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Book Dash, June 2024 Report

The Turing Way Book Dash, 3-7 June 2024: Overview and Report

The Turing Way Book Dash events are a less intense version of Book Sprints, where participants collaboratively work on The Turing Way book synchronously to develop new chapters and review/edit existing ones to make them more accessible, comprehensive and up-to-date. They also contribute to enhancing the project by improving the ways we work in the community and take lead on accomplishing different tasks or subprojects. Read more about The Turing Way Book Dash here.

We are delighted to share that the eleventh Book Dash was hosted successfully from 3-7 June 2024 with 36 participants.

Accepted participants, trainers and presenters in alphabetical order:

Abasi-amefon Affia, Alexandra Araujo Alvarez (), Amin Mekacher, Amina Akhmetbekova, Anne Lee Steele (), Arielle Bennett (), Batool Almarzouq, Cassandra Gould van Praag, Cecilia Dones, Christopher Burr, Do Ngoc Thao, Dr Noorhan Abbas, Ella McCaffrey, Emma Karoune (), Emmanuel Adamolekun (couldn't attend), Esther Plomp (), Florencia D'Andrea, Francisco Gomez Medina, Gift Kenneth, Giulia Tomba, Goodnews Sandy, Gule Saman, Jem Milton (our Scriberia illustrator!), Jennifer Ding, Jessie Pearce, Jim Madge, Kalle Westerling, Kirstie Whitaker, Lena Karvovskaya, Liz Hare(), Lucy Stephenson, Luisa Cutillo, Malvika Sharan, Meghna Asthana, Meiqi Lu, Parise Carmichael-Murphy, Richard James Acton, Samantha Ahern, Sara Villa Hernandez, Sarah Gibson, Saranjeet Kaur Bhogal, Sergio Santoyo Meza, Sophia Batchelor, Sophie Arana, Teresa Pelinski, Vicky Hellon, Zeena Shawa, Winny Nekesa ()

(*) June Book Dash Planning Committee 2024 members.

Highlights - Esther

  • 27 issues and 14 pull requests were submitted on a spectrum of topics – from the foreword of The Turing Way, drop in sessions, examining power in Data Feminism, Academic-Industry collaborations, Sustainability of Open Source projects, Hybrid Collaboration, Accessibility, mental health, missing data, identifying learner needs, curriculum development, embedding data science and ethics in education, and beyond!
  • We had an in-person hub in London and a tiny Monday morning Dutch Hub.
  • The online sessions spanned multiple time zones, including Americas friendly timezones.
  • Arielle Bennett and Emma Karoune kicked off the social sessions with an exciting session about "Adding images into the book" where participants were given templates and guidelines to help them insert Scriberia images from the archive into the book with alt text.
  • Kirstie Whitaker led the 'Show and Tell' lunch session.
  • Jennifer Ding led a social session about 'Collective Data Governance for ML datasets', presenting about project case studies and holding discussions about how this affects open source practices.
  • Arielle Bennett and Esther Plomp led a discussion on social change that lasted for 2 hours (!) and resulted into a new Scriberia images (and hopefully new chapter!).
  • Two Community Share-outs were hosted by Emma Karoune and Arielle Bennett, where Book Dash participants shared with the rest of the community and fellow Book Dash Participants what they were focused on during the week, where help was needed and to celebrate their collective achievements.

Book Dash Planning Committee - all

  • Anne Lee Steele is the Research Community Manager of The Turing Way. She provided the Book Dash Planning Committee operational support during the planning process, coordinated the communications campaign, and supported the trainings before the event.
  • Alexandra Araujo Alvarez is Sr Research Community Manager for BridgeAI. She provided the Book Dash Planning Committee operational support, specially in the in-person hub in London, booking the rooms and providing snacks to attendees.
  • Arielle Bennett is the Programme Manager for the Tools, Practices & Systems Programme at the Alan Turing Institute. In The Turing Way, she has worked on writing, facilitating discussion and mentored contributions in the Guide for Ethical Research and Guide to Collaboration.
  • Carlos Martinez-Ortiz is a Scientific Community Manager at the Netherlands eScience Center. He contributes research software expertise (with support of eScience colleagues) to the Turing Way.
  • Emma Karoune is a TPS Senior Researcher focusing on Research Community Building at The Alan Turing Institute, and an Environmental Archaeology and Palaeoecology open researcher. She has led several collaborations and discussions on chapters within the Guides for Collaboration and Communication including 'Getting started with GitHub' and chapters on writing for wider audiences such as blogs, lay summaries and social media.
  • Emmanuel Adamolekun is is a Research fellow with Helix Biogen Institute, Ogbomosho, Nigeria ,a research organization focused on accelerating research in life through in-depth technical skills, training and capacity building in Bioinformatics and Genomics.
  • Esther Plomp is a Data Steward at the Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands. She has been a core contributor to the project developing, guiding and collaborating on chapters related to data management and reproducibility - and leads the partnership with TU Delft.
  • Liz Hare is a researcher in the working dog field. She has participated in three Book Dashes and is the Co-lead of the Accessibility Working Group.
  • Winny..
  • Denise Bianco is a Skills Officer at The Alan Turing Institute and a PhD Candidate and Lecturer at the University of the Arts London. In this Book Dash, she has supported the Educators stream, facilitated discussions, and contributed to chapters on curriculum development and embedding Data Science across disciplines.
  • Mishka Nemes is a Skills Manager at The Alan Turing Institute leading a programme of work aimed at designing, developing and implementing learning interventions for a range of audiences to become better equipped with AI knowledge & skills. In this book dash, she has coordinated the Educators stream, facilitated discussions, and contributed to chapters on pedagogical resources.

Format of the event - Esther

The June 2024 edition of Book Dash featured 36 contributors, 11 committee members, 20 online working sessions, four discussions and social events, and two community share-outs. We used the checklists for day/session leads to ensure the planning committee was prepared to host the event.

Since November 2020, the Book Dashes have been hosted mostly online with multiple short co-working called development sessions spread over five days for flexible participation by members. This format allows people in different time zones to participate with the same efficiency and equitable support.

This involved creating shared documents with all the information, providing support funds to ensure that everyone can comfortably participate and hosting a pre-event calls to communicate these resources to everyone.

Similar to the previous Book Dashes in 2022 and 2023, we also had a local hub hosted in London at The Alan Turing Institute with modifications introduced for the in-person participants to plan their day offline. A mini Dutch hub also took place at TU Delft on 3 of June.

Application, Review and Selection process - Esther

As in the past, we invited applications through an open call where interested applicants could state their goals and interest in the Book Dash. Previous attendees and long-term members of the community were also invited to sign up as mentors for new contributors and session leads as part of the application process.

Applicants were asked to describe what they wanted to contribute to the Turing Way during the Book Dash, and how they would collaborate and engage with other participants. To get a sense of the time zones these applicants came from, we asked them to choose their preferred slots.

The Book Dash Planning Committee used the rubrics to score the applications during the review. They met online to discuss applications, frame feedback and conclude their selection process.

Timeline - Esther

  • Call for application to join the Book Dash Planning Committee and local hub start date: 15 February 2024
  • Deadline to complete the Expression of Interest to Join The Turing Way Book Dash Committee and local hubs: 8 March 2024 – Extended to 15 March 2024
  • Decisions on committee / hub applications: latest 8 March – Extended to 15 March
  • Call for Applications for Participants opens: 15 March 2024
  • Onboarding planning committee: between 2 April
  • Deadline for submission: 26 April 2024 - Extended to 30 April
  • Application review meeting for committee: 2 May 2024
  • Decisions on the applications: 9 May 2024
  • Pre Book Dash Onboarding calls (2 x 1 hour): 23 May 2024.
    • 9:00 am session: led by Esther and Denise
    • 17:00 session: led by Emma and Anne
  • Pre Book Dash GitHub Skill-up (1 hour): 29 May 2024 led by Mishka and Johanna
  • The Turing Way Book Dash share-out: 7 June 2024
  • Debrief planning committee: 10 June
  • Deadline progress report: 15 July

Educator group - Mishka/Denise

This edition of the Book Dash welcomed a group of educators from the Data Science and AI Educators Programme (DSAIEP), which ran twice in 2022 and 2023.

The Book Dash offered a space for the programme participants to meet again and develop a core set of materials to support future runs of the programme, as well as the wider Data Science and AI educators community.

The aims and objectives for engaging educators in the June 2024 Book Dash were:

  • Develop collaboratively and in line with the Educators’ Programme strategy a set of foundational concepts, best practice, case studies etc that will lay the foundations for future programme runs, providing a more self-sustainable platform.
  • Improve accessibility, formatting and current materials so that they can be easily reused, combined and perused (using The Turing Way formatting).
  • Provide an opportunity for current engaged educators with the Turing to contribute back, to suggest changes, and to engage with the wider community.
  • Enable educators to continue learning past a live programme delivery and for others not actively engaged with the programme to access learning materials.
  • Connect different Turing communities with a common interest: The Turing Way, Educators’ Programme participants and speakers, as well as others interested in data science and AI education from different angle.

During the Book Dash, the following chapters were developed:

  • Identifying learner needs
  • Lessons and curriculum development
  • Embedding Data Science across disciplines
  • Embedding ethics within teaching
  • Good Practice in Data Science and AI Education

Although these weren't published at the end of the Book Dash, the contributors agreed to keep working on them during Collaboration Cafe and other co-working moments, as well as asynchronously, to have them added to the book and ready for review by September 2024.

GitHub activities: New and existing Pull Requests and Issues that attendees worked on - Emma

Issues (#27)

Pull requests (#14)

New and existing chapter updates - Emma

Our attendees also led and participated in the following informal discussions and public events: - Arielle

  • Arielle Bennett and Emma Karoune kicked off the social sessions with an exciting session about "Adding images into the book" where participants were given templates and guidelines to help them insert Scriberia images from the archive into the book with alt text.
  • Kirstie Whitaker led the 'Show and Tell' lunch session.
  • Jennifer Ding led a social session about 'Collective Data Governance for ML datasets', presenting about project case studies and holding discussions about how this affects open source practices.
  • Simon also hosted a discussion on the definition of open source.
  • Arielle Bennett and Esther Plomp led a discussion on social change that lasted for 2 hours (!) and resulted into a new Scriberia images (and hopefully new chapter!).
  • Two Community Share-outs were hosted by Emma Karoune and Arielle Bennett, where Book Dash participants shared with the rest of the community and fellow Book Dash Participants what they were focused on during the week, where help was needed and to celebrate their collective achievements.

Fireside Chat: Making things Accessible in Data Science

We held a Fireside Chat for the public on the same day as the Community Share-Outs. The conversation about making things accessible in open science communities was co-hosted by Tania Allard and Liz Hare with guest Lynn Kirabo. Following the format of The Turing Way's Fireside Chat series, the participants asked each other questions for an hour followed by half an hour of discussion. A video recording of the first hour is available on The Turing Way's YouTube channel.

Topics included The Turing Way's definition of accessibility, barriers encountered by contributors from a wide variety of traditionally excluded backgrounds, and how to mitigate these barriers.

THe Fireside Chat was supported by a grant from the Society of Research Software Engineering.

Feedback

At the end of the event, we asked our participants to share feedback anonymously in the “Pluses and Deltas”. We greatly appreciate the work that our attendees have accomplished in the project during this short event and thank them for their feedback, a few of which have been highlighted below.

Pluses

  • Having day and session lead info on Slack is good
  • Love the late sessions, think they're really helpful even if they have a small attendance
  • Start page as a landing pad was really helpful
  • Having the same Zoom link was successful!
  • Expenses pages is nicely condensed down
  • Consistency in sessions is good
  • Educator team can be used as a case study for getting other communities to interact with The Turing Way

Deltas

  • Perhaps have one person for questions that people can easily reach - if that person is not available, someone else should be designated. May also be a person per topic (such as GitHub, schedule, topics)
  • Shareouts:
    • Need to have a similar shareable link as was used during the rest of the week. If there's another event that will need to have a separate registration link.
    • Information for the share out session needs to be more clear: what is expected? Perhaps send an email with more information on Thursday morning to give people time to prepare.
  • Onboarding needs to be more informative instead of just goal setting, if there are more participants that have not been part of the community yet. Might require two types of onboarding. A clearer timeline may help people to see what will happen (can this be added to the landing page?). Map out what communication channels/platform are used and for what?
  • What are the social sessions about, who should attend, how long are they? Perhaps add visuals to clarify better.
  • Communicate better that the event is informally organised - not super structured. It is also about networking and connecting.
  • Should we have calendar invites and make people respond? This has been done before and we received feedback that it was very spammy. Ideally we would want a schedule that people can indicate their availability and download the calendar for their own needs.

Changes Suggested for future Book Dashes

  • Planning Committee changes
    • In the Book Dash planning committee application, specify expectations and ask applicants to: indicate preference for hosting or organising onboarding/social sessions; specify which Book Dash sessions they can attend to ensure consistent planning committee member participation.
    • Make it very clear which group is responsible for what tasks and when - this was the first time running the Book Dash with a Working Group and Planning Committee and not everything was clear.
    • Planning Committee should meet before the Book Dash to highlight the responsibilities and do last reminders to ensure everyone is onboarded properly.
    • Planning Commitee recruitment plan has been created which gives us more time to improve the processes.
    • A new Book Dash planning document will be proposed with a summary of tasks instead of having the one big issue with all the tick boxes (work done by Arielle).
  • General participation
    • Information to confirmed participants needs to be available earlier - two weeks in advance. Add a clear schedule in a more visual format.
    • Remove the specific sessions in the Google form. All the information about the sessions is on the start page, let everyone join whenever they can.
    • Make the information to the participants clearer. Start page had good feedbac: Perhaps just have the start page, and keep the note document more simple (information links more below instead of at the top!).
    • Add some snappy info on each type of session - such as show & tell, what is this about, who is running it / who should attend, how to prepare (just to set expectations from the onset).
  • Perhaps set up a seperate session to provide information on how to contribute to The Turing Way. This could also be a video.
  • Having a repeat of the writing workshop would be nice for people to get started.
  • Collect testimonials of participants to clarify what the Book Dash purpose is.

Follow up actions:

  • Onboarding process for new newcomers will be revamped (chapter structure, how does a book dash work, information on how to contribute). We can provide participants with seperate links/information based on whether they are a first time participant of the Book Dash or whether they have attended before.
  • We need to improve communication around the goals of the Book Dash (come with a clear idea but also be open to change and networking and open discussions). In the future, we could include an event page that we can use to share and invite people to participate.
  • The Book Dash WG could create a series of short videos explaining what the Book Dash is about:
    • Before applying: Take part in the community by joining an onboarding session and/or some Collaborations Cafés.
    • Apply: This video was made in 2023 by Anne and Susana.
    • Once you're accepted: GitHub training, onboarding session and community share-outs.
    • During the Book Dash: when to join, what are the social sessions, and what is expected from you for the share-outs and after Book Dash (Scriberia reviews and alt-text).
  • Streamline informations and platforms, to make it more clear where the responsibilities are.

June 2024 Book Dash Links