Carpentries Instructors’ meeting
- Monday, September 12, 2022
- 9:00-10:00 AM
Present:
Albin, Brooks-Kieffer, Dwywer, Everman, Kisielinski, Koseva, McCowen, Lanfear, Ramos, Russell, Trana, Wheeler
Announcements
Beginning with the October 2022 meeting, Tami and Elizabeth will run more of the monthly meeting in a transition period leading up to Jamene’s Spring 2023 sabbatical.
Agenda
- Data Carpentry Ecology: Spreadsheets & OpenRefine Debrief
- Update on remaining Fall 2022 workshops
- Other topics
Discussions
Data Carpentry Ecology: Spreadsheets & OpenRefine Debrief
Plus:
- Instruction delivery felt smooth
- Good engagement from learners who were present
- All learners who attended stayed for the entire workshop
- Enthusiasm about OpenRefine
- Lesson infrastructure was good
Delta:
- OpenRefine delivery was a little quick; 3.5 hours is probably a better amount of time but is hard to schedule
- One learner had install issues with OpenRefine; did not have admin rights on their computer
- Remote computing resources did not work when we needed them to
- Learner was able to install an older version of Google Refine and mostly follow along
- Poor attendance rate: 7/20
Discussion about encouraging attendance and improving no-show rate:
- Free registration is too easy to do without a real commitment to attend
- Refundable deposits are very difficult now
- In workshop communications, emphasize instructors’ prep work
- Put a registration message in Eventbrite along the lines of “Please don’t register unless you plan to show up”
- A way to register as “maybe” or “confirmed”? Then could admit more confirmed learners and give “maybe” learners a chance to confirm 3 days or so before the workshop
- The Carpentries indicates that a modest registration fee can help learners commit
- UW Madison charges a ~$5 registration fee for their students; more for faculty, staff, and unaffiliated learners
- Folks are reluctant to put up financial barriers to learning
- Offer waivers of the registration fee?
- Clear steps to obtain the waiver and make it easy to reach out with no justification needed
- Also puts the learner in touch with a person; makes the process more personal
Update on remaining Fall 2022 workshops
The Fall 2022 workshop schedule is complete and all workshops have instructors. Helpers are still needed for all remaining topics but R. Full schedule is on KU Libraries’ Data Carpentry page.
Robert offered to touch base with Amy and Erin about OpenRefine. Paul requested a learner count for SQL on Friday, September 16. Jamene will send updates to the instructor group and AIMS as registration opens for each topic. Jamene is working on having Nautilus remote computing in use for Python in 2 weeks.
The schedule includes a placeholder for an early January workshop. Whether during that week of January 3-6 or a bit later, Boryana, Caroline, and possibly Elizabeth are interested in offering Data Carpentry Genomics. We have twice offered DC-G during this time frame: January 2021 and February 2022.
Other topics
Rob is not teaching a class at Haskell this fall, but his contacts there are interested in a workshop. He will be working on this in the near term; Casey is interested in contributing. Hopes to hold the workshop in person, but online is a possibility. Possible topics are Spreadsheets & OpenRefine, R (especially for students in a Statistics class), or Intro Data Viz (although this course material isn’t ready yet). Paul suggested that KU’s Center for Undergraduate Research may have Haskell connections, and Casey indicated that Haskell is now a KanREN member.
Notes by JBK and a mystery contributor, posted by JBK