# March 2023 SSI Fellows Community Call

:::info
* Wednesday, 29 March 2023 from 13:00-14:00 BST (UTC+1, [check your time zone here](https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=SSI+Fellows+Community+Call+-+March+2023&iso=20230329T13&p1=302&ah=1))
* Recording: [Alejandra Gonzalez-Beltran](https://youtu.be/JQcXOwo4QWI), [Thibault Lestang](https://youtu.be/N_M1kyltAVg)
* Previous calls: [https://bit.ly/3eu7NjT](https://bit.ly/3eu7NjT)
* Summary: We heard Fellows' updates from Alejandra Gonzalez-Beltran (2018) and Thibault Lestang (2021), and discussed translating Carpentries materials, policy engagement, and increasing diversity in an all white male RSE Team in breakout rooms.
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[toc]

## Agenda
Times in BST (UTC+1, [check your time zone here](https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=SSI+Fellows+Community+Call+-+March+2023&iso=20230329T13&p1=302&ah=1))

13:00 - 13:05 Welcome
13:05 - 13:25 Fellows’ updates
13:25 - 13:55 Breakout room discussions
13:55 - 14:00 Closing

## Roll call
_Name / Cohort year / Affiliation / Location / Pronouns / Social media_

* Rachael Ainsworth / 2019 / Software Sustainability Institute, University of Manchester / Manchester / she,her / t: [@rachaelevelyn](https://twitter.com/rachaelevelyn)
* Alejandra Gonzalez-Beltran / 2018 / Science and Technology Facilities Council, UK Research and Innovation / Oxford / t: [@alegonbel](https://twitter.com/alegonbel)
* Patricia Herterich / 2019 / Open Life Science & independent consultant / Edinburgh, UK / she, her / @pherterich
* Jannetta Steyn / 2022 / Newcastle University / Newcastle / sher, her, hers / gh: jsteyn, twitter: jannettas, mastodon: @[e-mail]
* Diego Alonso Álvarez / 2020 / Imperial College London / London, UK / he, him / gh: @dalonsoa
* Sarah Gibson / 2020 / 2i2c / London, UK / she,her / gh: @sgibson91
* Olexandr Konovalov / 2014 / University of St Andrews / he,him / gh: @olexandr-konovalov
* Yo Yehudi / 2018 / OLS + University of Manchester
* Abhishek Dasgupta / 2021 / University of Oxford / he, him / gh, t: @abhidg
* Sarah Jaffa / 2023 / University College London / UK / she / twitter: @DrSarahJaffa gh: @SJaffa email:[e-mail]
* Catherine Inglis / Software Sustainability Institute, University of Edinburgh / Edinburgh / she, her / t: [@cafi_epcc]}
* Colin Sauze / 2021 / National Oceanography Centre / he, him / email: [e-mail] gh: @colinsauze
* Gemma turon / 2022 / Ersilia Open Source Initiative / she, her / email: [e-mail] / twitter: @TuronGemma
* Stephan Druskat / 2018 / German Aerospace Center (DLR), Berlin, Germany / he, him / [@[e-mail]](https://scholar.social/@sdruskat)
* Alex Clarke | 2020 | SKAO | Manchester | he/they | [e-mail]
* Deborah Leem/ 2023/ UCL/ London/ she,her/@1208DL
* Gaurav Bhalerao/ 2023 / University of Oxford / [e-mail] / twitter: @gvbhalerao591
* James Davenport/ 2016 / University of Bath / [e-mail] / twitter: @JamesHDavenport
* Matthew Bluteau / 2021 / UKAEA / [e-mail] / :elephant: @[e-mail]
* Jesper Dramsch / 2022 / ECMWF/ Bonn, Germany / they / @[e-mail] or dramsch.net/links
* Thibault Lestang / 2021 / Imperial College London / he, him / [e-mail]
* Saranjeet Kaur Bhogal / 2023 / Research Software Alliance / India/ She, Her / GH: @SaranjeetKaur
* Iain Barrass / 2021 / University of Glasgow / Glasgow / He, him
*

### Check-in
_Include your name and answer any of the following prompts: How are you today? What are you working on? Where do you need support?_

* Alejandra / doing well / need more hours in the day!
* Rachael / slightly overwhemled / CW23 / could also use more hours in day!
* Sarah / Chaotic. Buying a house and moving is stressful. / Can I have an assistant please to unburden my executive function?
* From @jesper: have you thought about a virtual assistant? Currently trying it on some small tasks.
* Yo / Exciting news coming up :D
* Gemma / working on too many things at the same time - chaos / more hours in the day also
* Sarah J / Didn't sleep well last night so I'm very tired and brainless today, so happy to have a nice chill call / Working on C++ legacy code in astrophysics, trying to improve build system and documentation / Anyone done a really good project management course they would recommend? Bonus points if it is focused on software/research/research software.
* Colin / busy as always, now 3 months into my new job / Currently at Bangor University doing a Carpentries workshop on reproducible research
* Stephan / generally well :) / Working on paper that started at CW21 / Lots of context switching today, looking forward to listening to interesting things / yes, more hours/day please?
* Jannetta / Always in need of coffee, but otherwise good / Updating websites and organising Carpentries workshops. / Also working on CarpentriesOffline flashdrive and mini-HPC.
* Gaurav Bhalerao / Interesting discussions in-progress to arrange the workshop that is proposed in my SSI fellowship.
* Jesper Dramsch / Doing pretty well, but a bit tired / I'm working on a production inference model using machine learning that people are really interested in and it's exhilerating. Also all my side projects, published a Tiktok each day since Monday which is dope. / Ideas for Tiktoks? Ways to grow and maintain the community I started? :D
* Saranjeet / Just returned from a fantastic [APAN55](https://apan55.apan.net/?_ga=2.51853485.521016605.1680094877-461786585.1676385614) conference in Kathmandu (Nepal) with many ideas for promoting research software engineering in the Asian region / having more hours/day would help me to relax a bit!

## 1. Welcome - 5 min [13:00 - 13:05]

### General Guidance

* 🤝 Please follow the [Code of Conduct](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eQu4EKHKbL-EMCwbwy7F_YGCOFhBcpBbwsET7QAvA1U/edit?usp=sharing), report any issues to [Rachael](mailto:[e-mail]) or [Shoaib](mailto:[e-mail]).
* 📹 The Fellows updates are being recorded and the videos will be made available on the [SSI YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/user/SoftwareSaved) after the call.
* 📝 This document is for SSI Fellows only, so please do not share the link publicly. Feel free to take notes, ask questions, add friendly comments, +1, etc.
* Outputs such as blog posts or guides may result from the discussions and shared insights. We will not share any personal information, but if you would like to be contacted and included as a contributing author on any outputs, please include your full name as part of any shared insights.

### Goals of these Community Calls
* Facilitate community building and encourage collaboration within the SSI Fellows community.
* Check in with the Fellows and community care - What are the Fellows up to? How can we support them?
* Provide a welcoming and inclusive space for Fellows to share and explore topics of interest and network with others.

### Breakout room discussion topics
Feel free to add your own and include your name:
1. Translating Carpentries materials (proposed by Olexandr Konovalov)
2. Policy engagement (proposed by Gaurav Bhalerao)
3. Increasing diversity in an all white male RSE Team (proposed by Diego Alonso Alvarez)
4. Community-based research (proposed by Georgia Aitkenhead)

## 2. Fellows’ updates - 20 min [13:05 - 13:25]
_This is an opportunity for Fellows to share/show and tell during our community calls. During each call, we can accommodate 2 Fellows who will each have 7 min (+ 3 min Q&A) to introduce themselves and share any updates to the network, such as:_
* _Your Fellowship plans, demos of projects, upcoming events or other activities_
* _Projects for which you are seeking support or collaboration_
* _Life after the Fellowship and how the Fellowship impacted your career_

Timer for speakers: [https://cuckoo.team/ssi-fellows-community-call](https://cuckoo.team/ssi-fellows-community-call)

:::warning
**Note: Host/Co-host to record to the cloud.**
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### Alejandra Gonzalez-Beltran (2018) - 7 min + 3 min Q&A
* Useful links:
* https://www.fairdatapipeline.org
* https://github.com/FAIRDataPipeline/
*
* Notes:
*
* Questions:
*

:::warning
**Note: Host/Co-host to pause recording for questions and resume for next speaker.**
:::

### Thibault Lestang (2021) - 7 min + 3 min Q&A
* Useful links:
* https://github.com/OxfordCodeReviewNet/forum
* https://codereviewworkshop.netlify.app/
* https://dev-review.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
*
* Notes:
*
* Questions:
* @Diego: How long these regular code reviews are? How do you decide/agree who attends the review?
* 45min to 60min max. 45min is already quite taxing. Importantly the code review is not limited to the actual code review meeting: group members are each assigned a week. 2 to 3 dfays before the meeting they send a link to the code with comments for reviewers. There is an expectation that members would have spent 15 to 20min looking at the code before end.
* From Alejandra - have you consider how code review impacts credit, e.g. for code written for a PhD thesis?
* T: I've thought about this - but that's about it. Mostly in the context of code review occuring within a larger collaborative project to encourage newcomers to the project to participate in codereviewing. For instance including code reviewers at authors or release or rolling papers. I also usually encourage PIs to -- in turn -- encourage their supervisees to mention the time spent reviewing in their CV or academic profile.

:::warning
**Note: Host/Co-host to stop recording to the cloud.**
:::

## 3. Breakout room discussions - 30 min [13:25 - 13:55]
_Please take notes of your discussion while you are in your breakout rooms in the relevant section below for others to catch up with._

### Breakout Room 1: Translating Carpentries materials (Olexandr Konovalov)
* Participants:
* Olexandr
* Yo
* Deborah
* Rachael
* Notes:
* Historically, translation seems like an endless task with constant updates needed.
* Useful tool that enables granular updates: [Transifex](https://www.transifex.com/)
* Demo of Carpentries lesson with various languages translated.
* supports multiple languages
* breaks into strings to be translated / reviewed.
* attempting to have at least 1 reviewer who is not the orignial translator
* Challenges:
* Backlog of reviews
* Finding time to provide feedback to avoid unnecessary mistakes
* Scaling - get practice first before trying to onboard a large number of people at once
*

### Breakout Room 2: Policy engagement (Gaurav Bhalerao)
* Participants:
* Gaurav
* Magesh
* Abhishek
* David
* Notes:
* Discussion started with various questions like -
* What is policy engagement?
* As an early career researcher how can I make impact through my research
* how do I connect myself with policymakers and how to start and maintain the relationship
* How to align my research with the needs of the policy
* Getting involved with creating/making policies
* We discussed following points:
* Communication:
* Cultural diferences
* Good equality and diversity practices
* Engage , share your ideas, research with others from different career stages
* Continuous engagement with the community and policymakers to understand what the policy needs and how it aligns with your research
* SSI community:
* A great platform
* Lots of engagement/activities with people from not only your field of research but also from others, this gives insights on your own work as well as keeps you updated with the current developements

### Breakout Room 3: Increasing diversity in an all white male RSE Team (Diego Alonso Alvarez)
* Participants:
* Matthew Bluteau
* Diego Alonso Alvarez
* Sarah Gibson
* Alejandra Gonzalez-Beltran
* Sarah Jaffa
* Colin Sauze
* Gemma Turon
* Saranjeet Kaur Bhogal
* Thibault Lestang
* Jannetta Steyn
* Alex Clarke
* Alex Southgate
* Catherine Inglis
* Notes:
* Team at ICL all-white, male, and middle class (?)
* decided to take a look at job descriptions and target increased diversity
* Success with encouraging more diverse candidates, but then the offers are declined because they don't want to join an all-white male team
* A bit stuck!
* What are the paths to try and tackle this?
* Is there anyone else who has some experience with this and trying to get a team that better represents the population?
* AGB: what were the historical reasons that the team ended up this way?
* DA: 2/3 initial people were male, and then poorly designed advertisements that only pulled in male candidates
* there were time pressures that meant they had to take the candidates
* DA: The candidates were good candidates, don't get this wrong - that is why we hired them! -, just very few and not diverse.
* but then it was too late
* AGB: Was the reason for actually not taking the offer becasue of team composition?
* DA: Yes, that was the stated reason
* GT: What did you change in your job adverts that got you more candidates?
* DA: mention of diversity in job desc, different skills advertised, basically a whole re-write of the job desc. Will update the [RSE Group Evidence Bank](https://github.com/RSE-leaders/evidence-bank) as soon as possible.
* GT: What level are the job adverts for? If they are only entry-level, then they could be intimidating
* DA: going down the grades actually helped the diversity
* AS: trans perspective
* specific discrimination in workplace that has happened, and therefore important to get key indicators about whether the workplace will be compatible
* e.g. NOT having pronouns in you username or when you introduce yourself would be a red flag
* DA: Could you point to other red flags, so I can take them into acount?
* SJ: what is the size of your group? 10 all male is probably okay, whereas getting to 20 probably indicates a deeper problem
* DA: Current size is 8 people, so definetly not huge
* SJ: do you have a more "informal" component to the interview? i.e. get them to come to lunch with the group?
* DA: We will implement that in out current recruitment round, having the interviews in person, when possible, including informal chats/coffee with the team and a tour around for the candidates to get a feeling of the workplace.
* AGB: use textio.com to check bias
* DA: Definetly useful, but also get human feedback on the text!
* AGB: getting more diverse interview panellists also a crucial point and indicator, also recognise that you are not diverse at the moment, but you are striving to be.
* DA: Good points. The interview panel is indeed diverse, in gender and etnicity, but our intentions to increase diversity have not been mentioned. Will do.

## 4. Closing - 5 min [13:55 - 14:00]

### Next call: `call date`
* Doodle poll to determine time: `link to Doodle poll`
* Sign-up/register your interest to speak on a future call: https://forms.gle/4YpTTAFUNuA2XyZEA

### Upcoming events / calls
_Event name / date, time & venue / website / description_

* Open Life Science and The Turing Way fireside chat on "Reflect, Unlearn, Reframe: Community care in times of digital burnout" / online, 31 March, 14:00-15:30 London time (UTC+1) / https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/reflect-unlearn-reframe-community-care-in-times-of-digital-burnout-tickets-567859923317
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### Requests for peer assists, collaboration and/or support

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### Other updates, shares and shout-outs
_Please feel free to add any updates or thank-yous that you wish to share with the community._

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* https://ml.recipes <-- share it with colleagues who do ML
* https://www.redbubble.com/shop/?query=the%20carpentries&ref=search_box
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### Feedback

* What did you enjoy about this call? What worked well?
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* What could be improved? What did not work well?
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* What topics would you like to explore on future calls?
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