Collaborative Software Carpentry workshop organisation

by Scott Ritchie

The insane popularity of Software Carpentry workshops in Melbourne along with the rise of newly trained Instructors from our Train-the-trainer program has made it increasingly difficult for all of us to keep track of workshops being run in Melbourne.

It’s important for us all to be aware of when and where workshops are being run. All of us are approached by different groups wanting workshops run for their institutions, but we’re only a limited pool of people, most of us who are working on PhDs. Since we all work together to instruct at each other’s workshops, we also need to work together to make sure we have time to instruct, and aren’t getting burnt out.

Although we do have a Software Carpentry mailing list for Australia, it’s easy for information to get lost in long email chains, and especially hard to collaborate on specifics like dates instructors and helpers are available. I was mulling this problem over in a meeting with COMBINE, a student group who have taken the lead in organising several workshops since ResBaz, and Harriet Dashnow suggested we create an Etherpad. Etherpad is a collaborative document editing program, which is used extensively during Software Carpentry workshops to promote interactivity between students.

This has proven to be an overwhelmingly successful experiment. Since publicly announcing our Melbourne-workshops etherpad last week, five workshops across three institutions have begun being organised. Instructors have begun putting their names next to various workshops to volunteer their time and expertise, and workshops further down the pipeline have even had helpers come onto the etherpad to volunteer their time! Best of all, no email chains!

Interested in helping out at a Software Carpentry workshop in Melbourne? Come volunteer your time as a helper on our Melbourne-workshops etherpad!