geohackweek/administrative

Hackweek project management.

Hackweek Organization

This repo contains a series of issues that document tasks necessary for organizing a hackweek. Each issue should relate to one specific, self-contained task. We then use the issues to populate a GitHub project management page. This Kanban-style approach allows organizers to track activities and keep everything organized in the lead-up to the event.

administrative's Issues

some new issue

this is not really an issue

write a code of conduct

A hack week should have a clear and enforceable code of conduct, that can guide the behavior of participants, and help organizers maintain a professional and welcoming environment.

• decide as an organizing committee what belongs in a code of conduct. Here is a previous example based on the Geek Feminism wiki, created by the Ada Initiative and other volunteers.
• decide on a policy for handling code of conduct infractions.
• take advantage of existing resources and agencies that can assist in training and providing advice, for example the University of Washington's Green Dot initiative.

coordinate with industry partners

Some hackweeks invite partners from industry to discuss data science career pathways.

• decide on level of engagement overall and where in the schedule this will be included. Examples include panel interviews, giving tutorials, being available for in person/virtual office hours
• engage early with partners; build on past connections
• provide partners with clear list of expectations and overall format and scheduling of their participation

enhance content on geohack website

• add link to former curriculum and provide more details on what will happen

hackweek facilitation

• notes here on techniques for presenting and discussing code of conduct, handling imposter syndrome, etc.

update David Shean's info

some new issue 4

this is not really an issue 4

Here is some more text

test subheading

select tutorial leads

Individuals or small teams should be identified early in the process to lead the development and delivery of each tutorial. Anyone, including participants attending the event, can be tutorial leads provided they have sufficient knowledge of the material and a demonstrated ability to teach in an interactive learning environment. Tutorial lead responsibilities include:

• designing the scope and content of the tutorial
• building online content to accompany the lesson
• testing code and datasets associated with each lesson
• for first-time tutorial leads: deliver a practice tutorial to the organizing committee no later than two weeks prior to the event; receive feedback and modify the tutorial if needed
• upload lessons to the appropriate GitHub repository and JupyterHub node (if applicable) no later than one week prior to the event

some new issue 2

this is not really an issue 2

some new issue 3

this is not really an issue 3

build website

Purpose

• to advertise the website and help recruit people to the event
• to provide a location for accessing all the educational materials

• task 1
• task 2

decide on event size / duration

• decide on an optimum and upper limit group size. All hack weeks held so far have had group sizes between 40-60 participants, with a recommended minimum 30 and maximum 70. Decision depends on room size and the capacity for the organizational team to facilitate interactions across participants, keeping in mind issues of maximizing diversity and maximizing engagement of all participants.
• decide on event duration. All hack weeks organized up to now have been five days. This duration was chosen to allow enough time for both learning and project work at the same time. Participants often arrived with ambitious project ideas, or with the goal of taking newly learned methods and applying them to their data sets right away. Thus many projects tended to extend over multiple days. Attendees who participated in multiple projects often used the hack week to try out several different ideas. A five-day hack week allows for ample time for these ambitious projects or experimentation, where a shorter hack week would necessarily have to be more constrained and focused. At the same time, hack weeks tend to be exhausting. Project work often extends into the evenings, and requires prolonged phases of high concentration of participants, thus we limited our hack weeks to five days in order to avoid excessive fatigue among our attendees.

get media release forms

Photos are often collected during the event to advertise. We can't take people's photos if they do not consent.

• get media release forms from Robin at eScience and have everyone sign at at the beginning
• note that last year we had a participant not sign, so you then have to inform everyone to be sure not to photograph that person.

set up registration page

• eScience has used eventbrite in the past. Create an event page and provide this to accepted participants
• decide on a nominal fee (helps to ensure commitment to attending the event)
• use registration logs to track confirmed participants

build and maintain educational web tools

JupyterHub and other web services provide platforms for participants to engage in the tutorials using common libraries and configurations. An overview of eScience's preferred configurations is here.

build website

• to advertise the website and help recruit people to the event
• to provide a location for accessing all the educational materials

• task 1
• task 2

advertise the event

To maximize diversity of applicants we recommend advertising the event as widely as possible. Use listservers, Twitter, institutional websites, posters around campus, word of mouth.

upload tutorial content to GitHub/JupyterHub

• early in the planning, learn from the cloud infrastructure team what format of files/datasets they need in posting your interactive lesson on GitHub/JupyterHub (if applicable)
• upload and test all material no later than one week prior to the event

update geohack website

• on opening page, put text saying the application period has ended and that announcements will be made shortly
• please add these two logos to the website, replacing the old APL logo

reserve dorms for outside participants

We are working with Devon Menendez. He has set aside 15 rooms, similar to last year. We need to confirm exact numbers 60 days before the event.

design a curriculum

We suggest that the primary goals of the tutorials should be to provide an entry point into an exploration of participants' datasets, opening the door to more thorough study outside of the hack week. Given the broad span of available tools and topics, the organizing committee should seek to teach content that represents the state-of-the-art and is deemed to be of greatest use to the broadest span of participants. A common theme across all of our hack weeks is to teach initial tutorials in version control, command line interfaces, data science platforms and practices of reproducible research. These tutorials endeavor to provide a common baseline of techniques that participants can build on in other tutorials and project work. Subsequent tutorials are then delivered in more domain-specific fields, but can be arranged in a way that builds knowledge constructively through the week.

catering

• decide on what food will be provided (usually breakfast, lunch, snacks, coffee, possibly a banquet)
• contact caterers with details on numbers of people, scheduling, location
• ensure event location can accommodate food (some rooms restrict eating within the room)
• if using public campus spaces, be sure to have signs indicating food is for your event
• if serving alcohol during the banquet, poll the participants on their age

design a participant survey

• build standardized survey aligned with other hackweeks so we can collect data on efficacy of hackweeks

secure funding and build a budget

Many hackweeks are supported from existing grants. Core eScience hackweeks have been supported directly by eScience funds with supplements from individual departments, industry partners, etc.
Budget should include:

• facility rental fee
• catering/banquet fees
• travel/housing support
• income from registration fees

Click here to view a sample budget based on past eScience hackweeks.

reserve room for event location

• When considering space, consider both the broader location (city and country) as well as the specifics (the room in which the workshop will occur). The non-traditional nature of hack weeks means that some students report challenges in receiving support from their supervisor or department to attend. Thus, keeping the costs of attendance low (including travel costs, room and board, and conference fees) should be a high priority when deciding on a location.
• ideally choose a large and configurable space, with movable tables and chairs, several screens or projectors, and an ample number of white/chalkboards. A useful guiding principle is to book a space that fits a group at least 25% larger than that envisioned for the workshop, and the less configurable the space, the larger the extra room should be.
• Begin search for collaborative space 12-18 month in advance. Often such spaces are popular and difficult to book.
• consider making breakout rooms available so that individuals can focus on the highly complex tasks that are typical for hack week projects, while providing ample venue for the entire group to congregate for tutorials, breaks and reports.
• there should be plenty of power outlets for participants to plug in their computers. The space should have ready access to wifi, for activities that require an internet connection (e.g., collaborative software development), and organizers should arrange in advance to provide access to visitors from other institutions.
• accessibility should be taken into consideration: is the space accessible for participants who use wheel-chairs? Are accessible restrooms available?
• availability of a nursing station should be taken into consideration

set up communication channels

Communication infrastructure should be set up in the early planning stages to enable communication among organizers and participants:

• build a Slack workspace (e.g. https://geohackweek2018.slack.com). Use a secured channel for admin communications, and a separate channel for individual hack projects.
• set up a twitter handle or hashtag associated with your particular event
• keep website up-to-date with schedules and deadlines

build website

Purpose

• to advertise the website and help recruit people to the event
• to provide a location for accessing all the educational materials

• task 1
• task 2

test issue

video recording of tutorials

• designate someone to operate a video recording device during the tutorials
• edit and upload the tutorial videos to an institutional hackweek youtube channel, e.g. UW eScience Institute page.

coordinate travel reimbursement

Travel reimbursement helps maximize diversity and provides opportunities for participants from other institutions to attend.

• determine total funds available for reimbursement
• design a mechanism for assessing who will be awarded reimbursement
• decide what will be reimbursed (registration waiver, hotel, travel costs, etc)
• work with your institute to determine what mechanism works best for reimbursement (pre, post event?)

compile survey results

• download survey data and evaluate it
• aim for consistent formatting of categorical data for comparison with other hackweeks

build GitHub web resources

We recommend leveraging many of GitHub's tools for building websites, wiki pages and tracking project work. For each hackweek we recommend:

• creating a new GitHub organization. The advantage to organizations is that it simplifies management of multiple event organizers and their permissions for creating repositories. See for example the geohackweek organization.
• use GitHub pages to generate a new landing page for your event. For recurring events, we recommend using this page as the container for the current year's events. Past events can then be archived as separate repositories.
• generate separate repositories within your organization for each tutorial. If designing tutorials for the first time, we recommend using this template adapted from Software Carpentry
• create a centralized repository for small datasets and jupyter notebooks for the tutorials.
• have an environment file for either all the tutorials combined or each tutorial. This ensures that the tutorials are self contained.
  Note that we are in the process of automating some of these steps via scripts in the pyhackweek repository

test issue

collect survey data

• ensure all participants complete the online hackweek survey. At a minimum, one survey at the end of the hackweek. Some hackweeks have surveyed participants after each tutorial.
• provide a good amount of time during so that participants do not feel rushed
• emphasize the importance of these surveys and they way in which they are informing our publications and research as we continue improving the design of hackweeks

add Rachael to geohack website

@rlm92 please provide photo and links to @lsetiawan for him to add you to the geohack admin team on the website

obtain permission for tracking and studying participants

A goal of our previous events was to study the development of a hack week, to observe participant behavior, and quantify the achievement of learning outcomes.

• invite social scientists to observe hackweek activities
• apply for approval from Internal Review Board
• ideally, participants should consent to be contacted at the application stage, which opens up the potential of tracking both participants and non-participants and allows for evaluation of the hack week.

build website

• to advertise the website and help recruit people to the event
• to provide a location for accessing all the educational materials- [ ] task 1

• task 2

select participants to be accepted

• read Daniela Huppenkothen's post on participant selection
• assemble a review committee consisting of a diverse range of hackweek organizers
• decide on a selection procedure. See participant selection for details on how this was handled for previous hackweeks
• consider using the Entrofy algorithm to further guide the selection process

build website

Most hackweeks to date have used GitHub to host simple websites to advertise the event. The website should include:

• event name, date, location
• a clear, concise description of the purpose of the event
• link to application form with clear deadlines indicated
• list of organizers, ideally with photos and links to GitHub/email etc
• summary Code of Conduct with link to full code wherever it is located (e.g. wiki page)
• a list of sponsors with logos and links to each organization
• some pretty pictures relevant to the event

design an application form

• read Daniela Huppenkothen's post on participant selection
• choose a survey platform. We recommend Google forms or jotform (which allows for users to attach files, e.g. a CV)
• design the application form. Consult with prior hackweek organizers regarding how best to design applications that maximize diversity and minimize potential for bias. See examples from geo and neuro hackweeks.

Note that we have formatted the application to contain categorical inputs so that these responses can be input into the Entrofy algorithm we use to assist in applicant selection.