New opportunities to lead Carpentry-Con-type programming year-round

A blog post published in February 2023 highlighted findings and four key recommendations from the most recent CarpentryCon evaluation report. In this post, it was announced that CarpentryCon would be pushed back by one year and would be hosted in South Africa in 2025 instead of 2024. The post also noted that, due to this schedule change, we would be introducing new opportunities to lead CarpentryCon-type programming year-round. We are excited to announce that the time has come!

New Types of Community Programming

On 1 June, we will begin offering two new categories of programming that any member of our community can host. Community Discussions will remain with some changes to include more general programming. The three categories will now be:

1. Community Discussion Session: structured (e.g., panel discussion with Q&A) or flexibly structured session (e.g., networking session) on any topic relevant to the community that can be in any format of the host’s choosing
2. Skill-up Session: session offering a professional development opportunity for the community where hosts teach relevant skills
3. Collaboration Session: session providing dedicated time and space to co-develop a community resource or to co-work on any community activity

The Community Discussion Sessions will continue to offer a space for discussing a particular topic of interest (“Themed Community Discussions”), learning about and discussing new developments and programs in our organisation (“Carpentries Conversations”), and networking with other members as part of local or regional subcommunities (“Regional Community Calls”). Our Welcome Sessions, with content and structure designed for new members of our community, will continue to be offered as Community Discussion Sessions. All other programming offered will be determined by what the community submits. For any Instructor interested in discussing a past or upcoming workshop with other Instructors (“Pre- and Post-Workshop Discussions”), this will no longer be offered in Community Discussion Sessions, but will continue to be a standing agenda item at the monthly Instructor meetings. These occur on the second Tuesday of each month at 15:00 and 21:00 UTC.

We know that many of you come to this community to learn and share knowledge, and we hope this change will provide more opportunities for professional development and teaching. We invite you to be creative in what you might offer as a session.

• Would you like to learn from community members who have relevant experience or expertise ? Host a panel as a Community Discussion Session!
• Are you thinking about how Artificial Intelligence (AI) could impact how we teach coding and computer skills? You can create space for the community to have that conversation in a facilitated Community Discusion Session.
• Do you have a colleague who you would love The Carpentries community to hear from? Invite them to present at a Community Discussion Session you host.
• Do you like gaming? Consider hosting a networking event as a Community Discussion to lead the community in an online game.
• Do you have expertise in teaching, coding, lesson development, community building, or institutional change? What about physical fitness or mindfulness? Host a Skill-up Session!
• Are you working on a lesson in The Carpentries incubator that is ready for some fresh eyes? Are you a Maintainer in need of extra hands to address a backlog of issues in your curriculum? Would you like to offer a Skill-up Session but want to start with a collaborative push? Host a Collaboration Session!

Hosting a Session

To host a community session, you will need to be onboarded as a Community Session Host. There are two options for onboarding, and it will take 15 or 45 minutes of your time, depending on which option you choose. Once onboarded, you can select any dates/times, topics, and language for the sessions you lead.

1. Attend an onboarding session. We will host two onboarding sessions on 8 May at 14:00 UTC (find your time) and 22:00 UTC (find your time). You can sign up to attend on the Community Discussions Etherpad. These are hosted each quarter.
2. Watch the onboarding video. Once you have watched the onboarding video (available on YouTube 10 May), please send an email with the subject “Community Session Host Onboarding” so we can record that you have been onboarded to the role.

If you would like to lead a session but are not interested in formally becoming a Community Session Host, you can send us an email so we can identify a host who can support your session.

Questions?

If you have any questions about changes to our community programming or about being a Community Session Host, we would love to connect with you. You can attend one of the Director of Community’s three office hours in May.

• Monday, 8 May, 20:00 UTC (find your time)
• Monday, 15 May, 15:00 UTC (find your time)
• Wednesday, 25 May, 0:00 UTC (find your time)

You can also send us an email at any time.