Overview check-in

[chennesy]

Hi LC-Overview maintainers! @morskyjezek @emcaulay @r2c0der

The @LibraryCarpentry/curriculum-advisors were recently discussing the Overview lesson and we were all happy to hear that you are all interested in continuing as maintainers! We wanted to see if you would have time to join an upcoming LC-CAC meeting to discuss opportunities for this lesson. Specifically, the CAC talked about some possible future goals related to:

• finding better ways to highlight the different Overview episodes
• clarifying who the audience for the lesson is
• developing some clearer ways to recommend specific lesson paths through the full LC curriculum

We're definitely open to other topics too!

Here are a few upcoming LC-CAC meetings - let me know if these work for you. If not I'd be happy to put together a smaller meeting at another time.

• Thursday, May 18, 2023 at 3:00:00 pm (UTC) - find your time
• Thursday, July 20, 2023 at 4:00:00 pm (UTC) - find your time

thanks!
Cody

[morskyjezek]

Hi Cody, thanks, this would be great. I think we need a bit of coordination, so I'll look forward to the possibility to discuss with CAC. I think I can make it to the LC-CAC on May 18. Do you need us to RSVP or anything?

[chennesy]

Sounds good, thanks Jesse! All: If you can attend on May 18th, let me know your preferred email address and I'll share the zoom link with you.You can find me directly at ***@***.*** to leave your email off of the issue thread. Or if the 18th doesn't work and you'd like to take part, let me know and I can look for a better time for us all.

…

On Wed, Mar 29, 2023 at 5:06 PM Jesse Johnston ***@***.***> wrote: Hi Cody, thanks, this would be great. I think we need a bit of coordination, so I'll look forward to the possibility to discuss with CAC. I think I can make it to the LC-CAC on May 18. Do you need us to RSVP or anything? — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#49 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AANCQPB7BDX5TQIE3ZWAHYDW6SW6XANCNFSM6AAAAAAWK4XYXM> . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

-- Cody Hennesy (he/him) Journalism & Digital Media Librarian University of Minnesota Libraries ***@***.***

[emcaulay]

I can also attend on May 18. I may already be attending that same meeting because of discussions about the LC Git lesson. I will write you on Carpentries Slack.

[morskyjezek]

Hi @chennesy et al - I'm afraid I missed the May 18 meeting. Was there anything discussed, and any outcomes we should know about? Apologies for missing it, I think it just didn't make it to my calendar. But I July 20 may be another option for me. Would it be worth trying to attend then? -JJ

[chennesy]

Hi @morskyjezek - No problem! I just added the meeting minutes as a PR so feel free to peruse. I think the main takeaways are that @emcaulay will be working on general plans for some major changes to the LC Git and LC Overview lessons over the next few months. We're planning to discuss again with LC-CAC during the July 20 meeting. I'm sure Lisa would welcome help working on plans for those lessons if you're up for it and/or I'd be happy to add you to the July meeting. -Cody

[emcaulay]

Hello All,

As a follow-up from the July 20, 2023 Library Carpentry Curriculum Advisory (LC-CAC) meeting, @chennesy, @tobyhodges , and I met today and agreed upon the following recommendation that @chennesy will take to the September LC-CAC meeting:

1. Recommend that some constituent parts of the LC Overview Lesson be distributed to other lessons or locations (see recommendations below)
2. Recommend the LC retire the LC Overview Lesson from the LC Curriculum and the LC Core Curriculum
3. Move the parts:

• Index: Recommend that index.html (https://librarycarpentry.org/lc-overview/) be revised and incorporated into Carpentries Handbook (or other relevant location about the business of teaching and evangelizing the Library Carpentry lesson program)
• Episode 02 (note there is no 01 Episode) "Introduction to Library Carpentry" (https://librarycarpentry.org/lc-overview/02-intro-to-library-carpentry/index.html) be moved to another location focused on sharing information about the Carpentries and not as a lesson (if not already a blog post or article?)
• Episode 03 - "Jargon Busting" - Recommend that "Jargon Busting" episode be added to the beginning of the Tidy Data Lesson
• Episode 04 - "A computational approach" - So short that it is not a significant episode. Plan to review other core curriculum lessons in LC to ensure that the content / concept is covered.
• Episode 05 - "Keyboard shortcuts" - There is a brief list of very very common and well known keyboard shortcuts. This episode does not offer much value. As instructors, @chennesy and @emcaulay (me) introduce relevant keyboard shortcuts when teaching other lessons. Therefore, this episode content can be retired without moving it to any other lesson.
• Episode 06 - "Filenaming and formatting" - This episode introduces a useful concept that is useful to teach to librarians. We did not reach a conclusion about where to move this episode's content to. We discussed a couple lessons that are in the Carpentries incubator ( (1) Foundational Computing Skill (but there is no current activity taking place on that lesson, so it may be an idea that never transpires and I was worried about moving this content somewhere that was practically the same as archiving it, but that we were thinking we were keeping the content in the active Carpentries development cycle. (2) a lesson from Belinda Weaver that is in the incubator.)
• ** Episode 07** - One up, One down - This is a teaching technique and should be in the Instructors Handbook, and can be introduced to the learners by the instructor in a workshop if they desire. This episode does not contain content for learners to learn.
• Episode 08 - Further Reading -- These readings might be worth keeping on the Library Carpentry website in a relevant location.

[chennesy]

Thanks @emcaulay!

Maintainers: let me know on the Carpentries Slack if you'd like to attend the next LC-CAC meeting (Sept 21) to discuss this proposal, and I can send you the details.

[morskyjezek]

Thank you to @emcaulay for taking on the revision work - in my opinion, it is beyond the scope of the regular work of maintainers since it involves significant revision of content and structure, which impact the assumptions and plans that support the rest of the curriculum, so it is so helpful and critical to have the CAC input on this.

[morskyjezek]

Quick note: I agree that "Jargon Busting" needs some refresh. And in most (all?) of the LC workshops that I've taught, we have begun with the spreadsheets lesson (ie, "Tidy Data"), I'm not sure it would help that lesson to have the Jargon Busting there. It is intended as an icebreaker, which may or may not lead into the spreadsheets lesson. Another common starting point is the RegEx lesson, which could also use a refresh but would be an equally logical place for the episode. As such, I would actually suggest leaving it in the Overview as an optional icebreaker for anyone who wants to use it.

[emcaulay]

@morskyjezek , totally agree with you that this is not a maintenance task, but a curricular revision. CAC are leading direction, and I am volunteering for this special job. I welcome help, but it's definitely not maintenance.

LC-CAC meets tomorrow (9/21), so I'm refreshing my memory on 9/20 by catching up on this thread.

[emcaulay]

@chennesy another topic for tomorrow could be -- retitle this issue? Is this the issue for taking action or making decisions? What factors will lead to being able to close this issue?

[morskyjezek]

Thank you for taking this on! I have to apologize because I teach Thursday mornings and will likely miss the meeting. Apologies, again. That said, I want to support this effort to revise the lesson as much as I can, so please let me know of there's additional work or changes I can help with. 🙌

[emcaulay]

Thanks, @morskyjezek ! I really value your opinions shared here! @chennesy and I will report out here. I will be in meetings all day after the CAC meeting so my comments won't come in until 9/22.

[emcaulay]

We had a good discussion today. And I will link to notes tomorrow.
Decision: LC-CAC agrees with decommissioning this lesson, and @jt14den and I will be working together on the mechanics. More updates tomorrow.

[emcaulay]

I think a good action (leaving this as a note to myself, mostly) will be to close this issue and start opening new ones to document the archiving process.

[emcaulay]

I am in the process of extracting all the recommendations in the comment from 2023-08-18 into discrete issues. I will keep this issue open until I complete that work.