Sensemaking Workshops

May 30, 2023

Upcoming Sensemaking Workshops

Join us for a series of virtual workshops to learn more about our findings so far, share insight from your own experience and connect with other members of the CKAN ecosystem.

The Workshops

The project team will share findings from interviews conducted with members of the CKAN ecosystem and also use the time to gain additional insight on themes that have emerged.

The goal of the workshops is to identify some investment opportunities that can be included in a Phase II implementation grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation.

Our workshops will be organized around the following themes, or areas of investment:

  • Onboarding new contributors - The sustainability of an open source software product depends on many different individual contributions. Open source ecosystems are reliant on people that produce and test code, write documentation, build community, manage communications, and spend time engaged in stewardship and governance activities. Providing people with encouragement and support can help them to not only become contributors to CKAN, but assume a leadership role in the ecosystem. In this workshop, we’ll learn more about everyone’s experience contributing to the CKAN ecosystem. We’ll draw from these experiences to identify opportunities to use Phase II POSE funding to meaningfully engage more people in the work of the ecosystem, and develop additional pathways and support for the ecosystem’s next generation of leaders.

  • Adoption of CKAN as a data management solution - In this workshop, we’ll explore resources needed for successful adoption and maintenance of CKAN and learn more about the available resources (“scaffolding”) that the CKAN project has developed to facilitate adoption. Attendees will also have the opportunity to discuss resources they have developed in their programs and to identify ways to contribute to the growth and resilience of the CKAN ecosystem. We will also talk about ways that the ecosystem can better support the needs of existing CKAN users into the future.

  • Community building - Relationships are vital to well-functioning open-source software ecosystems. CKAN’s success as a product depends on a strong network of connections between developers, community-builders, funders, adopters, and end-users. Strengthening the bonds between people all across the CKAN ecosystem will result in a resilient product that meets the needs of the user community whose development is shared across a larger number of contributors. In this workshop, we’ll talk about ways that strategic investments in the CKAN ecosystem can help to develop and strengthen the relationships and flow of information between people that steward, develop, maintain, and use the product.

  • Open discussion - The week of July 24, we are holding time to explore additional topics that members of the CKAN ecosystem may be interested in talking about. We would love to learn about your additional ideas for the kinds of investments and initiatives that could further strengthen the CKAN ecosystem.

Schedule

Register for the session(s) you would like to attend. We will repeat sessions to accommodate time zones. Check your timezone

Tuesday, June 20 @ 9:30AM - 11:00AM ET/13:30- 15:00 UTC - Topic: Onboarding Register here
Thursday, June 22 @ 7:30PM - 9:00PM ET/23:30 - 1:00 UTC Topic: Adoption Register here

Tuesday, June 27 @ 9:30AM - 11:00AM ET/13:30- 15:00 UTC- Topic: Adoption Register here
Thursday, June 29 @ 7:30PM-9:00PM ET/23:30 - 1:00 UTC - Topic: Onboarding Register here

Tuesday, July 11 @ 9:30AM - 11:00AM ET/13:30 - 15:00 UTC- Topic: Community Building Register here
Thursday, July 13 @ 7:30PM - 9:00PM/23:30 - 1:00 UTC ET- Topic: Community Building Register here

Tuesday, July 25 @ 9:30AM - 11:00AM ET/13:30 - 15:00 UTC - Topic: Open Office Hours Register here
Thursday, July 27 @ 7:30PM - 9:00PM ET/23:30 - 1:00 UTC - Topic: Open Office Hours Register here

Who should attend?

These workshops are designed for people that are already involved as contributors in the CKAN ecosystem, along with people that have adopted or use CKAN that may not yet be involved in making contributions to the product.

Benefits

As a result of participating in this workshop, you’ll be able to meet other people in the CKAN ecosystem and learn more about the different types of roles that are needed to maintain a healthy open source software ecosystem. Participants will also help identify investment opportunities that can potentially be supported by a POSE Phase II implementation grant.

Logistics

Workshops will be conducted via Zoom in English.
If you are unable to attend, we will be posting notes from the session open for comment.

Project Team

The project team is composed of faculty and staff at the University of Pittsburgh and datHere funded through NSF to develop a plan to strengthen the CKAN ecosystem. See our previous blog for more project details.