Carpentry@UiO 2020 Annual Report

Carpentry@UiO 2020 Annual Report #

Report written by Naoe Tatara and Annika Rockenberger (both University of Oslo library)

Learner Feedback and Continuous Evaluation #

Carpentries survey #

In this year, we used the Carpentries pre- and post-workshop survey. Due to the problems described in the next section, we have not yet gotten access to the whole dataset. However, the responses given in 5-Likert scale were mostly positive.

On the other hand, the responses written in free text are summarised in “Carpentries-survey-results” Sheet in Carpentry@UiO G Suite shared drive, which is accessible only to board members. If the contents are deemed to be non-person identifiable, this can be archived in GitHub repository in .tsv format.

Major strength #

Among the 47 responses (in total for all the workshops) on major strength of the workshop, the following is found as commonly expressed.

  • Access to helpers and responsive instructors Learners appreciated that their problems were quickly solved by the helpers and instructors.
  • Easy to follow and understand Clear instructions from basics, good pace, access to written lesson materials are much appreciated.
  • Good lesson materials and hands-on style Practical exercises with realistic examples well mixed with lectures were raised as a solid strength.

What to be improved #

From the 36 free-text responses (in total for all the workshops) on something to be improved, the following are found to be major issues.

  • Time allocation For example, a suggestion for two days instead of one day, felt the pace is faster in the latter part compared to the time spent on the basic parts in the morning.
  • Preparation Both for learners and instructors. Lack of preparation should not drain others’ (regardless of the role) time.
  • Clearer description of the workshop contents and prerequisites These are expressed in terms of the level of the workshops and the skills that were necessary for the workshop (such as the use of the command-line interface).

How instructors and helpers affected learning experiences #

Most of the 36 free-text responses (in total for all the workshops) on how instructors and helpers affected learning experiences, were about quick and flexible help on troubles learners got.

Other minor opinions include themes relevant to the preparation mentioned above. In online workshops, effective use of helpers was raised as a factor that affects learning experiences on both positive and negative side.

Survey in future #

Using the Carpentries survey was found to have some drawbacks.

  1. Low response rate The response rates, especially for the post-workshop survey, were generally low (mostly less than half).
  2. Limited access to results When the number of responses is less than 10, the system does not allow downloading result data but only show the summary. Naoe has requested the core team to gather all the responses to the surveys for UiO workshops in 2020, but the data is not yet available.
  3. Not fully applicable/relevant questions Beside the questions asked are not necessarily very relevant to each workshop, as the workshop by Carpentry@UiO mostly focuses on single-lesson rather than the two-day standard workshops.

The Board on the 9th Dec discussed and decided to continue using the Carpentries survey. Instructor onboarding manual is to be edited to make sure that the instructors keep the last 5 minutes for completing the post-workshop survey. (Link to board meeting Minutes: https://github.com/uio-carpentry/organisational/blob/master/meetings/201209_board_meeting.md)

Also, some fundamental questions that the Library is interested in will be implemented in the sign-up form.

Workshops #

UiO-Carpentry arranged altogether 11 one-day Software Carpentry workshops (most of which could be taught on-site) and was part of two two-day Data Carpentry workshops and two half-day mini-workshops (conducted online). During spring/summer and late fall Software Carpentry workshops were moved online, while several workshops in early fall could be arranged on-site with reduced participant numbers.

For the 11 Carpentry workshops arranged by UiO-Carpentry, in total, 492 sign-ups were made. Total capacity was 283, and the number of learners who attended was in total 187. Due to even more limited access to rooms in addition to the reduced capacity of each room at UiO, the in-person workshop capacity in the Autumn semester was reduced to approximately 1/3 of that of Spring semester before covid-19 related restrictions applied.

One-day workshops #

Two-day workshops #

Two Data Carpentry online workshops arranged by Nord University were open for external participants from Norway. The workshops were disseminated through the DSC at UBO.

Carpentry Mini-Workshops #

The University of Wisconsin-Madison arranged two online mini-workshops together with an instructor from the UiO-community. The workshops were open for participants from UiO.

Carpentry Workshops During Research Bazaar 2020 #

  • January Research Bazaar - with contributions from the UiO-Carpentry community and several of its instructors.

Community Building & Social Events #

COVID-19 posed a challenge in regards to community building and arranging social events for UiO-Carpentry. With moving many activities online and good communication with our members, we managed to organise a fair number of social events and community activities.

Onboarding #

Three onboarding sessions were held, two on-site sessions in January 2020 and one online session in September 2020. Onboarding is intended for new instructors and helpers and as a general information exchange around the practicalities of running Carpentry workshops at UiO. Materials for the onboarding events are updated continuously and can be accessed on GitHub, UiO-Carpentry/organisational/workshop_operations

StudyGroup #

4 StudyGroup meetings were held between January and early March 2020. Moving the StudyGroup online seemed like a good solution. Still, participation dwindled towards summer (3 meetings were held), likely as a result of overexposure to online meetings, conferences, and workshops etc. The StudyGroup was thus put on halt during the fall.

Recruiting #

Four new instructors (with a focus on R) could be recruited for UiO-Carpentry, another instructor is in training. Two seats came out of the NeiC CodeRefinery Platinum Membership (UiO members were eligible due to UiO’s membership in NeiC). Besides, an already certified instructor recently joined UiO. Several new helpers could be recruited and supported workshops, both on-site and online during 2020.

The Carpentries record shows that eight seats were used in the membership year of May 2019 to May 2020, which exceeds the reserved spots by 2. On the 8th Dec 2020, it is however shown that UiO has six seats remaining for the membership period of August 2020 to August 2021. Naoe made an inquiry regarding the number of seats reserved for UiO during the current membership period to the core team and is still waiting for confirmation.

Update on the 17th Dec. It is confirmed that in the previous membership year UiO had 3 unused seats carried over from years before. 1 seat remained unused, but this is not to be carried over to this (2020 Aug - 2021 Aug) membership year. Thus, we have 6 seats for 2020 Aug - 2021 Aug.

Actively recruiting candidates from the UiO-Carpentry community for these spots had to be postponed to 2021. Several potential instructors declined the offer due to lack of time. More active recruitment has to be initiated in early 2021.

Social Events #

Two social events for the UiO-Carpentry community were arranged online, one at the end of summer and one before Christmas 2020. They were held online.

  • 2020-09-17: UiO-Carpentry “fika”-time
  • 2020-12-17: UiO-Carpentry Christmas mingle

In addition, two online meetings for the Nordic-Baltic Carpentries region were held online, hosted by the UiO-Carpentry local coordinator (AR) and the regional coordinator for the Nordic and Baltic countries (NT).

  • 2020-08-07: Social Meetup during CarpentryCon@Home (16 participants)
  • 2020-10-30: Community Discussion for Nordic-Baltic Carpentries (15 participants) (A blog post is published based on this at CodeRefinery website and is to be published at the Carpentries, (PR))

Organisation #

Local Community Coordinator #

The tasks of the local community coordinator were shared by AR and NT (both University of Oslo Library). In practice, this means support in recruiting instructors and helpers for workshops, setting up workshop websites, setting up and managing workshop registration, communication with workshop participants, communication with The Carpentries regarding workshops, maintenance of the UiO-Carpentry websites hosted by UiO/UBO as well as the community website hosted on GitHub, managing mailing lists, communication with the UiO-community via mailing lists, booking rooms and/or setting up virtual rooms, checking in with instructors and helpers before and after workshops.

The local coordinators established and documented effective routines for most tasks regarding hosting workshops and community-communication.

Board #

In March 2020, the UiO-Carpentry Board was successfully constituted. The election took place in February, and four Board Members were elected for a term of 2 years. In addition, the UiO library appointed two Board Members. The Board consists of the following members:

  • Chair Lex Nederbragt
  • Vice-chair Viviane Girardin
  • Communication officer Naoe Tatara (appointed by UiO library)
  • Secretary Tobias Busch
  • Annika Rockenberger (appointed by UiO library)
  • Anne Bergsaker

The Board can be contacted via Board @ carpentry dot uio dot no. The Board had four meetings during 2020, minutes for the meetings can be found in (organisational/meetings), “yyddmm_board-meeting.md”.

Website #

Regarding the Carpentry@UiO-relevant webpages within uio.no domain, there were/are the followings:

  1. uio.no/carpentry, redirected to a page under UiO employees’ site with various information - to be deleted/edited
  2. A page under UiO employees’ site, research data management, along with other things than Carpentries - to be deleted/edited
  3. A page under University of Oslo Library, Courses and Events, Freestanding courses - edited considerably
  4. Under 3 above, focus on Software Carpentry - deleted
  5. Under 3 above, focus on Data Carpentry - deleted

Based on advice given by the web editor at the Library, the Carpentries-relevant pages in uio.no domain were set as follows.

Workshop page #

Community page #

GitHub, Communication #

All official documentation of workshops and other activities of UiO-Carpentry is published under the UiO-Carpentry GitHub organisation. The GitHub repositories are actively maintained by the community, the Board, and the local coordinators. Apart from repositories for workshop websites, UiO-Carpentry maintains the following community repositories:

A significant change was made to communications: the domain for the UiO-Carpentry mailing lists was changed from @swcarpentry to @carpentry. Also, one underused mailing list was discarded (resbaz).

The community now actively uses the following mailing lists:

  • carpadmin @ carpentry dot uio dot no –> coordinators at the University Library and the chairperson of the Carpentry@UiO Board
  • organisers @ carpentry dot uio dot no –> all instructors and helpers, plus those on the carpadmin list
  • announcements @ carpentry dot uio dot no –> all people that have shown interest or have attended workshops + those on the organisers list
  • contact-us @ carpentry dot uio dot no–> coordinators at the University Library. To be used for workshop communications
  • board @ carpentry dot uio dot no–> the members of the Carpentry@UiO Board

All lists have been updated.

The subscribers of the organisers list have been contacted and asked for re-subscription. There are now 41 active members on the list of previously >80 of unclear status.

Via the list, instructors and helpers for workshops are recruited, and information relevant to the UiO-Carpentry community is communicated.