay Bjornen

Sign-in: Name, Institution:


Objective:  Share best practices, identify efficiencies, create sustainability - organizing shouldn't be a lifetime appointment.
Background at OSU Carpentries












Feb 2022 - Demo of making a lesson contribution using Github


Led by Sarah Stevens

Sign-in: Name, Institution. - if you are here for checkout please add your email address and checkout to the end of your sign in

Links:
Help Wanted Issues: https://carpentries.org/help-wanted-issues/
Lesson Template Example: https://carpentries.github.io/lesson-example/
Carpentries Workbench: https://carpentries.org/blog/2022/01/live-lesson-infrastructure/


Notes:
Remind Sarah to Record the demo itself.


Additional Topics:
HPC Carpentry 





Jan 2022 - Development of the new program to support community building/management (Take 2)



Led by Alycia Crall

Sign-in: Name, Institution

AGENDA

NOTES


Q: How do you define sub-community?
A: This is any community that comes together under the Carpentries community.  Includes local communities, regional, around a domain or other topic.

Q: Are you thinking about mechanisms for helping people identify shared interests and get connected?  Challenge with maintaining privacy but finding people near them or interested in specific topics.
A: this challenge was identified in the survey, individuals have trouble finding the subcommunities.  Subcommunity registry - information on all the different subcommuntities.  Someone could search on different tags based on their interest and find info based on those sub communities.  Challenge is putting in place infrastructure needed for this project.  The Carpentries is also working on a new website so trying to build this procss into that.  Timeline a bit uncertain.

COMMUNITY: When you think about YOUR Carpentries community, how would you describe it?
Sarah - UW-Madison Carpentries Community - Local community of instructors that help teach the Carpentries Workshops, develop new lessons, a continue to learn more and improve our teaching practice. Midwest community - group of individuals from a variety of institions in the region who help support the development of local Carpentries communities. 1st one is local, 2nd one is regional.
Trisha - A good of individuals across the campus (and beyond) that help and instrcut at Carpentries workshops. We also have a monthly Instructor Development meeting where we discuss pedagogy and ways to make our teaching more effective. A place to share ideas. Everyone is very supportive and engaging. Local to UW-Madison, with some extras :)
Stephen: I have a small community of people at my institution who are all new(ish) to Carpentries. But there is a wider community within our state with more experienced instructors willing to help. I'm also just starting out with a curriculum development community, and I hope that will develop into a more geographically distributed community of folks with similar interests. Local(ish).
Rebecca -I consider my community to be broad - there's only one other certified instructor on our campus, so I tend to gravitate towards regional communities (or online) for curriculum/pedagogy help and  workshop teaching opportunities.  I hope to become more active in the community in general once we relocate to Georgia. 
Jamene: The community at KU is highly distributed - coordinated by the Libraries but dispersed among many different departments and units. We have tenuous connections to other institutions thanks to a sponsored project, but these largely depend on one person (me) for care and feeding. This regional group is really helpful for knowing other Carpentries participants in the region. The other regional group that is helpful is the Great Plains Network (GPN) Carpentries group. Here I'm describing local and regional communities.
Kay - Our community is active but ephemeral.  Myself and another colleague in the library provide the structure and the administration with no support.  We have been very successful recruiting instructor candidates and have worked hard to integrate our satellite campuses.  We feel like it is healthy and growing but it would be great if we could distribute the initiative a bit more.  This is our local community powered by the main campus.  We have some contacts with other regional institutions which has been boosted by the dependence on the virtual workshops of the last two + years.
Chris - anyone who is interested in Carpentries and who might want to share what they have learned. Also to find out what is going on more broadly. My only community is this one :) 
I feel like this is a local community as it is all online and it doesn't really matter where you are based. 
I think that when it is possible to meet face to face I think it will feel more local. 
John: Primarily the regional Midwest community that this group reflects, but I'm interested in potential sub-groups that we may have as working groups, like around curriculum augmentation for specific disciplines. (Regional community, with the possibility for people from other geographic areas to participate in some ways)
COMMUNICATIONS: How do you currently find out about Carpentries activities and opportunities?

John: Mostly through the Carpentries Slack. And Sarah ;)

Kay:  I monitor Slack and use it to share information with our community.  I also use a listserv that is not Carpentries but is for other data events and information to push out info on  workshops etc.  We have a OSU Carpentries workspace in Slack.  We have channels that are private for instructors and volunteers where we share info about organizing workshops etc.  I get emails from a variety of the Carpentries functions as well.

Stephen: I keep an eye on the Carpentries Clippings for things that are relevant to my interests. I also just keep in touch with other Carpentries-involved folks at my univeristy and especially with the UW-Madison Data Science Hub. 

Rebecca - I find out things from the Carpentries Slack. I wish there was an easier way to find out about subgroups. I found this one randomly while poking around the Slack channels.  Also, I have to remember to check in on Slack - I always prefer passive email newsletters (but I'm old).  I did just sign up for the Clippings email, so that's been helpful. Maybe there should be a "new carpentries instructor" tool kit or guide to find your communities, especially if you're a solo instructor at an institution.  

Chris - From this group, and from any training that Sarah is doing, that I attend. I read the Clippings but just for interest.

Sarah - carpentries clippings (newsletter), carpentries blog, slack, discuss, EC meetings, trainer meeting, maintainer meeting, this group.

Jamene: From this group and various Carpentries listservs and newsletters. Membership information comes directly from The Carpentries, but I sometimes hear about new developments from regional groups first, e.g.: when I can't attend a members' council meeting.

Trisha - Local Carpentries Community, Instructor Trainers meetings, CarpentryCon meetings




Nov 2021 - Development of the new program to support community building/management



Led by Sarah Stevens

Sign-in: Name, Institution

Announcment: Dec Meeting canclled, next meeting in Janurary (Should we pick a new time?)
CarpentryCon 2022 will be virtual/global conference - two co-chairs for this hemisphere, 2 for the other hemisphere
- will do planning for the different areas for events across timezones
interested volunteering?  you will be welcome - reach out to Trisha
planning starting soon


Lesson Development -
Jamene at KU - talked about lesson dev at least month's call - idea related to EPSCOR(sp?) grant - proposing idea to NSF to propose lesson development workshop for teams involved in team science - intended outcome will be some form of Carpentries lesson developed around the kind of data this project is producing.  Various forms of microbio data coming out of intermittent streams (water that is sometimes there/sometimes not there).  For NSF need this to be a bit more broadly - need to talk to Carpentries and Lesson Dev community about what kind of consulting would be avialble, who I should talk to?  researchers doing team science in area of waters developing lesson materials
Kay Centrally organized workshops topic - 



Topics for next year - 


Action Items:
Sarah: Send email asking about changing meeting time to email list/slack




Oct 2021 - Midwest Incubator Lesson Showcase



Sign-in: Name, Institution



https://carpentries-incubator.org/

If you'd like to showcase your incubator lesson, please add your name and a link to your lesson below:

If you'd like discuss a particular incubator lesson, please add your name and a link to the lesson below:


Sept 2021 - Midwest Carpentries Mentoring Program 


What should the mentoring program look like?  What help would you like to get from a regional mentor?  Would you be interested in being paired up with a mentor to learn more?  Would you be interested in being paired up with a mentee to help them get started in the community?

Sign-in: Name, Institution

Notes:
Carpentries Mentoring program https://carpentries.org/blog/2020/11/Mentoring-2021-Cycle1/

Chris: New carpentries instructor, would have been helpful to have someone to talk to or practice against for the teaching demo.  Just to touch base with another colleague who is on the same track and get feedback in advance.
Sarah: would be good to match mentors/mentees at end of instructor training before checkout
Yuanxi: Would be really helpful to have someone help with setting up the workshop website.  Usually can do the bare minimum, don't feel very proficient with the website.
Sarah: is part of instructor training some times; Sarah will have follow up session to go over this with individuals; would be a good section to have a mentor serve along those lines
John: Liked Chris's idea of peer mentoring.  The idea of two or more people at the same state where people can make progress together, and they understand the situation you are in.  Should keep in mind for this program.  Like that for this particular version of that.  Liked that it might raise the percentage of poeple completing instructor training.
Alycia: Currently in the process of revamping the regional coords program.  Looking to developing it more into community development.  More structure around new communities coming together, regional or local, or around a particular domain.  Each of these communites would have some specific leadership associated with them - community coord, CoC support person, Communications support person.  Potentially setting it up where some person is in the role and someone is taking over that role and having them work together.  Two people in the same role, one doing the actvities and the other one learning and then rotate.  More related to community management, could be a model that we could use in this community that could be used later.
Chris: My comments don't follow the traditional route. Many trainers come to the course, take the course, then are a helper, then end up in training, and then become an instructor.  We got in somewhat seperately didn't teach or go to the workshops prior to becoming an instructor.
Sarah: Important to realise that different people come to the community in different ways; with local community, maybe we can articulate various pathways to get engaged locally
John: Have another program in this region for seed workshops so likes the idea of coupling ideas together
John: What does mentoring mean?  What granular details people might need assistance with?
Specific things mentees want to learn?


Next Month's meeting topic - Incubator lesson showcase?  What lessons are you developing in the Incubator?


Action Items:
Sarah/John: Put together the list of topics and create a form for people to volunteer to get involved in these peer mentoring groups.
Sarah : Put a call out for people who want to showcase their incubator lessons next month



Aug 2021 - The Carpentries at Smaller (non-R1) Institutions


Aug 30th - noon ET / 11am CT / 10am MT
What are the unique needs for hands-on skill development at predominantly undergraduate institutions (PUIs), including community colleges, minority-serving institutions (MSIs), and Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs)? We welcome new participation from PUI instructors who are interested in developing data science curricula at their institutions.

Midwest Carpentries Community site: https://midwestbigdatahub.org/get-involved/midwest-carpentries-community/

Sign-in: Name, Institution, what you're hoping to learn today:
John MacMullen (wjohn@illinois.edu), Midwest Big Data Innovation Hub / NCSA, UIUC; interested in PUI perspectives
Sarah Stevens (she/her/hers) , UW-Madison, interested in learning more about how the Carpentries workshops/lessons have been used at other institutions and how we can help support new ideas of how they can be used
Jamene Brooks-Kieffer (she/her), University of Kansas, also interrested in Carpentries workshops in support of PUIs, TCUs, and MSIs
Alycia Crall (she/her), The Carpentries
Kay Bjornen (she/her) Oklahoma State University, interested in how to collaborate with partner institutions and in any movement back to inperson  workshops?
Melanie Rodriguez- interested in how MBDH can work with other insitutions with data science needs
Mousa Ayyash - Chicago State University
Meghan Salmon-Tumas - Northland College. Hoping to get an overview of the landscape for support in incorporating big data in classrooms at small colleges. 
Mike Renfro / Tennessee Tech University / renfro@tntech.edu




Notetaker: Sarah (others are welcome to help!)

Carpentries has worked a lot with the R1 system ( often landgrant universityies) - really in the research unversity environment typically
Want to talk about instituions that are itnerested in hands-on data science training from the Carpentries but maybe don't serve graduate students/researchers
MBDH - 12 state region with potientailly hundreds of institutions that might not be aware or understand how to participate.
How  can the Carpentries org bring in people who are new who don't have awareness of the Carpentries model?  What are some of the needs in these spaces compared to the classic R1 model?
- in Research uni model, we have a lot of the learners are grad students / post-docs / earlier career faculty / research staff  and instructors are similar.  Many partners at undergrad institutions don't have grad students, etc - also may have different needs. Particularlly interested in engaging with TCU's and other institutions with 2 yr or 4 yr primarily UG focused - focus on skills that can apply to some particuar career path rather than skills needed to do research.  specific needs for data science skill devlopment - one example Data management / data cleaning.
What have you seen as the interest for why learners come to the workshop?
Follow-up with Midwest Hub (John) if you are wanting to build a Carpentries Community or know of others.




July 2021 - (Fall) Semester Community Activities


What do your local communities do during the semester?  Any workshops? Other community building activities? Lesson development?
July 26th - noon ET / 11am CT / 10am MT

Sign-in: Name, Institution, Would you like to talk about your local Carpentries community semester activities?

Notes:

UW-Madison
Teach workshops in a bit of a different format - we organize "mini-workhshops", one lesson from various workshops throughout the sememster, typically a half-day every other week, people can pick and choose what they want to learn
Instructor Development - Stable sense of community for instructors and helpers

MBDHub - event in a box framework - for planning a meeting or event. 
Carpentries Self Organized workshop info - https://midwestbigdatahub.org/midwest-carpentries-community/

Start of midwest Carpentries community webpage! https://midwestbigdatahub.org/midwest-carpentries-community/
UW-Madison also putting together an Instructor/Helper centric page about the local community

Action Items:
Sarah: Send out new calendar invite! Work on Agenda (maybe a different facilitator too?)
Clare: Invite UW-System folks we identified in the past that might be interested and Marquette indivudals (Max and maybe Heather James - though she is at a different uni now)
Alycia: Will attend next month and see if Carpentries org has people we can invite (folks who have put workshops together at smaller institutions)
John: Reaching out the folks at predominately undergrad institutions in the Midwest who might be interested in the region but have no idea what the Carpentries is.



June 2021 - Lesson Development and Study Groups


We will move this session one hour earlier and join the UK community! The meeting will be at 11 ET / 10am CT / 9am MT - Go to this HackMD page for connection details and notes for this session -https://hackmd.io/Yeo2FNMQSo-XHhF04gFGeQ?both 


May 2021 - Teaching Debugging


Recommended Reading (not required!) : https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3408877.3432374
Some Summary Slides: https://mariakamenetsky.com/files/teachingdebugging.html

Sign-in: Name, Institution, How do you feel you learned debugging (or not)?


Notes:



Actions - 


Upcoming workshops at your Institutions? Add below, please indicate if these are open for registration outside of your institution.  Sarah will send out a summary of the items below next week.
Need helpers/instructors for your online workshop, send requests to the email list or slack channel!

April 2021 - CANCELLED



March 2021 Meeting Agenda - Library Carpentry


What is your background with teaching/learning/facilitating Library Carpentry workshops? How have LC workshops gone for you and your learners? Any thoughts to share about the LC curriculum? What kinds of learners have the LC workshops worked best for? Do you have any hopes/plans for future LC initiatives or workshops? Interest in LC-related collaborations?

Sign-in: (name, institution, would you like to talk about LC?)



Notes:
Notetaker: Sarah (but everyone is welcome to contribute)

Cody - Helped to organize an in-depth library carpentry that he has done for libtech pre-conference.  Lot of interest from people but the conference was cancelled, move it to online for free in the fall.  Most interesting was that there were folks from a bunch of different institutions.  Lots of public libraries and small institutions. more focus on social stuff about how you would use this at your institutions.  I'm the only one from my dept who is interested.  Contrast with UC Berkeley there were only a few people interested.  Curious about match of the audience.  Heard through the grapevine that when people try to bring it to a single library there are issues with the fit of the curriculum.

Trisha - Taught at UW-MKE in fall.  Seemed like people were somewhat required to attend.  Teaching the material, my background is as a data librarian.  There were so many questions about "I don't see how this applies to my job.  Why am I here?  Can you make this more applicable to my work".  Difficult to address these questions because not sure about how to connect it with reference librarian work. Maybe needs to be built into curriculum or the institution needs to go into it thinking about that connection ahead.

Cameron - 2nd Trisha's comments.  Ran this back in 2017, ask came out of iSchool and customized a lot.  Reuqest from faculty  where A bunch of collections trapped in a pdf on a website.  Got together with a few other faculty and focused on webscrapping, did tabula and other customizations.  Put that at the forefront. Used the collection from the faculty member.  That was super popular.  Faculty was able to use it as part of her project.  Also did what makes a good spreadsheet and open refine as those were typically good tools.  Called it "Collections Carpentries".  We got good turn out, including researchers and grad students.  Think some of the success is related to the rebranding.
Heather - mostly historical society and research staff, maybe not lots of reference or catelogers, more archivists, special collections.  Some Cancer research maybe.
Cameron - there was a surprising diversity of researcher/domains represented based on it.  Lots of people with use cases, and forefronting the webscraping

Cody Q: Mostly research or reference librarians? for Trisha
Cody - most every case I've taught we've subbed out the intro to data lesson with regex with a tiny 1 hr quick intro on regex or more likely the tidy-data (spreadsheets and best practices) as the intro.  Great for some folks but if you are a data librarian this might not be as new.  Seems to resonate with others.  At another workshop - online over course of spring - where 3/4 of it is really python for social scientists but is for library folks.  Like what Cameron said about putting it out under webscraping to get a particular audience.

Heather - Attended Cameron's workshop but curious.  RDAP had a workshop about Data Literacy and Carpentries.  Filenames that I see from my co-workers make me cringe.  Lots of special characters.  If we are doing webscraping, how are we ordering the data on the back end.  Not really in SWC/DC but know that Librarians do still struggle with organizing their data, google drives and shared drives for examples. Can see this being highly relevent.  Folder naming / hierarchy.   You are getting this data, how are you oraganizing it.
Trisha - Curriculum does have a very small lesson on that.  I've shoved this into intro to data when I teach it.  Feel like the data management part is really importnat.  Hearing from everyone that the curriculum is good if you modify to your audience.  The situation I've had when teaching it, the host institution is like "lets go with the standard LC" and it doesn't quite work with out modifying it appropriately.  Maybe more modular. 
Cody - Also the titles are weird - tidy-data makes people think about R.  Doesn't get into filenames (this does get into in unix shell but rows/columns.  Maybe new lesson could start to address this.  On LC advisory committee, curriculum should be better where you can just offer it, also want to make it clearer and more modular.

Sarah: timeline on the LC changes?  Maybe midwest LC across institutions would be helpful?
Cody: not sure on timeline, thinking about who might be interested in each lesson to help with audience.  With Midwest workshop maybe we could do this to pilot some of those modules.  LIke the idea of finding the right conference with pre-conference.  Specific audience of library staff. Maybe reach out to those networks a little more broadly and reach the cataloging group for example.  For data librarinas, maybe they already hav these skills
Heather: lots of new data librarians that would find this useful
Clare: hosted 3 hr session on MISSED THIS session, and that got a mix of people who generally work with text data.
Cody: For pre-conference there might be a 3 hr short session, so that might make sense.

John: Discussion of alignment between academic libraries and curriclum,  Had Chris Erdman who taught LC, science librarians and MISSED THIS librarians were most interested in the curriculum, mostly new librarians.  5% of learners went onto being an instructor.  What would motivate people to becoming an instructor?  Thoughts about what motivated you?  Are you compenstaed by your institution?  Passionate about the topic?
Cody: not compensated but part of the job.  This varies at different institutions. With our membership we can get 6 new instructors.  Getting difficult to find new poeple to teach because we've tapped the most obvious candidates.  There are graduate students but their motivation is different.  Difficult to make those connections if you aren't connected with an LIS program.  Seems like this is how it worked at UCLA and UW-Madison.   Not sure how many of those students are going on, might depend on their job.  Seeing on my job ads, wasn't on mine but then was asked about it.  Is there a motivation that would make you want to do that?  The right fit? not as relevant?

Heather: Though we do have a library school, we don't get a lot of library students in the Carpentries.  Don't feel like it aligns with what they do.  I got into this for research support.  I don't really use these skills but teach them to researchers to help them.
John: Elizabeth Wicks has been involved in connecting with library students here at UIUC.
Cody: Sometimes strange gulf between library school and library at some institutions.  Not often people from the libraries teaching library students.  Drawn to conferences as and thinking about how to reach new folks who are in these communites.

New instructors at UW, potential online library carpentry instructors

Hopes or plans about possible collaborations?  Are you doing similar work in terms of teaching computational skills (affilated with Carpentries or not)?

Trisha: Running workshops on R and python through the libraries, loosely based on the Carpentries but gets a bit more in-depth, 4 2-hr sessions a week or two weeks apart.  Has been very popular. 
Heather: Some library staff to help.  Other thing is we have an informal study group for python in the libraries.  That has been very succuessful and has helped get more helpers for the workshop 
Cody: hard to measure, there was an existing group that was teaching some R/ python/ etc.  but were teaching it in an "old school" lecture style with difficult exercise at the end but have transititioned to more Carpentries style workshops.

Clare: Development of the text analysis of python workshops we are working on.  We did consider using items from UW-MKE digital collections but the data cleaning would have been a bit unwieldy for the scope of the workshop.  Taking a bit more of a Software Carpentry approach to that one.  Focusing on python for the whole workshop.  Could be adapted in the future to use something from digital collections.
Cody: Would that be a data Carpentry lesson?
Clare: Started with the idea that it would be a Data Carpentry lesson.  But using the swc gapminder lesson to introduce python for 1 day and then on the second day introducing them to text based modeling.  More conceptual info about text model and then NLP toolkit
Sarah: not sure where this will go in terms of lesson programming
Cody - Like the model of using library collections.  Would be interested in looking at it.
Clare - Decided to use Project Gutenberg using the api from the NLP toolkit for now.

Vision for building LC into these hubs? collaborations? connections?

John: Looking at alignment for research communities on campus.   maybe starting with development with specific research communities.  The question of where a module fits.  Might fit in both with customizations for librarians or researchers.  Another component are FAIR and CARE principles for data.  Also looking at univeristy extention audience.  Thinking about partnerships between libraries and extention in R1 institutions.
Cody: https://librarycarpentry.org/Top-10-FAIR/  Doesn't fit into the curriculum but it is a nice reusable module.

Cameron - having a text analysis for humanities lesson could be a good bridge.  The lessons don't focus so much on text and the Humanities researchers could be useful.
Cody - not having a tool based lesson for this can be helpful

John: very interested in capacity building particular around instruction, trying to bring that to smaller institutions.  Most of Carpentries is R1 but doing a lot of outreach for community/tribal collage institutions.

Cody: Interested in putting something LC together for the midwest, would like to get these smaller institutions involved as they might have a really unmet need.  Anyone here interested?  

Cameron - at a lot of the smaller institutions have many roles so it is hard for them to find the time.  Might want to incentivize this in some way. Compensation? Support? Online workshops?




Feb 2021 Meeting Agenda - Instructor Training


How do you recruit and train instructors at your institution?  Host local instructor training?  Join in an online training?  How to you decide who gets the seats for your Carpentries membership?  Do you use all your Carpentries instructor training seats?  Would you like to see shared midwest instructor training(s)?


Sign-in: (name, institution, would you like to talk about isntructor training at your institution?)

Notes:

March Topic : Library Carpentry

Action Items: 
Cody: Help with prompt questions for LC Meeting next month and invite others
Everyone: invite others who are interested or knowledgable about LC
Sarah: Setup etherpad for next month, invite Trisha and other local UW folks about LC meeting, send reminders

April/Future Meeting Suggestions: Regional cooordination/ MBDH goals and ideas etc.

Jan 25th, 2021



Jan 2021 Meeting Agenda - What are the Carpentries?  How can the Carpentries Workshops and Community be useful for your institution?

Introductions (5-10 min)
What are the Carpentries? - Sarah Stevens (10 min)
Shared experiences from the Midwest Carpentries community (3 for ~5 min each) - Some possible questions to answer: How have the Carpentries been beneficial to your organization?  How many and what types of workshops have your run?  How does your community organize workshops together?  How many instructors teach the workshops at your organization?
Sign up to share your experience below (name and institution):
Q & A (20 min)


Sign-in: (name, institution, one thing you are hoping to learn from this session)

Notes:


- KU - got 3 certified isntructors from Great Plans network.  Had ~2? workshops a year for 2018-2019.  Became a Carpentries member of their own in 2019.  Currently 8 certified instructors.  Mostly Software Carpentry.  In 2020 had first online workshop in July/Aug.  Have been planning Data Carpentry Genomics workshop for the first couple weeks of Jan 2021.  Plans for Data Carpentry Social Sciences workshop in spring.  Trying to tailtor workshop presented to expertise of instructors.  Have 6 instructor training seats to fill this year to get new instructors training.  Work Carpentries included in with NSF EPSCoR grant.  9 instructors to in train from the grant across 8 institutions.
- Minnesota - From an instructors perspective getting involved in the caprentries.  Not a researcher, software developer, libraries web development dept.  Thought I would be doing more teaching of the researchers but learners have taught me a lot.  Learned about reserachers/learners needs and their perspective.  Best way or one of best ways for people like me to get invovled is as a helper.  Having some expertise in software can make the teaching more difficult sometimes.  Leaners can relate a bit more with instructors who are also reserachers.  Esp. in teaching online.  What we've done to make online teaching easier - ask learners to put their questions in the zoom chat (for helpers), questions from the most advanced learners come into the chat (beyond the curriculum) - hard to answer this in the main lecture (can get off topic or demotivate learners) so better in chat.  One learner asked lots of questions about research project - first tried to talk to him in a breakout room (as his many quesitons were distracting others), eventually said this is not the best time to answer this question and instead request a 1:1 consultation to answer research specific questions.  Found in in-person workshops we spend a lot of time with setup.  Expected this would be more difficult on zoom.  So we provided alternative online, using jupyterhub service that anyone could log into.  Created docker images for jupyter hub to use for teaching.  Put all the material that they would normally download in the docker images.  Used as a back-up if they didn't install things ahead of time.  One last thing about teaching/helping.  Try to participate more as a helper than an instructor, it is still helpful for people to do instructor training.  Very valuable, esp the emphasis on respect/empathy for everyone and practical ways to achieve that.


Questions!
- For Jamene or anyone: Outreach to depts for dicipline specific workshops:  What kind of outreach are you doing?  How do you build those networks?
- Future Meeting topic




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Nov 2020 Meeting Agenda - Growing and supporting your local instructor community while virtual
Share your strategies for supporting and growing your instructor community.  Do you still have new instructors/helpers joining the community?  Hosted any virutal events for your instructors?  How has your community changed while virutal?
Attendees:

Discussion:
- Short discussion - Mentorship program interest
- Monthly Topic Discussion - Growing and supporting your local instructor community while virtual
Share your strategies for supporting and growing your instructor community.  Do you still have new instructors/helpers joining the community?  Hosted any virutal events for your instructors?  How has your community changed while virutal?
Action Items:
- Sarah: Update the calendar invites for jan-may and cancel the Dec meeting
- All: think about other people/instituions you think we should invite for next month's meeting
- Sarah: Make agenda and template email invite for Jan Meeting.

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Next meeting is Oct 26th, 2020, 12am EST / 11am CT / 10am MT
Connection : 
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81573878113?pwd=ajU1VUIzV2NsMVlsNWdaN2ozSmxZUT09

Oct 2020 Meeting Agenda - Running online workshops
How has your transition to online workshops gone?   What worked well?  What could be improved?  What were your biggest challenges and successes? Did you follow the Carpentries recommendations (https://carpentries.org/online-workshop-recommendations/ )? Any feedback we should submit to the Carpentries?
Attendees:

Want to talk about your experience so far? add your name here


Next meeting is Sept 28th, 2020, 12am EST / 11am CT / 10am MT
Connection : 
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81573878113?pwd=ajU1VUIzV2NsMVlsNWdaN2ozSmxZUT09

Sept 2020 Meeting Agenda
Attendees:


Introductions
Topic of the Month: Community Lesson development
UW-Madison - Sarah/Clare

Motivation for lesson development and goals?
Carpentries Incubator - is the community driving lesson development, or are these more local needs?
UIUC - Jill and Neil

Questions:
Who helps develop lessons? Carpentries instructors/helpers? unaffiliated? Thinking about local community needed to develop lessons.

Opportunity to learn about research and what researchers need
Carpentries as a way of not having to individually develop lessons or curricula
Lesson developers and maintainers need exposure to researchers, learners, and workshops to understand what to explain more/less. Cognitive load is a grounding concept in lesson development. Shared vocabulary provided by Carpentries instructor training helps with this.

Carpentries Incubator versus Carpentries Lab?

This regional call will soon be part of a community for the Midwest Big Data Hub - this is Sarah's project

Oct Meeting topic: Running online workshops

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August 2020 Meeting Agenda
Attendees:
Introductions
Topic of the Month: How things work at your institution 

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July 2020 Meeting Notes
Attendees: 

July 27, 2020 Agenda

Introductions
Questions and Needs Discussion


June 29, 2020 Agenda
Present: 




May 25, 2020 Notes
Present: Angela Li, Sarah Stevens