Mozilla Study Groups August Update

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Welcome New Study Groups

Two new Study Groups got started in the last month - one at the University of Minnesota, and the Open Desk Study Group at the University of Jaffna. Welcome aboard both!

As always, check out all the Study Groups worldwide on the Study Group Map.

New Features

Three new features are landing this month:

• Many of you have asked for a less-noisy way to find out about upcoming events; the awesome team at the SFU Study Group has integrated Google Calendars into their website, and have generously contributed their changes back to the main repo. If you'd like to include Google Calendars in your Study Group, open an issue here, and I'll send you a pull request. Huge thanks to Thea Van Rossum and Bruno Grande for their work on this feature.
• Also from SFU, we're starting to webcast our lessons so people who can't be there in person can join in and participate too. Check out regular expressions (also by Bruno Grande) for an example. If you'd like to start webcasting your lessons, get in touch with me - Mozilla can help you license your webcasts fairly and accessibly.
• The University of Toronto Study Group has introduced a gallery of community members on their web page. This is a great way to highlight your community members, and let them show their support for their interests and their Study Group. Huge thanks to the tremendous Elliott Sales de Andrade for sending this feature upstream - if you'd like a community gallery for your site, open an issue here, and I'll send you a pull request.

Do you have an idea for a way to improve Study Groups around the world? Tell me about your ideas, and we'll figure out how to share your awesome work with your colleagues worldwide.

Coming Up in September

• For many of us, a new semester or term is just around the corner, and that means it's time for new participants! Meet new colleagues and see new demos by helping your local Study Group get the word out; get in touch with your local organizers to find out what their plans for raising awareness are, and see what you can do to help. The best way to start: bring your friends and labmates!
• Check out the brand new Open Science Utility Belt - like the R Utility Belt, we're working on laying out about a dozen lessons introducing skills and techniques in open science to Study Groups around the world. We're just getting started discussing what should go in these lessons, so please add your comments and questions and let us know what you'd like to teach & learn about.