2019-07-23 Board Meeting

UF Carpentries Board Meeting, July 23, 2019

Agenda

• Approve last week’s minutes
• Carpentry membership logistics (#119)
  • Any further updates on fundraising? Are we done for this year? (#103)
  • Review membership agreement with The Carpentries
  • Who will be our designated signee/local contact for the agreement?
  • Who should represent us on the The Carpentries Member Organisation Council?
• Setting up a group-account for the entire board on Google Groups (#120)
• Approve new Code of Conduct (#100)
  • Pull request now up at UF-Carpentry/website#45
• Updates on USDA-ARS/UF Machine Learning Training 2019 (Aug 27-28)
• Start publicizing workshops for fall 2019/spring 2020 (#121)
• Should we make our Carpentries report public? (#69)
• Update on stickers

Notes

• Attendees
  • Board Members: Gaurav, Elise, Joe, Geraldine, Brian, Hao, Simona
  • Non-board members: Taylor, Carla, Alethea
• Approve last week’s minutes
  • Approved
• Funding review for Carpentries membership review (#103)
  • IFAS ($10,000) + UFII ($3,750) + UF Libraries ($1,500) + WEC ($1,500) + FLMNH ($1,500) = $18,250
  • UFII funding
    • (see below agenda item)
    • more discretionary use available (not just travel or the Carpentries membership)
  • IFAS funding
    • is earmarked for Carpentries membership
  • WEC funding
    • Hao and Simona will connect Alethea with WEC staff for funds transfer
  • Museum funding
    • is open-ended, and Alethea can use it
  • UF libraries funding
    • Hao will put Alethea in touch with UF libraries for funds transfer
  • earmark for REC program travel ($2500)
  • We should talk to Biology
    • a lot of the attendees from the Bio department
    • some students are in the Biology deparment, but are advised by employees or researchers of the museum
  • What about the epidemiology department? (suggested by Carla Mavian)
  • “Medicine” broadly defined also includes a lot of people – so we should talk to them too!
  • What are we planning to do with the surplus budget?
• Meeting between Geraldine, Hao, and George Michailidis (UFII) (#116)
  • brainstorming session on workshop topics (network analysis, machine learning)
  • would like surplus money to be used to help incentivize instructors or to fund travel/training/professional development
  • sees UF Carpentries Club as a central clearinghouse for off-book, non-UF-course instructional training (we have connections in place already for dealing with money, organizing workshops, developing instructional personnel)
• Identify election board for Fall
  • tasks involved: announce and solicit candidates, run the elections, share the results
  • Simona and Hao
• Identify travel award selection committee for Fall
  • Gaurav, Brian, and Geraldine
• Scheduling workshops and events
  • ResBaz update (September)
    • We have a preliminary schedule of events
    • After next Thursday’s meeting, they’ll be soliciting speakers and asking for lightning talks
    • Funding for 1 day of lunch for Research Bazaar (with other sources covering the other days) for approx 50 participants ($500 - $750)
    • We are cool with that. :snowman:
  • Machine Learning / Tensorflow workshop update (end-August?)
    • https://github.com/USDA-ARS-GBRU/ml-training-site
    • What is the role of the UF Carpentries Club / Board
    • Adam Rivers (USDA) has set up space
    • Identified potential instructors from among UF folks
    • Should we check on setting up registration / fees for UF attendees?
  • Fall workshop in genomics (#114)
    • Pre-planning for Data Carpentry Genomics workshop
    • “Let’s do it!” - Geraldine
    • 12 people on the waitlist (from previous offering in April)
    • late October / early November
    • give Alethea a range of dates to reserve the room
    • possible November 14/15
  • possible workshop in Orlando (UCF)
    • for non-host organizations, there is a $3000 fee to have a workshop, and instructor travel arrangements are covered by the institution
    • Carla is considering starting a discussion about possibilities and funding arrangements
    • Is the board open to instructor training from UCF to build up their students there?
  • Regular course as well (early October?)
    • Maybe just before or just after Resbaz?
    • October 7-11 – week after homecoming!
    • or October 14-18
    • Brian: “Mercurial is a better version control system than Git”
  • Spring workshop in machine learning or network analysis (#115)
    • Facilitate setting up a 2 day workshop, talk to instructors or professors on campus to put together an introductory workshop
    • we would cover Carpentry topics, and then professors would teach the machine learning
    • “regressions before neural nets”
    • we would not be teaching, but can organize and host a workshop, using professors to teach stats/modeling content;
    • the UF Carpentries club could offer instructors for basic python or R practices; could be timed to hook attendees of instructor training
  • R for social sciences (Rafael Vacca)
    • has a network module
    • joint appointment of a new professor with UF Geography and UFII
    • not sure if Prof. Vacca will offer something in 2019
    • https://soccrim.clas.ufl.edu/2018/08/27/introductory-r-workshops-for-social-scientists-organized-by-rssig/
• Improvements to our website
  • Include new logo! (#31)
    • Hao to dump in a logo
  • Add pathways / “Get Involved” page to the website (#82)
    • there is an “About/Community” page, but it could be expanded beyond the how to be an instructor and making it more prominent
    • why should people take the workshops
  • Add a specific description of the REC program (#71)
  • More photographs of the workshops!
    • At https://twitter.com/UFCarpentries/media
• Updates on Code of Conduct revamp (#100)
• Joe’s leaving
• Do we want to order stickers with the new logo?
  • yes
  • 300
• Next two meetings
  • chair: Brian
  • secretary: Elise