# 25 July 2022

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## Meeting Info

This is the UK Carpentry Community space for the UK Carpentry instructors, helpers and workshop coordinators (or anyone involved in training tech to researchers in general and outside of the UK) to get to know each other better, update the commmunity about developments, discuss issues and ideas, and encourage collaboration.

During these meetings, we will be conforming to [The Carpentries Code of Conduct](https://docs.carpentries.org/topic_folders/policies/code-of-conduct.html).

**Meeting schedule: meetings happen on 4th Monday each month, 16:00-17:00 UK time, BST (UTC+1) or GMT (UTC+0) depending on the time of the year**

**Meeting details are shared via [local-uk mailing list](https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/local-uk) and [The Carpentries community calendar](https://carpentries.org/community/#community-events).**

- [Community's HackMD workspace](https://hackmd.io/team/local-uk?nav=overview)
- [Previous & upcoming meetings](https://hackmd.io/V3ReKkEESzqyCNxWJdulOw#Meeting-Notes)
- [Meeting notes template](https://hackmd.io/hgl1tYhOTTqDsIDwjArE5w)
- [Chairing rota](https://hackmd.io/@local-uk/rkPK1Si7F)
- [Guest speaker sign-up](https://hackmd.io/@local-uk/rkkzBTLOd)

**Zoom URL:** https://zoom.us/j/95360073649

## Meeting Minutes

- **Chair:** Aleks Nenadic
- **Timekeeper:** Aleks Nenadic
- **Notetaker:** Phil Reed

**Notetaker:**

### Agenda
0. Assign notetaker & timekeeper
1. Sign in & ice-breaker
2. Review of actions
3. Announcements
- [Registration for CarpentryCon 2022 is now open!](https://carpentries.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=46d7513c798c6bd41e5f58f4a&id=1f00f39172&e=b0f726ae71)
- Andrew Walker is looking for second instructor for in-person course in Oxford in September / October. Software capentry's python material. Contact [e-mail]
4. Guest speaker + Q&A: **Matthew Bluteau**, taking of his experience of teaching an instructor-led version of the “Intermediate Research Software Development in Python” course
5. Instructor Training checkout questions
8. Wrap-up/AOB

### Sign-in

Name/pronoun if you like/ institution / optionally put "(checkout)" if you are here for the Instructor Training checkout:

1. John Hicks, Internet2 (checkout)
2. Winfred Gatua / she, her / University of Bristol/
3. Eli Chadwick / he/him and they/them / STFC
4. Sarah Jaffa / she / RSE @ UCL
5. Andrew Walker / he/him / Earth Sciences, University of Oxford
6. Phil Reed / he/him / University of Manchester
7. Aleksandra Nenadic / she/her / SSI, University of Manchester
8. Mario Antonioletti/ he/him / SSI/EPCC, University of Edinburgh
9. Jonathan Stoneman /he/him freelance trainer, UK
10. Juan Herrera / he/him / EPCC, The University of Edinburgh
11. Eirini Zormpa / she,her / The Alan Turing Institute
12. Ed Lowther / he,him/ UCL (checkout)
13. Matthew Bluteau / he,him / UK Atomic Energy Authority / :bird: @mattasdata :octopus: @bielsnohr
14. Ed Bennett / Swansea University
15. James Acris / he, him / STFC (checkout)
16. Jannetta Steyn, she/ her, Newcastle University
17. Graham Blyth /he, him/ University of Leeds
18. Jeremy Cohen / he/him / Imperial College London
19. Jez Cope, he/him, The British Library
20. Evgenij Belikov, he/him, EPCC, University of Edinburgh
21. Patrick Austin / he, him / STFC (checkout)
22. Colin Sauze / he,him / Aberystwyth University

### Notes

- [name=John Hicks] Cloud essentials training from Internet 2 (developing and running): https://github.internet2.edu/pages/CLASS/CLASS-Essentials/intro.html
- [name=Aleks Nenadic] [Intermediate research software skills course](https://github.com/carpentries-incubator/python-intermediate-development)
- [name=Jannetta Steyn] [Carpentries offline](https://carpentries.org/blog/2022/07/carpentries-offline/)

#### Review of actions
- All to look at and then share the Glasgow [survey](https://forms.gle/1nF3SDPU9mNRaDyg7) on code checks

#### Announcements
- [Registration for CarpentryCon 2022 is now open!](https://carpentries.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=46d7513c798c6bd41e5f58f4a&id=1f00f39172&e=b0f726ae71) [Schedule](https://2022.carpentrycon.org/schedule/
)
- HPC Carpentry discussions becoming an official lessons programme
- Library Carpentry curriculum discussion (4 Aug @ 5pm)
- [name=Andrew Walker] looking for Oxford in-person autumn instructor, 2-day workshop. Python Software Carpentry.

#### Guest speaker + Q&A: **Matthew Bluteau**, taking of his experience of teaching an instructor-led version of the “Intermediate Research Software Development in Python” course

UK Atomic Energy Authority. :bird: @mattasdata :octopus: @bielsnohr

[](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6903098)

or

[Link to slides on Google Docs](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1QUmDHjolArQH0cVKa0nmAKQ7T3mjL_1-cQKeg-Rqrh8/edit?usp=sharing)

Course developed with Aleks Nenadic, Steve Crouch and James Graham and others at SSI. As part of Matthew's fellowship.
Delivered in 2021, 2022 (AstraZenica). Thanks to others too.

Motivation: starting with basic computing skills (novice SWC), noticed that the actual sustainable research software skills were not really supported by a clear teaching curriculm. He picked them up along the way, missed some serious blind spots such as unit testing, became aware of later as an RSE. Want future researchers not to go through such an ad hoc, piecemeal journey. SSI Fellowship to try to address this problem.

Giving us analysis on Run A (online, January 2022). (There was also a Run B (in person, May 2022).)
https://carpentries-incubator.github.io/python-intermediate-development/
Four sections
1. Set up collaborative code development
2. Ensuring correctness of software at scale (testing)
3. Software architecture and design (chunky, broad bit)
4. Improving and managing software over its lifetime

Pilot A ran over four afternoon sessions, 13:00-16:30 (as other pilots ran), Tue+Wed on consecutive weeks. Attempted to cover one section per afternoon. First run showed this was too tight. Second run, added a fifth afternoon following Tue, really helped the pacing.

Feedback: clearly convenient, well-liked, most liked the format above, next most popular was four afternoons over four weeks. Least wanted the two full days. (Bias: they haven't tried the alternative options.)

Format: Zoom breakout rooms were essential for their remote delivery, ideally 4-6 learners with one helper. Key differences from previous pilots: (1) breakout rooms per __episode__ rather than whole session, (2) slides created to facilitate this.

Learner feedback:
- balance of instructor-lef and independent study was right, when asked in two different questions/ways. (N=15 respondents?) Takeaway is to leave it as it is.
- level of difficulty: set-up section (1) easy, testing section (2) middle, design section (3) a bit harder. A bit too much detail in design section (3) only. Met or exceeded expectations throughout, a little less on design section (3). So, section 3 is tough (subject matter is tough).

Impressions from Run B (in-person):
- Dynamics changed, not necessarily for better.
- Zoom breakout rooms had better engagement.
- In-person easier to track progress but was a bit more chaotic.
- However, first run had hand-selected learners. Larger spread of abilities in run B.

Future improvements:
- Matthew to raise issues on central repo re slides.
- Dominant IDE was VSCode here, needed instructions for that rather than PyCharm, will raise a Pull Request for choice of IDE.
- Adding more exercises for more advanced learners.
- Improve section 3 (design)

Question (Andrew): Incubator course on testing and continuous development (Katie), does this material replace it?
- We haven't seen that course, not the same narrative. Happy to link to more other courses for further reading. Could be a little out-of-date.

Question (John): Having delivered his session in-person now, completely different. Having almost too many helpers was a good idea. Do you have any other advice for that transition?
- Still figuring it out! Idea trying to mimic that breakout room feel, because it was such a positive source of feedback, try it as much as possible in-person. Next time, assign a helper to each table of learners.

Question (Sarah): Since this content is more theoretical, would there be more time set for discussion, not just exercises?
- Still a very practical session, many exercises but there is more conceptual/abstract material than most courses.
- [name= Aleks]: consdering one episode or whole course option for atmospheric science data sets.

#### Instructor Training checkout questions

Present for the Instuctor Training checkout:
1. John Hicks, Internet2 (checkout)
2. Ed Lowther / he,him/ UCL (checkout)
- Question: materials already brilliantly written, people can work through themselves. Is there thought of a "silent disco" session, particularly for groups with mixed ability levels, thoughts on benefits of running that way?
- Sarah: Have talked about it at UCL, haven't tried it, have been on one like that, found it incredible useful. Would be interested if lessons were made like that. "The course I was on called it BYOD - bring your own data! Small lectures of introduction then work at your own pace through exercises working on your own data set or an example"
- Colin: Hard to keep people at the same pace, could be a good way to address that problem.
- Andrew: Thinking back to his instructor training, there was a noisy section of "learning happening" where people explained things to each other; can be a very effective way to pace the class and to make sure everyone is learning. Doesn't mean it's a bad idea to have periods of both, however, the powerful thing about in-person learning is working together.
- Aleks: people learning in different ways, Carpentries lessons are quite wordy, can be used for self-learning, but are intended for instructors to fill the gaps between. Some courses are different.
- Jez: RSE Sheffield did something similar that they branded as "Code Cafe" https://github.com/RSE-Sheffield/Code_cafe; I don't think they used Carpentries material but it was explicitly an instructor-supported self-study thing
- Eli: the Galaxy community does this sort of thing, the courses work really well but they sometimes struggle with people not asking for help when they get stuck and just giving up instead https://gallantries.github.io/posts/2021/03/01/sm%C3%B6rg%C3%A5sbord/
- Matthew: Risk of people being silent, assume it's all going fine but that's often not the case.
- John: How can you vet or make sure that people are in the right place in the beginning?
- Aleks: People cannot always test their own knowledge.
- Quiz example for assession prior knowledge: https://carpentries-incubator.github.io/python-intermediate-development/quiz/index.html

3. James Acris / he, him / STFC (checkout)
4. Patrick Austin (checkout)

#### Andrew Walker is looking for second instructor for in-person course in Oxford in September / October

#### Wrap-up/AOB
Next meeting: 22 August 2022