Great news! In January 2017, Mozilla Science Lab is holding an Orientation Series for people who want to start new Mozilla Study Groups, which are regular informal meet-ups for researchers who want to work together to learn coding skills and open science best practices. Sign up to join us here.
The Mozilla Study Group program was started in 2014, when the MSL team noticed that learning to code for research is a daunting task for many researchers, especially for those whose science training doesn’t include formal instruction in programming. And learning to code isn’t something that can be accomplished in just one Software Carpentry weekend course or by attending an occasional workshop here and there. Study Groups are our solution to this problem. Study Groups are friendly, peer-to-peer learning environments to support the ongoing process of learning to code. Groups are also excellent spaces for newcomers to experiment with open science practices like code review and data sharing, try out collaborative workflows like GitHub, and get that ever-important experience in actual classroom teaching and curriculum creation.
There are currently Study Groups running around the world. We’ve always offered Study Group leads an number of resources on GitHub, including a easily customizable website, a repository of lessons, and a handbook and guide for getting started, and monthly Study Group Learning calls to share resources and network among SGs globally. Recently, in an effort to grow the program, we’ve reorganized and expanded our Study Group Orientation Handbook, established a Gitter chat for more regular communication, networking, and community support, and piloted a Orientation Series to give new Study Group leads a bit more support as they launch their groups. The Orientation series covers the following topics, in 3 meetings and plus an online check-ins:
- intro to study groups
- basics of facilitation and teaching in Study Groups
- setting up your Study Group website
- collaboration for researchers using GitHub
If you are interested in starting your own group, let us know! Fill out this form and we’ll be sure to send you details about the January program.