Proposal: Create "Instructor" badge in AMY

[jduckles]

Background

All badged instructors in AMY have one of two badges: SWC and/or DC. We recently agreed that badged instructors are allowed to self-select to teach any lesson from any lesson community if they've completed instructor training and checkout. When workshop requests come in, there is typically a preference for a workshop of type SWC, DC or LC from the workshop host. We don't have great systems for tagging instructors from those areas to match them with workshop requests. Having specific badges could help select instructors based on their expressed preferences.

Proposal

I propose that we create a new badge type "Instructor" in AMY, and assign it to all existing badged instructors. Then from now-on we assign SWC, DC and LC badges based on instructor's personal preference to teach/not teach those types of workshops (provided they already have an instructor badge). For existing instructors, they will receive a new badge "Instructor", but keep their old badges. If this proposal is accepted, going forward we can give out "Instructor" badges at completion of check-out and allow self-assignment of other badges based on teaching preference.

To implement this we will need to:

1. Add the new badge to AMY
2. Update all currently badged instructors to have that badge assigned (Should be doable with a SQL Query)
3. Add LC instructor badge.
4. Put a process in place for gathering new instructor's teaching preferences

I'd very much like to hear input from @maneesha @sheraaron if this would create any problems to existing workflows or would even be helpful. I've mostly developed the idea based on discussions about tracking LC instructors and reaching out to them when LC workshop requests come in.

cc: @tracykteal @ErinBecker

[maneesha]

It wouldn't create problems with workflows. For most workshops I don't actually look at which badge they have (or even what skill sets they have as those are often out of date), just whether they are badged at all. I trust instructors to self-select for what they can teach.

However I know that many of our badged instructors have allegiances and affinity for their badge so I think it's more of an issue from the point of view ofthe instructors. I'd want to know if our instructors are OK with not having a Carpentry-specific badge.

[ErinBecker]

I agree with this proposal, with one change. Agreed: - For existing instructors - add `Instructor` badge and retain old badges. Change: - For new instructors - add `Instructor` badge and the badge for the Carpentry that they did their teaching demo for. This is what we do currently. This change wouldn't require us to figure out a new process for asking Instructors their teaching preferences and updating that in the system. It is also extensible, as we can imagine also giving badges for particular lesson sets (e.g. someone can be an `Instructor`, `DC Instructor`, `Genomics Instructor`).

…

On Thu, Feb 22, 2018 at 1:47 AM, maneesha sane ***@***.***> wrote: It wouldn't create problems with workflows. For most workshops I don't actually look at which badge they have (or even what skill sets they have as those are often out of date), just whether they are badged at all. I trust instructors to self-select for what they can teach. However I know that many of our badged instructors have allegiances and affinity for their badge so I think it's more of an issue from the point of view ofthe instructors. I'd want to know if our instructors are OK with not having a Carpentry-specific badge. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#1232 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ASSbf4Tdzj38qxrHyM1axoe7SC2zwL8fks5tXKr5gaJpZM4SOgEP> .

-- Associate Director, The Carpentries

[maneesha]

Closing this as it is being discussed in #1162