The MBDH hosts the Midwest Carpentries Community (MCC) in partnership with the University of Wisconsin–Madison to provide a venue for region-wide capacity building of data science skills through The Carpentries organization. The MCC brings together Carpentries instructors and others interested in hands-on data science skill development for various audiences (including students, early-career researchers, faculty, and practitioners) across academia, government agencies, nonprofits, and industry.
The MCC holds monthly community calls, and has a Slack community for ongoing engagement.
Testimonials from the Midwest Carpentries Community:
Chris Kirby, Project Manager, GLAS Education—participant in Midwest Carpentries Community monthly meetings
“I was lucky enough to have Sarah assessing my final Carpentries teaching demo, and through Sarah I found out about the Midwest Carpentry Community. I work for a tiny dot org. We have extremely limited funding, and yet we offer free skill building opportunities (through actual projects) for high school students. Which is where we shamelessly plunder the Carpentries lessons for content, and try to get our students to have better practical skills before they go on to university. It’s difficult to sneak in unix command line skills into the lives of busy teenagers : ) We don’t have the ability to be a member of The Carpentries directly, nor are we formally affiliated with any University. The Midwest Carpentries Community enables us to “participate in being part of the community” that we would otherwise not be able to do on our own. Through the Midwest Carpentries monthly meetings we hear about what is going on in different universities, how they are using the Carpentries lessons, what works, and what doesn’t.
To a tiny grass roots organisation out on the fringe of education, The Midwest Carpentries Community is super important.”
Cody Hennesy, Journalism & Digital Media Librarian, University of Minnesota—participant in Midwest Carpentries Community monthly meetings
“These meetings have been really helpful for me to meet other instructors in the Midwest who’ve ended up working with me to organize and co-teach a few large online Library Carpentry workshops. I’ve also learned a lot from hearing how Carpentry folks organize their local communities at different institutions—which is part of my focus as a local coordinator at U Minnesota.”
Upcoming call:
April 29, 2024 | noon ET / 11 a.m. CT / 10 a.m. MT
Topic: TBA
Host: John MacMullen, Midwest Big Data Innovation Hub, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Join the call
Prior calls:
March 25, 2024
Topic: Continued Discussion of Long-Term Sustainability Planning for the Midwest Carpentries Community
Host: J.D. Graham, Midwest Big Data Innovation Hub, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
February 26, 2024
Topic: Long-Term Sustainability Planning for the Midwest Carpentries Community
Host: John MacMullen, Midwest Big Data Innovation Hub, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
January 29, 2024
Topic: Long-Term Sustainability Planning for the Midwest Carpentries Community
Host: John MacMullen, Midwest Big Data Innovation Hub, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
September 25, 2023
Topic: Getting Started With The Carpentries: How Does Instructor Training Work?
Host: John MacMullen, Midwest Big Data Innovation Hub, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Guest: Karen Word, Director of Instructor Training, The Carpentries
View the slides
August 28, 2023
Topic: Data Curation Network (DCN) Data Curation Primers
Host: John MacMullen, Midwest Big Data Innovation Hub, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Guest: Mikala Narlock, Data Curation Network
June 26, 2023
Topic: Fall 2023 Session Planning
Host: John MacMullen, Midwest Big Data Innovation Hub, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
May 22, 2023
Topic: Hands-On Skill Development with CodePath.org
Host: John MacMullen, Midwest Big Data Innovation Hub, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Guest: Jared Fritz, CodePath
March 27, 2023
Topic: What’s New in Library Carpentry?
Host: John MacMullen, Midwest Big Data Innovation Hub, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Guests: Stephen Appel, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Libraries; and Cody Hennesy, University of Minnesota Libraries
February 27, 2023
Topic: Training Synergies with the Delta Gateway
Host: John MacMullen, Midwest Big Data Innovation Hub, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Guests: Greg Bauer and Brett Bode, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
January 30, 2023
Topic: Challenges in Scaling Up Carpentries Offerings
Hosts: John MacMullen, Midwest Big Data Innovation Hub, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; and Deborah Paul, Prairie Research Institute/Illinois Natural History Survey, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
November 21, 2022
Topic: Carpentries Workbench by Zhian Kamvar and Toby Hodges
Hosts: Zhian Kamvar and Toby Hodges, The Carpentries
October 31, 2022
Topic: The Maintainers’ Perspective: How to Improve the Checkout Process from Issue to Completed PR
Host: Jennifer A. W. Stubbs, Bradley University
September 26, 2022
Topic: Midwest Carpentries Interests Discussion
June 27, 2022
Topic: Workshop Assessment
Host: Jamene Brooks-Kieffer, University of Kansas
May 23, 2022
Topic: Instructor Training Best Practices
Host: John MacMullen, Midwest Big Data Innovation Hub, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
April 25, 2022
Topic: Building the Midwest Library Carpentry Capacity/Community
Host: Cody Hennesy, University of Minnesota
March 28, 2022
Topic: How Do Other Groups Distribute the Administrative Duties for Workshop Planning and Operation, etc.?
Host: Kay Bjornen, Oklahoma State University
February 28, 2022
Topic: Demonstration of Making a Lesson Contribution Using GitHub
Host: Sarah Stevens, Data Science Hub, University of Wisconsin–Madison
View the GitHub tutorial video
January 31, 2022
Topic: Development of a New Program from The Carpentries to Support Community Building/Management
Host: Alycia Crall, The Carpentries
November 29, 2021
Topic: Planning for 2022 Sessions
October 25, 2021
Topic: Midwest Incubator Lesson Showcase
September 27, 2021
Topic: Midwest Carpentries Mentoring Program
August 30, 2021
Topic: The Carpentries at Smaller (non-R1) Institutions
July 26, 2021
Topic: (Fall) Semester Community Activities
June 28, 2021
Topic: Lesson Development and Study Groups
May 24, 2021
Topic: Teaching Debugging
March 29, 2021
Topic: Library Carpentry
February 22, 2021
Topic: Instructor Training
January 25, 2021
Topic: What Are The Carpentries?
November 30, 2020
Topic: Growing and Supporting Your Local Instructor Community While Virtual
October 26, 2020
Topic: Running Online Workshops
September 28, 2020
Topic: Community Lesson Development
August 30, 2020
Topic: How Things Work At Your Institution
July 27, 2020
Topic: Questions and Needs
June 29, 2020
Topic: How to Build a Midwest Carpentries Champions Community
May 25, 2020
Topic: Start Midwest Champions List