Communities of Practice

By Simon Hettrick

 5 March 2020 - Advisory Board   @sjh5000  ORCID: 0000-0002-6809-5195

Phase 1: 2010-2015

Prepare

 

Phase 2: 2015-2018

Deploy

 

Phase 3: 2018-2023

Extend

Evolution of the Institute

Community of Practice

Groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly (Lave & Wenger)

 

The work of the Institute is limited by our size, if we can help create self-sustaining communities that share our goals, we can significantly increase our impact.

Examples

RSE Community

  • Significant success in establishing software careers and increasing awareness of software

Carpentry instructors

  • Huge increase in the availability of training and in the research skills

SSI Fellows

  • Significant increase in awareness of software across disciplines

UKRN and software citation

  • Increasing impact and sharing leadership on key policies

Growing new communities

Selecting potential communities

  • Identify potentials via staff, community and other sources
  • Collecting potential communities
  • Periodic review by panel of staff and potentially others
  • Choose communities based on size of impact and draw on resources

 

Prescriptive

vs.

reactive

Big

vs.

small

Many

vs.

few

Potentials

Biofilms community

 

National Biofilms Innovation Centre

  • National reach
  • 100 Businesses & World Leading Experts
  • Resources for promotion and community management
  • Strong interest in software at all levels
  • But they lack experience in software and community building

Oceanography community

 

National Oceanographic Centre software teams

  • National/International reach
  • >50 staff who develop oceanographic software
  • Compelling reasons for collaboration
  • Staff interested in supporting a community
  • But they lack resources to organise

Summary

 

Communities of practice hold the promise of significantly increasing the Institute's impact

 

They require a significant level of investment

 

We will have to experiment and be agile in the way we create the communities and in the staff we used to support them

Questions

  1. What do you think about our approach?
  2. Should we allow communities to self-nominate?
  3. Should the review panel include non-SSI members?
  4. Should we be starting many more communities than we expect to succeed?

Communities of Practice

By Simon Hettrick

Communities of Practice

Presented at the Software Sustainability Institute Advisory Board meeting 5 March 2020.

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