# Meeting - 22 January 2024

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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:** Matthew Bluteau
- _Make sure to email <[e-mail]> after the meeting with trainee instructors who joined for the community discussion as part of the checkout_
- **Timekeeper:**
- **Notetaker:** Aleks Nenadic

### Agenda
0. Assign notetaker & timekeeper
1. Sign in & ice-breaker
1. Review of actions
2. Announcements
- [SSI Collaborations Workshop 2024](https://www.software.ac.uk/workshop/collaborations-workshop-2024-cw24), themes: AL/ML, citizen science, environmental sustainability
- Sponsorship packages: https://www.software.ac.uk/cw24-sponsorship-packages
- Reigniting Community: Coffee with The Carpentries Executive Director
Next one is 19 February at 02:00 UTC
join the conversation at https://github.com/carpentries/conversations

4. Discussion: Showcasing Training Experience in Interviews
5. Instructor Training checkout questions
6. Wrap-up/AOB
- Chair for next time?

### Sign-in

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

1. Cassie Ulph / she/her / University of Leeds (checkout)
2. Phil Reed / he/him / University of Manchester
3. Aleks Nenadic, she/her, UK SSI, University of Manchester
4. Danielle Sieh, she/her, The Carpentries
5. Olexandr Konovalov / he,him / University of St Andrews
6. Jonny Taylor / he/him / University of Manchester (checkout)
7. Andrew Walker / he/him / University of Oxford
8. Jannetta Steyn, she/her, Newcastle University, UK
9. Colin Sauze / he/him / National Oceanography Centre
10. Matthew Bluteau / he/him / UK Atomic Energy Authority
11. Juan Herrera / he/him / EPCC, The University of Edinburgh

### Notes

From Aleks: New SSI bid is in - includes lots of AI stuff which will have space for new training around AI - blogs, tutorials and courses (current funds end in May 2024, this bid lasts until 2028).

Membership with The Carpentries - the best person to talk to is Erin Becker ([e-mail])

Reigniting Community: Coffee with The Carpentries Executive Director Kari Jordan - Next one is 19 February at 02:00 UTC
join the conversation at https://github.com/carpentries/conversations

#### AI/ML/Deep Learning

From Phil: collaborative lesson development comming up next week on [AI for GLAM (galaries, libaries, archives and museums)](https://carpentries-incubator.github.io/machine-learning-librarians-archivists/).

From Colin: code sprint tomorrow [Deep learning with Python](https://github.com/carpentries-incubator/deep-learning-intro) - see README in repo for sprint details.

General AI/ML Carpentries discussions, see the machine learning mailing list and slack channel. https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/machine-learning?subscription_form=23cd3d74-1711-11ed-bcbf-141e9134e1fa and https://carpentries.slack.com/archives/CKLUYLY2F

#### Software Carpentry for Ukraine

Update from the project of translating Carpentries materials to Ukrainian (for background, see https://olexandr-konovalov.github.io/posts/2023/03/28/carpentries-translation/). By now we have 16 translators from 6 locations, made initial translations of "5 and a half" lessons, and reviewed translated versions to a large extent. We made a pilot training in Git (recording at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAaROljwy38) at Research Software Camp in 2023, and in January 2024 we have finally published the initial part of the translated lesson at https://ukrainian-carpentries.github.io/git-novice/, which I have just taught at a Winter School in System Analysis and AI for Zaporizhzhia and Dnipro Polytechnics (with three of our translators there as helpers). The rest is being revised, but episodes 1-9, which we really need for hands-on teaching sessions, are there. The goal is to complete the review and publish at least Unix shell and Python lessons translations, and then we should be ready to offer full-scale Carpentries workshops to Ukrainian audience, and build further community of instructors in Ukraine. This is now hugely facilitated by the great work of moving lessons from old template to Workbench, and moving translations from Transifex to Crowdin, especially thanks to Joel Nitta for all the support!

### Discussion: Showcasing Training Experience in Interviews

- traditionally, project and technical work gets credited
- training work - how to sell that experience?
- organising training delivery
- keeping an eye on quantitative data, number of people trained
- collective feedback useful, comments people made - how do you know something worked - common practice in the Carpentries community but also useful for the interview
- mentoring and line-managing people in training, helping people on a course can be framed as mentoring-ish, but also guiding people on organising training which can also be seen as a mentoring relationship
- where are other opporunities that are still training focussed but with a more promotion opporunities (being a trainer in the current post/institution - there were not many opportunities available) - definitely attend some mentoriship and personal development courses - knowledge gap between domains and data sets but also similarities in terms of Carpentries courses and programmes across domains
- moving to professional services, and highligting activities that were not considered training but actually are - mentoring, guiding - breaking out information, finding learning objectives - this experience is not wasted but transferable (e.g. project solving skills transferable to project management)
- periodically revisit your CV and review what your have done and your own worth even if you are not changing jobs
- more confidence, using more languages helped with that, also qualifying as an Carpentries insturctor - transferring one's skills from one domain to teaching them to another domain
- do not put too much pressure on yourself, recognise that it may take time and allow yourself that time
- CV - after you finish a project/publication add a small paragraph to your CV to help with remembering in a few years' time, do your reflections earlier and before annual review/job interview
- LINK (?) programme through your instituion (£300 fee otherwise) - you get mentorishi and one can become a mentor later on, getting managers to recognise your value from what you've done
- Fellowship programme [AdvanceHE](https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/fellowship) can help with recognition of your skills in higher education, can go directly (independently) or through some university employers

### Instructor Training checkout questions

- **Where to start**? Be a helper at a course locally, choose some you are interested in to begin with then move to something less familiar. Helper role has less pressure, helps build confidence. Can build up to teach half day with someone more experienced.
- Get involved looking for and fixing issues in different lessons. Look for label -help wanted- or -good first issue-.
- Start working with other people, maybe writing a new or early lesson. Look in the Incubator.
- Look for regional areas groups, eg NorthWest England?
- Local workshops may not be full 2-day workshops, just Python episode for example, so you can't see everything on the Carpentries website.
- There were some efforts to pool training recourse via https://n8cir.org.uk/
- Don't be surprised how exhausing it is to teach half a day. It is cumulatively tiring too.
- If you do register a workshop (even a small one), it goes into AMY, it credits the helpers and instructors, you can use the survey and statistics. Similar form for incubator workshops. It benefits the Core Team too. You can have workshops hidden from the list.
- **How to find locals?** One way is the Community Calendar: https://carpentries.org/community/#community-events we will share the dates for the Instructor meetings when they are coming up in the Instructor Slack channel and the on the Instructor mailing list.
- Specific to Leeds is the research computing team (https://arc.leeds.ac.uk/index.html) they have (or had) a bunch of instructors (including Martin Callaghan who is now in the School of Computing - https://eps.leeds.ac.uk/computing/staff/11489/martin-callaghan)