- Katy Huff
- Greg Wilson
- Jason Williams, Software Carpentry
- Adina Howe
- Aleksandra Pawlik, University of Manchester, The Software Sustainability Institute
- Karin Lagesen, University of Oslo
- Raniere Silva
- Matt Davis
Presenter: Katy Huff
Duration: 5 minutes
1.0 Welcome: took 10 minutes to get up and going.
Background: GW had an action item to Contact Camille Avestruz to check back in about her diversity efforts and see what the SC can do to help out! [Done]
Duration: 2 minutes
Introduce the Fee Waiver Committee to Camille Avestruz so that they can talk about diversity-related Fee Waiver stuff.
Assigned to: Greg Wilson
Due date: 03/05/2015
Background: GW had an action item to add a prominent notice to the "request a workshop" form on the website explaining the fee structure [Done]
Duration: 1 minute
Done.
Arliss will CC Greg on all first contacts for workshops.
Background:
- Fee waiver subcommittee: RS/AP/KL had an action item to form a fee waiver subcommittee. First meeting ran on Tuesday and a draft text has been written.
- This subcommittee would like to raise issues regarding:
- The minimum requirements to be a Software Carpentry workshop
- What qualifies as a self-organized workshop? I.e. who can organize SC workshops without paying anything at all?
- What is our stance on commercial workshops organized by member organizations?
Duration: 10 minutes
AP: The work done with the current proposal raised several questions. We need clarification regarding what constitutes a self-organizing workshop. A major hurdle is generating the SWC questionnaires that are required as "payment" for having an official SWC self-organized workshop. Thus self-organizing groups have to contact people whose services mean that they should pay. AP: suggested she write a proposal for what a self-organized workshop is. Due next week. It will help to specify some things, but to maintain flexibility we need balance between general rules and specifics.
JW: we should be careful about spelling out requirements, should show examples that whould showcase the spirit of the matter. Should also reach out to others about this subject. E.G.: What are some examples of waiver that have been granted in the past.
AP: has been approached by groups who would like to gain access to our list of instructors so that they could go the self-organized route. She has not given this out - GW concurred, this would breach several privacy policies.
GW: Should note that in an ideal world, there would be no fees. But, SCF needs income to keep us self-sustaining. People don't want random email from everywhere. People are listed on the website, and that is the only thing we can refer people to.
KH: We should also keep in mind that self-organized workshops give us kudos back.
Draft of definition of what it looks like to be a self-organized workshop. (make pull request)
Assigned to: Aleksandra Pawlik
Due date: 03/05/2015
GW: Has been contacted by a major bank that wants training. We have had instructors teaching for pay previously, and it it a good thing that instructors can make money on teaching privately. It may be an idea that SCF help organize instructors for such workshops and then step out - potentially acting as a referral service? May be simpler, we would not be involved in contractual negotiations and associated administrative things. The same thing goes for member organizations that would like to teach commercial workshops. This would give member organizations more stake in the material.
Send out an email about commercial workshop thoughts
Assigned to: Greg Wilson
Due date: 03/05/2015
Background:
- Updates from subcommittees?
- GW had an action item to upload a blog post about committees which need more members.
Duration: 15 minutes
Finance
JW: This committee is currently drafting a charter and gathering details. Good on members
Partner Relations
JW: This committee needs more members
Assessment:
JW: has had first meeting.
Mentorship:
RS:
I met with Sheldon for this week's debrief session. We are going to meet again next week to talk about the subcommittee.
Communications:
ACH: Communications are thinking of a two pronged approach, one that is focusing on information for the public and another that focuses on funding bodies. Adina is coordinating efforts with Ivan Gonzales. Adina is thinking of doing character blog posts, will be contacting people. Adina was asked about potentially doing an annual report sort of thing, and this was met with a generally positive response from all.
KH: explained how minutes worked, with first being in the private board and then being pushed to public board repo after a week or so.
There will be posted a blog post about subcommittees, which will encourage people to join and help out.
Annual reporting as part of the communications committee
Assigned to: Adina Howe
Make blog post and PR about subcommittees.
Assigned to: Katy Huff
Due date: 03/03/2015
Figure out reporting from the steering committee prior to membership
Assigned to: Adina Howe
Background from GVW:
I've been thinking some more about fundraising, and about positioning Software Carpentry as "we help scientists who are programming already program better" now that Data Carpentry is taking care of people with no programming experience at all. Some time in the next couple of meetings, I'd be grateful if we could discuss this:
We run a week-long master class in software engineering for medium-sized scientific teams - say, collaborations with a dozen to two dozen active coders in them. Eight teams get to send three people each (so two dozen learners); we show them how to set up continuous integration, how to do useful code reviews, how to profile their code, how to organize their workspace and get everything into a Makefile, etc.
The target audience is groups that want to be the next Astropy or khmer, so I figure half the teams will come from government labs, and the rest from academia. We have as many Software Carpentry instructors take part as there are groups (e.g., 8 instructors), and split the fee with instructors. Two events like that in a year would put us on a solid financial footing.
Presenter: Greg Wilson
Duration: 10 minutes
GW: The idea is to run master-classes and help teams get up to speed on things. This course would include makefiles, reproducibility, continous integration ++. Not many labs would do this, but some would. National institutes, private companies would. These classes would be an add-on to the existing workshop program, it would not be instead of. There are groups out there that need this and which would go for it, and we have the instructors to do this.
ACH: There could be a problem with getting the right instructors. How would we screen to ensure that we have the right people to teach this? Would need to have a clearly defined set of instructors and a clearly defined audience.
GW: We today have instructors that are essentially support personell for these kinds of groups who could be instructors for such classes. This would be a chance for them to do a bit of private consulting and build reputation. Estimates that we have 6-20 people who do this.
ACH: This represents a large extension on what we do today, everybody should be on board with this.
Motion: GW should make a proposal for what this would look at, we look it over, and figure it out.
All in favor, GW abstained.
Greg should take some time to make a proposal for what this would look like and pursue it once we've had a chance to look it over.
DISPOSITION: Passed
Background:
What is the xCarpentry model that we should be promoting?
- Has relevance for Teach The Trainers discussion and funding bids with partners / affiliates which extend outside "traditional" SWC.
Presenter: Katy Huff
Duration: 10 minutes
KH: This question was raised during interim board meetings. What is and what should be our relationship to other xCarpentry organizations. There is already Data Carpentry, what happens when we for instance have Library Caprentry and others? Do we today want to have something in writing relating to this situation?
AP: Getting queries about this as she is on the DC steering committee. There are organizations who could be potential partners for us that would like to be partners of both SCF and DC, but which would ideally like to partner with one, and not two independent organizations. NHS would for instance be a good partner to have, but they would not want to have to deal with two organizations, preferrably just once. Is there an X-carpentry model?
JW: This could be an if/when situation, i.e. solve this when a request pertaining to this comes in. SCf and DC are not at the same stage organizationally, although both have the same administrative needs. Dealing with this issue might be too much for right now.
GW: Ideally, there should only be one organization, but in reality there are two. DC are looking for funding from other sources than SCF. The two could be welded back together, but this is not presently doable. GW will meet iwth Tracy Teal in a couple of weeks, and they can discuss practicalities there. DC has a focus on real novices, which means that SCF could consider going back to teach people who know what a for loop is. We should consider having a joint meeting with DC as soon as possible.
GW will organize common meeting before Cold Spring Harbor meeting (Data Carpentry Hackathon).
JW: Maybe the right place for this is a joint SC/DC board meeting.
Decide in collaboration with Tracy Teal etc. how we'll have a joint SC/DC meeting.
Assigned to: Greg Wilson
Due date: 03/23/2015
Has NumFOCUS sent a report? Jason will provide an update.
Presenter: Jason Williams
Duration: 5 minutes
We are currently in-between accountants. Current paid memberships: 27K, we are waiting for 40K. Note: NUMFocus takes around 3% as a cut.
JW: would like information from Greg regarding how difficult is it to get people to pay, how much time/effort goes into this.
GW: will send in invoice for Jan/Feb backpay. Note, many workshops are now word of mouth not going through us, thus not making money for us.
JW: will send out more info about budget.
Put a clean version of the budget spreadsheet in the board_pvt repo.
Assigned to: Jason Williams
Due date: 03/05/2015
Background:
We need both a date and a place for a meeting.
The current proposal is some weekend in June in NYC, perhaps at Cold Spring Harbor Lab.
- Is NYC in June potentially ok for folks?
- Who can get funding for travel to NYC in June?
- What weekends in June work?
- Other suggestions?
Presenter: Katy Huff
Duration: 10 minutes
Set up a doodle poll to decide the weekend for this.
Assigned to: Greg Wilson
Due date: 03/05/2015
Presenter: Greg Wilson
Duration: 5 minutes
Discussed earlier in the schedule.
Presenter: Greg Wilson
Duration: 5 minutes
Deferred.