CodeRefinery2-SG-meeting-2021-06-04

Steering group meeting 2021-06-04

Time

• 2021-06-04, 09:00 - 09:45 CET, 10:00 - 10:45 EET

Location

• Video meeting: https://uit.zoom.us/j/68469072491

Invited

• Kristoffer Laigaard Nielbo
• Monica Lassi
• Pauliina Somerkoski
• Radovan Bast
• Rossen Apostolov
• Jon Kerr Nilsen
• Terje Vellemaa

Meeting minutes (approved 2021-06-08)

Presence

All invited persons were also present.

Open call application

• Proposal text: https://coderefinery.org/about/reports/open-call-2021-proposal.pdf
• 3 years project
• We ask for 36 NeIC funded person months, 138 in-kind funded person months
• Partners: Aalto, CSC, DeiC, Digital Scholarship Center UiO, ENCCS, Sigma2, SNIC, Type 1 Consortium for Interactive HPC, USIT/UiO
• We expect to know the result of the application not before September 22

Project status

• Amazing team effort
• Workshop and hackathon on software testing: https://coderefinery.github.io/2021-03-17-testing-hackathon/
• Workshop with focus on Git and GitLab for Sigma2/Metacenter: https://coderefinery.github.io/2021-03-25-online/
• The project delivered its biggest workshop so far (May 10-12 and 18-20)
  • https://coderefinery.github.io/2021-05-10-workshop/
  • 21 hours course, 128 participants on Zoom, live-streaming, 14 instructors and expert helpers, 28 exercise leaders
  • Recordings are available: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpLblYHCzJACm0Nz8ZxmdC6F8UuSYwWGQ
• Also the open call proposal was a significant team effort
• Overview of all events: https://coderefinery.org/workshops/past/
• Statistics: https://coderefinery.org/workshops/statistics/
• Instructors and helpers: https://coderefinery.org/about/contributors/
• Next weeks and months dedicated to documentation, making contributions citable, simplifying on-boarding of persons and institutions, depopulating Google Drive, preparing hand-over of GitLab, see also agenda point below on "Sustainability"
• Planning a team/celebration event to thank all those who have put a lot of effort into this project

Discussion

• The team plans to follow up with a write-up, blog-post, or a paper publication summarizing lessons learned from this large-scale online teaching. Steering group very much encourages this.

Benefit realization plan

• This originated from XT/PMO and all projects were asked to fill out this spreadsheet
• https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GRQcF4rztYMZIwwCGQE_hLF_nwuXcq6j/
• Who has ownership of the benefit realization plan (follow-up)?

Discussion

• Our challenge here is that a benefit realization plan is typically written at the beginning of the project for new project. For this project, we are now looking "backwards" at the past.
• Suggestion: looking back at the project, which of the key performance indicators turned out to be the most useful metrics? Turn this into a document that can help future projects by providing guidelines and lessons learned.
• Nevertheless the project is strongly encouraged to also publish attendance statistics data (without identifiable information). Also the post-workshop survey grouped by whether the participant was student, researcher, industry user, staff, ..., will be highly interesting and should be published.

Sustainability

• Financing
  • It will take another 4 months until we know more about financing
  • We should use these 4 months assuming that NeIC does not continue this, to not be surprised with only 1-2 months left
  • There is significant interest to continue operating in-kind but somebody will need to pull this effort, nothing happens on its own

• Registration data
  • De-populate Google Drive
  • Delete/archive registration data on Indico
  • Follow-up with surveys
  • Publish surveys

• Affiliate program
  • Can we continue using Indico and mailing lists?

• Administrative steps
  • Final report

• The brand
  • The project would like to keep the name
  • Will NeIC pay for registering the trademark?
  • The project will acknowledge all past funding partners
  • GitHub organization will continue
  • We need to define what CodeRefinery is and what workshops/events can be called CodeRefinery workshops

• On-boarding of persons and institutions
  • Currently it is not clear enough how to get involved
  • We need clear documentation/videos/events on how to join, both as organization, and as individual (in-kind) volunteer

• Governance
  • We probably need to establish a governing board if/after steering groups is dissolved

Discussion

• Steering group supports that the project goes on and keeps the name also after the current funding period. Formally this needs a ratification from NeIC XT. Current and past funding organizations will be acknowledged.
• Within the current project period the project is encouraged to start drafting a suggestion for an open governance structure for a community project that we aim at.
• In any case the steering group/board will need to adjust. If the current funding proposal is granted, the relative contributions from partners increase.
• Setting up a governing body would need to be established before a trademark can be registered.
• We have discussed alternatives to establishing a legal entity:
  • Continue as an open project, and work long-term towards a legal entity.
  • Continue under another organisation

Next meeting

• Preference for the next meeting is for after the board meeting (after 2021-09-22) unless there are extraordinary events/developments which need to be discussed earlier.
• PM will take care of the scheduling.