Lesson Development Roles

Curriculum Advisory Committee

Curriculum Advisors are part of a team that provides the oversight, vision, and leadership for a particular set of lessons. Advisors represent The Carpentries community and should strive to embody The Carpentries philosophy by:

• Recognizing the importance of communication and being welcoming to all contributors.
• Giving feedback to contributors using The Carpentries model:
  • Find what’s good. Be specific about improvements needed. Use motivational language.
  • Evaluating lesson contributions in light of The Carpentries pedagogical model:
  • Teach what’s most relevant and useful for learners.
  • Avoid getting bogged down in technical details.
  • Keep language motivating.
  • Emphasize the importance of continued learning and improvement.

Curriculum Advisors are responsible for:

• Routinely, as needed:
  • Responding to requests for comments on curriculum in GitHub.
  • Acting as Maintainers for the workshop homepage repository for their curriculum - making sure it’s up to date with the overall goals of the workshops, correcting links to curriculum, and updating as needed.
• Meet bi-annually to:
  • Discuss curricular updates that have been proposed by Instructors, Maintainers, or other community members.
  • Provide recommendations for other potential updates based on current approaches in the field.
  • Discuss proposals for new lesson ideas and provide recommendations about whether they should be developed or accepted and whether they should be incorporated into existing workshop curriculum or standalone.
  • Provide a written report of the meeting regarding decisions around curriculum updates and recommendations.
  • Review individual lessons to make sure curriculum-level learning objectives are being met by the set of lessons.
  • Prepare the workshop homepage repository for lesson release. Curriculum Advisors will be listed as Editors for this repository at release.

Curriculum Advisors commit to serving a one year term, but are welcome to continue for additional years.

• Curriculum Advisors, Data Carpentry
• Curriculum Advisors, Library Carpentry

Lesson Infrastructure Subcommittee

Members of the Lesson Infrastructure Subcommittee serve as Maintainers for The Carpentries lesson template and its documentation, as well as for the Carpentry workshop template. As Maintainers, they also follow the Maintainer Guidelines.