Attending:
Matt Davis
Katy Huff
Raniere Silva
Karin Lagesen
Greg Wilson
Adina Howe
Not attending:
Jason Williams
Aleksandra Pawlik
#0 Welcome [ 5 min, until 0:05 ]
Hello and welcome to Maneesha Sane, our new Program Coordinator.
Stuff to read but not discuss:
- One application for Executive Director position so far
- Imperial College London may be interested in becoming an affiliate
- Greg has set up ‘execdir@software-carpentry.org’ for Executive Director mail, and will start using that instead of gvwilson@software-carpentry.org for ED matters
- Finances:
- $140K received Jan-June 2015
- $68K outstanding
This was the first meeting with our new program coordinator, Maneesha Sane (please note, her last name is pronounced Sah-nay). She is joining us as a contractor for now, we will have to sort out her contract. She will be training with Amy during the next couple of weeks.
Greg ACTION: get in touch with Leah at NUMFocus to sort out the contract for Maneesha.
We so far have one Executive Director application in, three others have spoken off the record with Greg. The deadline is next week.
-
Enabling self-organised workshops to generate questionnaires from the template
- Assigned: Aleksandra
- Status: The script is usable, albeit some more exception catching would be good. With someone's help this could be packaged to be distributed via download. The script uses some credentials.
-
Program Coordinator Hire
- Assigned: Katy/Greg
- Status: Hired Maneesha Sane
-
Co-Executive Director Hire
- Assigned: Greg
- Status: Awaiting applications.
-
Assessment:
- The subcommittee needs to talk to Greg to set deadlines
-
Back Pay for ED
- Assigned: Greg & Jason
- Status: delay a decision until we know timing for the ED hire
-
Will PC be employee of NumFOCUS
- Assigned: Katy
- Status: Checked with NumFOCUS. It may be possible, since Maneesha is in the US. It will not be soon and will require more discussion.
Regarding status of the Assessment committee: their goal were to look at the current surveys and evaluate them, with a view to improving them. They want to discuss it with Greg.
Regarding back-pay: Greg wants to postpone all money discussions (e.g. back pay) until ED is hired and sorted.
Updates only necessary if applicable. It's OK to say "no news from X Subcommittee".
-
Fees
- Liaison: Raniere Silva
- Update: No updates. Will work on that in the next weeks and have something for the in-person meeting.
-
Finance
- Liaison: Jason Williams
- Update:
-
Partner Relations / Development
- Liaison: Jason Williams
- Update:
-
Assessment
- Liaison: Jason Williams
- Update:
-
Mentorship
- Liaison: Raniere Silva
- Update: No updates.
-
Lesson Organization and Development
- Liaison: Matt Davis
- Update: none
-
Communication
- Liaison: Adina Chuang Howe
- Update: No updates.
No updates from minutes.
Lead: Greg
Topic:
-
Greg has had discussions with Alf Game (ex-Biotech and Biological Sciences Research Council, UK), Tracy Teal (Data Carpentry), Neil Chue Hong (Software Sustainability Insitute (SSI), UK), and Mark Plumbley (University of Surrey, UK) about how to structure partnerships with multi-site collaborations. This discussion also included if and how we are going to train instructor trainers, i.e. people who will do teacher training (TTT).
-
General proposal: who a workshop “belongs to” depends on who we invoice
- If the invoice goes to the partner, the admin fee is the partner rate ($1250 each)
- If the invoice goes to some other institution, it’s the regular rate ($2500 each)
-
General proposal: we charge $5K per person to train someone as an instructor trainer
- with waivers, e.g., no charge for Fiona Tweedie (Melbourne)
- question: do we then charge some sort of certification fee per instructor trained in order to throttle numbers, and if so, who pays it?
-
specific to SSI:
-
they have US$20K this year to give to SWC and DC (because old grant overlaps with new), and US$10K/year thereafter
- plus staff time
-
they would like to work with us to figure out how to incubate new lessons
-
and they would like to have one of their staff (Steve Crouch) trained as an instructor trainer
-
so:
- $5K to train Steve Crouch
- $5K for joint work on lesson incubation
- $10K for partnership, split between SWC and DC
-
note: we need to figure out revenue sharing with DC…
-
-
specific to ELIXIR
- One possible thought for ELIXIR would be that each Node (which means country) to independently sign affiliate/partnership
- Aleksandra had an impromptu discussion with Tracy today. Aleksandra suggests that the interface SWC/DC committee takes initiative in negotiations with ELIXIR by drafting up a proposal how partnering with ELIXIR could look. Aleksandra’s impression is that ELIXIR would happily welcome some concrete proposal which then they could comment on.
- Aleksandra and Tracy did some brainstorming (based on some of the insider ELIXIR info) and there is basis to work on
- Aleksandra decided that eventually she doesn’t want to be a part of the interface SWC/DC committee to negotiate with ELIXIR. Too much potential conflict of interest. Would someone else apart from Jason from SCF SC would like to step in. Adina? Karin?
Motion:
SSI have provided staff time and helped us grow in the UK. They’re going to be able to give us 20K now and 10K for the next few years. SSI would like to have their own instructor trainers. If we do start training instructor trainers for SSI and for other organizations, the question becomes what will the market will sustain. How many can we and should we in that case train? Another concern is whether these new instructor trainers will be involved in the community. We could lose control over the way SCF is taught in this way. Some might be purely outward focused, and thus become purely a cost and not a gain.But: we could for instance use them internally with the training our new instructors, i.e. utilize their knowledge that way. This could for instance overlap with the new workthrough proposal (see later). Another consideration is that if we do decide to go for this, we would need to figure out how many and who to train. 4 people a year? After interview?
This question also brings up the complex question of multi-site organizations. For instance, what do we do with Elixir, which is a large international collaboration. Elixir spans enough countries that it looks very different from SSI. They are also very different from country to country. So, it’s important to keep in mind that they’re different creatures. In regards to Elixir and the like, when it comes to who to sign up as a member and payments of workshops, we could take into consideration who is paying, i.e. keep the legal entity in mind.
Actual decisions that need to be made:
When it comes to SSI, we should take into consideration the # hours that they donate, that goes against the money that they are actually paying. The deal with SSI will be a one-off, but should keep in mind the large multinational consortia when setting it up. We do not want deals that are significantly different than those others might get.
Regarding sharing costs with DC: some of the SSI money will go to DC actually. SSI would like a deal that includes both SCF and DC. We still need a written MoU describing the cost-sharing between SCF and DCF for this situation.
ACTION: Greg will work up a proposal to describe the custom proposal for SSI. this will include quantification of the hours they’ve given us already and will include some plan for the instructor trainer training they need for Steve Crouch.
ACTION: Greg will work up a proposal to describe the plan for creating new instructor trainers. Hopefully it will include estimates of how long it will take to train those folks, the process for training them, the limits on the amount of training (cap or throttle on number of instructors they train) and requirements for quality control (mentoring, followup) they perform as instructor trainers. Also maybe consider discussion of the method by which we’ll select and cap the number of instructor trainers trained.
ACTION: Greg works up a proposal for SCF/DCF cost sharing.
Please note:
Matt: Should there be a subsequent project or something that newly trained instructors must complete to go from “trained instructor” to “trained Software Carpentry instructor”? (And Data Carpentry might have something of their own as well.)
Lead: Katy
Topic:
Based on the book I’m reading about strategic planning, I’m putting together a topic agenda for our CSHL meeting. In the 10 minutes allotted today, I just wanted to walk through that agenda with you all and give you free rein to edit it.
Katy went through the agenda for CSHL meeting. Focus for this meeting is on formulating a strategic plan for SCF, so that we can figure out where we want to go and how to get there.
ACTION: Katy will move meeting agenda to the GITHUB
ACTION: Katy will send us reading material.
ACTION: Greg will add Maneesha to board_pvt
We will also ask our community to give us some SWOTs (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats).
ACTION: Adina will make google form with SWOTs and send it to discuss and instructors. Also write blog post to present the background for this.
ACTION: Maneesha help compile the results from this..
Lead: Greg
Topic:
- UCAR (University Consortium for Atmospheric Research) would like to become an affiliate, but doesn’t want the obligation of organizing a set number of workshops
- Meanwhile, our new partnership arrangements still need some work
- Suggestion: bring them in under the old arrangement ($5K/year) with an extra fee equivalent to one workshop ($2500 under the new rules) to release them from the minimum # of workshops
Motion:
We ran a workshop at UCAR (University Consortium for Atmospheric Research), which was not very successful. But, they still want to be an affiliate. Currently, our terms include having to run a certain set of workshops, but they would rather not have to fulfill that. They have a lot of people and a lot of money. Greg’s initial reaction was to sign them up but with extra money to cover missing number of workshops. We cannot call them sponsor, because then they don’t get instructor training spots, which is something that they want.
Motion: let Greg go back to them and work out an agreement for affiliate without , starting at 7500. Seconded. Passed.
Lead: Greg
Topic:
- Piotr Banaszkiewicz is willing to work up to 4 hr/week at $15/hr this fall doing fixes to AMY and general sys admin as needed
John Pipitone is likely to have to decrease his work on this. Piotr is good and can do this work.
Motion: postpone until after ED is hired. Seconded. Passed.
Lead: Greg
Topic:
- Amy Brown has suggested that we insist on invoicing details up front as part of setting up a workshop.
Motion: Enact a new policy where we insist on receiving invoicing details up front as part of setting up a workshop.
The general idea is that we shouldn’t start looking for instructors (i.e. spending SCF resources) before we get enough information to send an invoice.
Motion: Enact a new policy that we insist on receiving invoicing details up front as part of setting up a workshop. For first-contact institutions, allow the Program Coordinator to require some specific lead time (recommend a minimum # of months between financial information and workshop). Seconded. Passed.
ACTION: Greg will amend webpages to say the above.
ACTION: Maneesha will reality check this time schedule with Amy
Lead: Greg
Topic:
- Martin Hammitzsch from Potsdam posted a request on ‘discuss’ for instructors to help with their workshops
- These workshops are paying administrative fees, provided we can get them instructors.
- Do we allow this? Encourage this? Forbid this?
- Note: we had previously posted several times to ‘instructors’ to find people, but hadn’t found as many as he wanted (they want to run three workshops back to back)
Motion:
The topic of the discussion is what do we allow regarding posting to SWC lists from self-organizing workshops, and from partners who are expected to self-organize. This is part of a larger issue regarding whether we want to encourage regions organizing themselves without little involvement from us. In this case, several in the meeting commented on this feeling like it violated the expectation of what should be posted on the Discuss list. Additionally, it could feel like it violates the expectation of self-organizing workshops not using SWC resources. I.e. self-organized should stay off lists. However, we should consider the fact that partners are expected to self-organize. This becomes an additional issue, since partners could reasonably expect to use SCF resources, in this case email lists, to organize their workhops.
This issue was deferred since it seems to be part of a larger issue, and should get proper treatment.
Lead: Karin
Background: Karin as part of the mentoring committee has written up a proposal a scheme that will help new instructors work through our lesson materials in teams with a mentor. The goal is to familiarize them with the material, and to help ensure that they are competent enough to teach and comfortable teaching from our material. This proposal has been approved by the mentoring committee, however, if approved by SC, practicalities will have to be settled on to ensure smooth running with TTT.
Motion: does the SC want to put this scheme (modified as needed) into place for TTT?
The new instructors need more contact with the actual curriculum. In a team with other folks, they should be able to work through that material. There are practicalities concerned with when to meet, how to meet.
One question is whether we will have enough people to do the mentoring? (This may tie in with the new instructor trainers).
ACTION: Everyone look over proposal and help improve it where there are needed details.
ACTION: Karin and Greg discuss details
Lead: Aleksandra
Background: This came up in discussion with Southampton Uni. They want to be an affiliate (see Aleksandra’s email) but they also asked how much is instructor training for
a) an individual working for organisation who is not a partner/affiliate
b) organisation interested in sending 3-4 people to instructor training but that organisation is not partner/affiliate
Deferred to next meeting.
The problem is how to decide which workshops should go under old and new fee rules.
If they made the request (filled in the form on the website) after midnight september 30th (anywhere in the world), then that’s the date of change.
Motion: accept this suggestion. Seconded. Passed