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The Book Dash Main Event Plans

This subchapter provides information on the events that are organised for the book dash attendees. These events include pre-event drop-in calls, Day-1 brainstorming session and group dinner, and Day-2 working day, which are explained below.

Pre-Event drop-in calls

The core team members hosts 2 pre-event drop-in calls, minimum one week before the main event to ensure that all the participants are made familiar with project, the format of the book dash, and how they can be contributing through their involvement at the book dash. It is an opportunity for the organising team and the selected attendees to get to know each other and discuss any concerns that they may have before the book dash.

Several participants often come to these calls with some plans and topics they would like to explore for their contributions in The Turing Way. These topics can be something that is either missing in the existing chapters or need to be updated in the project. We also discuss The Turing Way as a project in general and what the core team is working on to support the development of its guide on reproducibility, ethics, project design, collaboration, communication and a meta-book on the project itself. Most importantly, the core team goes through the contribution guideline and explain how attendees can effectively use their time at the book dash.

The template for shared-notes can be accessed in the community handbook here. You can read notes from the calls from the most recent book dash here.

Day-1: brainstorming and dinner

Agenda for the Day-1

Time is provided in BST/GMT time zones

14:00-15:00: Arrive at the book dash venue for informal networking
15:00-16:00: Intro to _The Turing Way_ and book dash
17:00-17:30: Brainstorming in groups
17:30-18:00: Report out
18:30: Arrive at the dinner venue
19:00: Dinner begins
20:30-21:00: Lightning talks*
21:00-22:00: Dinner continues with networking

Details

The invited participants join the core team for an introduction session a day before the book dash event. This is a chance to everyone to meet the participants and helpers informally, learn about each other and connect with specific members who plan to work on related topic during the book dash.

Three of our participants, Heidi, Esther and Adina, exchanging local sweets and snacks from their home country at the beginning of the event (picture by Kirstie Whitaker)

In a dedicated hour, the core team members provide an overview of The Turing way project and resources that are available for the participants for their book dash contributions. The next hours are dedicated to the participants brainstorming in small groups, organising their thoughts and ideas for contributions the next day, sharing their plans with other participants at the end of the session and identifying their collaborators based on the similarity of their interests.

For participants who are unfamiliar with GitHub or would like a refresher, the core team members and volunteers guide them through the process of making their first pull request.

The day ends with a group dinner hosted by the core team to allow participants to relax after an intense discussion session and enjoy meals together in an informal setting. In between the meals, participants are invited to give lightning talks where they can share their personal stories and talk about a project that they’re either working on or are excited about. Lightning talks are short (normally 2 minutes long) and are given without slides.

Day-2: coworking day

Agenda for Day-2

Time is provided in BST/GMT time zones

8:30: Arrive at the dashing venue
8:45: Intro to the second day of the book dash
9:00: Coworking starts (session-1)
10:15: Report
11:00: Coworking continues (session-2)
12:15: Report out
12:30: Lunch break
13:30 - 16:30: Coworking continues (session-3 and 4)
16:30: Group share outs and celebrations
17:00: Event closing and feedback

Details

The next day of the book dash is a collaboration and coworking day. This day is distributed into 4 sessions of 1 hour 15 minutes each, separated by 15 minutes reflection followed by a break.

The first session facilitates discussions by bringing all the attendees in small groups with their collaborators based on their discussion from the previous day. The collaborating groups start working on their road map and plans for their contributions as chapters, subchapters or other types of contents. Participants are also encouraged to come up with the main sections of their contributions and collect their thoughts in bullet points on a GitHub issue. During the second session, participants work in self-organised groups or individually with the support of organisers and helpers. This session ends with a quick report out from each group followed by a lunch break.

During the third and fourth session, participants come back to continue working uninterrupted on their contribution ideas and take breaks as they need. At the end of this session, participants gather all their contributions on The Turing Way GitHub repository (issues, pull requests and notes) and add that in the shared notes before taking a short break.

The last session is the final report out and celebration of each other’s work. The book dash closes with anonymous feedback on the Pluses and Delta notes.

Creating an environment for self-paced contributions

We acknowledge that everyone prefers different settings to work effectively and attentively. Therefore we create an environment for self-paced contributions to The Turing Way project.

Some recommendations to achieve this by managing the space at the book dash by:

  • offering a separate space for open discussion for people who work better by discussing their ideas out loud.

  • providing semi-quiet spaces or headphone for noise cancellation for people who don’t need active discussions.

  • setting up shared notes for everyone to take notes together and draw inspiration from each other’s work (see template for notes).

Throughout the day, everyone is encouraged to ask for help, move around or change their position or group as needed. Participants are invited to offer feedback on other people’s work during the report out session.

Though there are designated breaks, participants are encouraged to take breaks whenever they need to decompress. A quiet room is arranged so that people can step back from crowd as per their need for quiet time.

After the event

Our book dash attendees begin to introduce their perspectives and skills into the project at the book dash. These participants go on to join our global community of contributors.

We invite our attendees to contribute in any capacity that is most suitable for their interests and availability. Also, we share with them some ways they can stay connected and keep contributing to the project.

Joining the ongoing efforts

With every new effort initiated by our members, we gain new insights to improve our global outreach. These efforts often start in our GitHub issue section. These are good places to begin new discussions by creating a new issue or join ongoing discussion by commenting on the issue. If our contributors want to start to get to know the project, or want to return after a long break, they can begin with our good first issues. If they have a new idea that they would like to add to the project as a new section in an existing chapter, or as a whole new chapter, they can start by creating a new issue.

Attend online Collaboration Cafe and coworking call

Our online Collaboration Cafes take place every 1st Wednesdays and 3rd Wednesdays on each month. These calls are 2 hours long coworking spaces for The Turing Way community. Everyone interested in learning from or developing this project can join us for any duration possible for them. At these calls one can work on their idea for a new contribution or enhancement of existing content in the project.

Participants can sign up on this HackMD to attend the upcoming calls: https://hackmd.io/@KirstieJane/CollabCafe. Anyone who would like to host these calls at other times, please get in touch with the team members. See more details in the chapter Coworking Call

Reviewing an open pull requests

Our contributors can help us by reviewing one of the several open pull requests based on their interest. They can join discussions on these pull requests or help in exploring resources that currently exists in the book.

Representing The Turing Way in your community/conference

If our attendees would like to represent our community, they can connect with The Turing Way team for support and assistance in drafting an abstract and help them prepare to deliver a short workshop or presentation.

Connecting through social media

Everyone is welcome to join our Gitter channel for informal discussions: . They can also sign up to receive our monthly newsletter: https://tinyletter.com/TuringWay/. We are on Twitter as @turingway, where we send regular updates.

If you have more ideas or questions about the project, the book dash event or something else related to our community, please feel free to reach out to the team members theturingway@gmail.com.

Reports and additional materials

Selection and Preparation Process Community Coworking Calls