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An Equitable Future for Computational Research

SherAaron Hurt

The Carpentries

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INTRO TO THE CARPENTRIES

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I attended that workshop because I had just started a new position with The Carpentries (a nonprofit organization that teach novice scientist and researchers worldwide how to analyze data using open source software) as their Workshop Administrator. So this was my introduction to one of the many courses we offered. I, SherAaron Nicole Hurt, had no idea That experience 4 years ago, sitting in that workshop would change the trajectory of my career and lead me to become the first Director of Workshops for The Carpentries.

�I’ve mentioned The Carpenteries a few times already… How many of you are familiar with The Carpentries? How many of you have attended a Carpentries workshop? Not all the hands went up, so let me get us all on the same page before I proceed any further… for those of you not familiar let me explain Carpentries B.C. (before Covid)... Our workshops were 2 full days in-person (online workshops were not even developed or even on the radar to be developed), and there were 2 certified Instructors (generally one being an experienced Instructor and one being a newer instructor). They would teach live coding (subjects ranging from Unix Shell, Version Control through Git, R, Python, Open Refine and more)…In addition to the Instructors there were helpers in the room who would assist the instructors. While live coding as a participant (or the term we use… learner), you would let the Instructors/helpers know how you are doing by placing a sticky on your laptop (a green to say you are good to go and understanding or a pink to say… slow down, hold on, I’m not catching what you are throwing).

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4000

91

135

37

16

9

Instructors

Trainers

Maintainers

Lessons

Core Team

Members

Executive

Council

100

Members

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IEEE'S CORE VALUES

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Inclusive of All?

Non R1 Institutions
Community Colleges
Minority Serving Organizations
Small Business
Start ups

In order to be inclusive, we HAVE TO WORK TOGETHER TO BREAK DOWN THE POWER STRUCTRUERS AND RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION THAT NEGATIVELY IMPACT MARGINALIZED COMMUNITEIS WORLDWIDE. Yes, it is easy for us to share our resources with organisations with large budgets and can afford to pay the fee for a Workshop/Training. But what about those non R1 institutions, the community colleges, the minority serving institutions, the small businesses and startups? The regions that do not have internet access? What are we doing to service them and offer them the opportunity to be apart of the technological innovation?

�I know…you are probably saying… SherAaron these are a lot of questions… tough questions and I don’t know if I have the answers to these questions…. Believe I know…. Because these are the same questions that the Carpentries community have been asking. And while I do not have all of the solutions… I can share with you what we have done to democratize science to begin to break down these barriers. It is my hope that what we are doing will get your light bulbs to flickering and encourage you to join in these efforts… you may even have alternatives or feedback to help our processes… Listen, I’m all for it and want to hear from you! So be sure to see me after this session.

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In 2021, Our Executive Director, Dr. Kari L. Jordan, applied for a grant with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to start an Equity Council. This council consisted of several members from Black, Indigineous, people of color (BIPOC) organisations in STEM that would help us to further develop our programming to reach minorities. The organisations involved were (National Association of Multicultural Engineering Program Advocates (NAMEPA), National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), National GEM Consortium (GEM), and the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS), This included reviewing our Instructor Training Curricula and learning objectives and recommending modifications to better integrate culturally responsive teaching. This grant also supported being intentional about soliciting minority organisations to offer workshops and identify minorities to become certified Instructors so that the learners would see more Instructors that look like them. To date we have worked with NSBE, NAMEPA, SACNAS, GEM, Black Women in Data (BWD), Atlanta University Center (AUC) and National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME).

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Carpentries Offline

Linux Operating System
Quad-core ARM Processor (2, 4, 8 GB of Ram)
Onboard Wi-Fi
microSD card to boot from
4 USB Ports

While we would like to provide mobile hotspots to all the participants for every workshop with limited access, we know this is not economically feasible. However, One of our community members, Juanetta Steyn, developed what we call CarpentriesOffline. Juanetta uses a Raspberry PI computer to serve as an access point and a web server for workshops with none, limited or intermittent internet access. With this credit-card sized Linux operating system computer with a quad-core ARM processor in two, four or eight gigabyte RAM versions, onboard WiFi, a microSD card slot which is used to boot from and four USB ports for any external USB devices, you can literally put a server in your jacket pocket and travel to anywhere in the world to deliver a Carpentries workshop. Talk about being innovative and equitable!

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In the Carpentries, we value all contributions! We recognize not everyone always have the resources to physically contribute but may have recommendations and feedback to share, which is equally important. We offer platforms to our community members to share with us what we can do to reduce entrance barriers and ways to collaborate. This past August, during our 2 week CarpentryCon event there were 7 sessions dedicated specifically to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. We took the time to discuss disability inclusions, teaching in times of crisis, CARE principles for Indigenous Data Governence, Inclusion, Diversity , Equity and Accessibilty Strategies and learning to analyze intersectionality using R. By encouraging these topics we wanted the attendees to advance their understanding of open research practices, and also foster discussion about other opportunities to reproduce research to advance equality.

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Democratizing science is the answer for an equitable future in data-and compute intensive research. I’ve learned that this means that there has to be a shift in perspective. Think about it.. When you think about the future… does it look like today?? Mine surely doesn’t, my future looks way better… Remember when I told you about Carpentries B.C. When our workshops were all in-person… I will be the first person to tell you… I was one of the first and loudest person to tell you that we would not, could not and should not ever even consider… offering an online workshop. When people would ask about conducting an online workshops prior to the pandemic, I’d gladly respond with “our workshops are only offered in-person. or Our workshops are based off of years of best practices which shows that in-person live coding yields the best results.” You couldn’t tell me that there would ever be a shift… until 2020, when workshops were being cancelled left and right. If I had kept that same mindset, we would not have offered xx workshops in 2020 and xx workshops in 2021. That mindset was not equitable at all. I have now discovered that online workshops allows us to cast an even wider net. Learners from all over the world can now experience a Carpentries workshops. Also, our Instructors are afforded more opportunities to teach and network with communities globally. BC Carpentries workshops, Instructors were required to teach within their region. Now Instructors can co teach with instructors from different continents. And now Learners who previously didn’t know about The Carpentries now have access to our resources that will help them to successfully perform intense research.

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Fast forward to the year 2022 where we are trying to define the “new norm”. We are now preparing to go back to in-person workshops and that is a challenge in itself. Just when we were getting the hang of this online lifestyle another curve ball was thrown at us. When we were shifting to online workshops, we had just 10 days to come up with recommendations to facilitate this change.

While it worked out it was quite stressful on all parties involved. We learned from that experience and starting pre-planning to prepare us for the return to in-person workshops.

We developed The Toolkit of IDEAS (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility Strategies), a resource to enable instructors and community leaders to create accessible and inclusive learning environments for Carpentries activities. (Which by the way, You can go and download this resource from Zenodo, it can be adapted to fit your needs, I’m pretty proud to say we have had over 1000 downloads since it has been uploaded). It defines each of the terms clearly and explains how to incorporate each IDEA before, during and after a workshop.

Research shows that when the learners feel safe and comfortable they are more receptive to the material being shared and will retain more information being shared. Which is our ultimate goal… to empower our learners to have the tools needed to leave the workshops and solve problems in their field with their new skillset.

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Interdisciplinary research communities, developers, and users of eScience applications have a responsibility to the public to create accessible tools and infrastructure, empowering diverse groups of people to innovate in all aspects of eScience and its associated technologies, applications, algorithms and tools.

Some people believe, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” very similar to that mindset shift I mentioned earlier. Good for us we are constantly learning and trying to level up and skill up. Which is why we have taken time to do a complete overhaul of lesson Infrastructure currently known as The Carpentries Workbench. Through this initiative we have updated the content and aesthics for our lessons. Making it easier for our Instructors to teach the lessons in addition for learners to self-educate themselves on the material.

This is in the current beta phase and we are doing an overhaul of our lessons in R. So if you want to see the old version you can go to our webpage and look at our lessons. You will see a noticeable difference.

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�I love that we are a community that empowers all! The Carpentries community is committed to a collaborative and open process for lesson development and to sharing teaching materials. We provide two avenues for community members to share lesson materials - The Carpentries Incubator and The Carpentries Lab.

The Carpentries Incubator provides a space for The Carpentries community to create, test, and improve lessons, supported by systems, process, and training to foster collaboration and promote better lesson design.

The Carpentries Lab is a place for high-quality, stable lessons. It provides a space and processes for open peer review of lessons, and hosts a collection of reviewed lessons for members of The Carpentries community to teach in their own workshops. This is a true testament of fostering innovation.

�Not only do we allow people to share their lessons, we teach people how to develop lessons. Our Curriculum Team developed the Lesson Development Study Group program to help community members taking the first steps in designing a new lesson in The Carpentries Incubator. It focuses on good practices in lesson design, and elements of The Carpentries lesson infrastructure, with the aim of giving the participants a solid foundation from which to continue building their lessons. It is also used to identify gaps in the resources we provide around lesson development, as we work to improve the quality and accessibility of our infrastructure, processes, and documentation.

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As you can see, at The Carpentries, we stay busy. Let me fill you in on the key to our success. I’m going to tell you but its a secret! you can’t tell anyone! I need you to zip your lips and throw away the key! If youve been listening, you will discover that I’ve actually told you already but you just didn’t know it. Now remember I said, we are people driven. Well, the thing that makes The Carpentries great is….. (drum roll please) community! Everything that we do is for our community and based on the feedback shared by our community, the trainers, maintainers, currciulum advisors, instructors, helpers, learners and the member organisations. Not only are we making sure our workshops are accessible, engaging in global conversations, updating our infrastructure and providing guidance on lesson development…. But We also have an entire department dedicated to building our communities…locally, regionally and internalltionally. And providing them with the resources to be successful in The Carpentries. In 2021, we announced the launch of The Community Development Program. A new effort to support community building across The Carpentries organisation. The primary goal of the Community Development Program is to improve how The Carpentries’ subcommunities are supported to maximize benefits to our community members and to ensure the long term sustainability of the organisation as we continue to grow globally.

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build global capacity in essential data and computational skills for conducting efficient, open, and reproducible research. We train and foster an active, inclusive, diverse community of learners and instructors that promotes and models the importance of software and data in research. We collaboratively develop openly-available lessons and deliver these lessons using evidence-based teaching practices. We focus on people conducting and supporting research.

Carpentries Mission

From all the things I shared you can see how our mission was created.

The Carpentries Mission is to build global capacity in essential data and computational skills for conducting efficient, open, and reproducible research. We train and foster an active, inclusive, diverse community of learners and instructors that promotes and models the importance of software and data in research. We collaboratively develop openly-available lessons and deliver these lessons using evidence-based teaching practices. We focus on people conducting and supporting research.

We train, we support, we develop, we collaborate… we are transparent. Which is one of our core values.

�Interdisciplinary research communities, developers, and users of eScience applications have a responsibility to the public to create accessible tools and infrastructure, empowering diverse groups of people to innovate in all aspects of eScience and its associated technologies, applications, algorithms and tools.

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With that being said…While we want to be all the things to everyone. We know we cannot, however, we want to be apart of the conversations, empower others and leave our footprint in as much of open science and data as we can. Hence, At the Carpentries, we Act Openly and Empower One Another. Where we can, we try to partner with similar organisations to foster technolocigal innovation and excellence.

From 2022 to 2027 we will work the NASA Transform to Open Science (TOPS) initiative to accelerate the adoption and understanding of open science. Our goal is to have 20K people earn open science badges, have 5+ major discoveries based in open science practice and double the participation of underrepresented groups

Being involved with programs such as these allows us to use our voice to remove barriers and democratize science in ways we could not alone. It is stated that alone we can do so little, together we can do so much. How can you partner with other organisations to do “THAT Much”?

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That workshop was the start of my journey to democratizing science! Yes, there are still days that I feel like I don’t understand what was said, the jargon goes over my head, and imposter syndrome sets in (like right now).. I know that I am a part of a community that stands by the Core Values.

At the Carpentries we:

Act Openly

We believe that transparency, honesty, and fairness are keys to fostering trust within an open community.

Empower One Another

We help people build knowledge by creating a conducive environment for the exchange of skills, perspectives and experiences that empower people and enable them to reach their potential.

Value All Contributions

We value all contributions by individuals and entities to our community, code, lessons and broader ecosystem as long as those contributions adhere to The Carpentries Code of Conduct.

We Are…

Always Learning

We value a growth mindset in all that we do and strive for continuous improvement, evolving ourselves and our methodologies, being responsive, curious, receptive to feedback, and eager to learn.

Inclusive of All

We advocate for inclusivity - welcoming and extending empathy and kindness - to leverage contributions from all community members, regardless of their identity or expression.

We Champion

People First

We believe that the individuals who make up our community are the most important part of our organisation and our strongest resource. We strive to make decisions that lower barriers for individual participation.

Access for All

We value accessibility as core, and create multiple avenues for participation where all people can learn and contribute.

Community Collaboration

Our curricula and programs are developed by and with community members. We see collaboration across borders, domains and initiatives as a pathway to empower people and realise shared goals.

Strength through Diversity

Appreciating that identities are complex and individual, we believe in empowering a diverse group of people to work with data and code to answer the questions important to them and address challenges in science and society.

At the time I didn’t know my impact or what my journey would look like but from Workshop Administrator to now Director of Workshops, I can see that my contributions made an impact.

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Get Involved

https://carpentries.org/volunteer/

I want you to leave this room feeling empowered the same way I did when I left that workshop. The way our community members feel after being engaged with The Carpentries. If The Carpentries can do it for me, then I know it can do it for you! Ask those people who raised their hands about attending a Carpentries Workshop. I invite you to join The Carpentries Community so that you can leave a lasting impact on others. There are several ways for you to get involved with us. If you scan this barcode it will list them all.

If you enjoy teaching, I invite you to become a Certified Instructor. There are several opportunities to teach inperson or virtually to a global community of learners. We have a robust instructor training program that will provide you with the teaching pedagogy needed to present opensource material to the learners.

��Maybe you prefer being behind the scenes, you can still make a great impact by developing lessons and/or Maintining one of our 37 lessons. We work effortlessly to keep our material up to date and can always use support.

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While I would love to have each of you join The Carpentries in some way, that is not my ultimate goal.

It is my goal for you to leave this room feeling different from when you walked in. Feeling challenged, while also feeling empowered.

Whether you are a developer, a researcher, a scientist, a student or a user of eScience applications I want you to find what tools/resources you have availalbe to you to make science accessible to others.

It may not be developing a credit-card size computer, or developing lesson… it could be something as simple as sharing a resource… like the Carpentries!!!!

Remember by myself I can only do a little, you alone can only do so much, but together with all the knowledge, skills and resources in this room, we can do so much! So lets go and create an equitable future for computational research and help others remember how we made them feel!

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Thank You

sheraaron@carpentries.org