Welcome to Openscapes’ seventh newsletter! If you’re interested in seeing these infrequent updates in your inbox, please sign up here (linked from our get involved page). And! If you have signed up but did not see this in your inbox, please check your spam folder!
Hello! We are so excited to announce a new program starting next week: Openscapes Reflections! Details follow below - we’re responding to a need we’ve heard and are experimenting with a format we’ve forked from professional leadership coaching. We hope you’ll consider signing up or passing along this opportunity to your colleagues. Julie Lowndes and Ileana Fenwick are designing and leading the Reflections Program this year, with support from Stefanie Butland.
Openscapes Reflections is an open data science coaching program for researchers and those who support research. Reflections is a 3-week program (1 hour/week) modeled from professional leadership coaching, skills increasingly core to the Openscapes approach. From May 9-26 2023, Reflections is a light-weight way to reflect on your workflows and make goals going into summer.
We designed Reflections to be rewarding for people who haven’t been part of Openscapes initiatives so far, as well as returning folks who want some accountability and space to reflect on their workflows and plan how open data science practices can fuel institutional culture change. We wanted to create a space for us all to get a little less stuck in our daily workflows (folders full of files with names like “Report_with_figuresFINAL_v2.doc” anyone?) so we can redirect our energy to the part of our work that we care about, connected to our values for climate change and social justice. If this sounds enticing to you, we hope you’ll join us.
Background. Over the last five years Openscapes has helped hundreds of researchers improve their work and life through open and kinder science. We know many like you have been looking for a lighter-weight way to get involved or continue building habits to support yourself and your colleagues. We’ve designed the Reflections Program to meet this need and also be more accessible and affordable. We’ve specifically designed it for people who:
have been interested in Openscapes Champions (a 10-week mentorship program for environmental and Earth science teams) but have not yet participated due to cost or booking availability
have participated in Openscapes initiatives and would like this opportunity for onboarding new team members, or want to revisit their work-in-progress themselves
have participated in Openscapes Pathways to Open Science and are interested in next steps for building more resilient workflows
have not yet been involved with Openscapes, and regardless of discipline, job title, career stage, and proximity to data and code, are feeling some amount of workflow friction, or are curious about open science
We know that making space to talk about workflows is so important for teams – Seaside Chats and Coworking are often cited as the most valuable parts of Openscapes when we check in with teams we’ve worked with in academia and government. These spaces are where folks identify their needs and begin addressing them through individual skillbuilding and shared workflow redesign, whether or not they work with data or code. Making this space to reflect is an integral part of Openscapes Champions and we think it will be helpful to folks as a stand-alone program that can include far more people.
Overview & registration. Reflections will run from May 9-26 2023 (1 hour/week). Through weekly prompts and community huddles, you’ll have opportunities to reflect on your own time or together in a way we hope leaves you feeling intentional and empowered. Each week will have a specific focus and structure. This program has a $95 value. We intend to make this program accessible to anyone interested, with Openscapes sponsorship available. Learn more and register on the Reflections webpage.
And that’s not all!
Many activities highlighted in our last newsletter are underway. We’ve posted our final report on Pathways to Open Science for Black environmental & marine researchers and our funder, the Code for Science and Society Event Fund, will be publishing a behind the scenes post about how we did it. Read summaries, with video, of our Community Call, Designing Automated Workflows with Dr. Sean Kross, and 3 Approaches for the Year of Open Science from our cross-institution panel at the ESIP Winter meeting. Stay tuned for posts about our Mentoring with a Coach Approach Cohort for Openscapes Mentors and our just-completed U.S. EPA Champions Cohort.
Are you interested in contributing to our NASA Openscapes Earthdata Cloud Cookbook? Introduce yourself in the GitHub Discussion welcome thread and consider joining our next informal Hackday May 10, 1:00 - 4:00 pm PT.
Thanks for reading, and for being a part of this open science movement!
