Community Data Science Workshops (Fall 2014)/Reflections: Difference between revisions

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We had two people each who listed their affiliations as Bio- and Health Informatics, the Foster School of Management, Microsoft, and Wikipedia.
We had two people each who listed their affiliations as Bio- and Health Informatics, the Foster School of Management, Microsoft, and Wikipedia.


We also had people from Pyschology, the City of Seattle, the Low Income Housing Project, Seattle Meshnet, Biochemical Engineering, Bio Physical, Chemical Engineering, Game Studies, Linguistic, College of the Environment, Oceanography, the School and Public Health, UW Bothell, Central Washington University, and many people who did not specify an affiliation.
We also had people from Pyschology, the City of Seattle, the Low Income Housing Project, Seattle Meshnet, Biochemical Engineering, Bio Physical, Chemical Engineering, Game Studies, Linguistic, College of the Environment, Oceanography, the School and Public Health, UW Bothell, Central Washington University, and many people who did not specify an affiliation. We continue to think that it's important that people who are not doing research but who are are part of online communities were in the mix with UW-type researchers. Bringing together researchers and participants in online communities is an important goal and would like to work toward more balance in this regard and to increase the amount of non-UW participation.


Retention between session and 0 and 1 was nearly 100%. Retention between sessions 1 and 2 and sessions 2 and 3 was roughly 75% and leaving us with perhaps 55-60% retention at the end of session 3.
Retention between session and 0 and 1 was nearly 100%. Retention between sessions 1 and 2 and sessions 2 and 3 was roughly 75% leaving us with perhaps 55-60% retention between session 0 and session 3.


Anecdotally, there is a sense that those who are dropping are those who had more trouble but didn’t struggle visibly.
Anecdotally, there is a sense that those who are dropping were those who had trouble but who didn’t struggle visibly.


Although our participant pool in [[CDSW (Spring 2014)]] was overwhelming female, there was close to gender balance in both students and mentors. Roughly 2/3 of mentees were from UW and this included students from random places including someone who works for the city of Seattle. Many random Wikipedians were there. We continue to think that it's cool that people who are not doing research but are part of online communities were in the mix with the researchers.
Although our participant pool in [[CDSW (Spring 2014)]] was overwhelming female (80-90%), there was close to gender balance in both students and mentors this time around.


Once again, quite a large number of people applied were already skilled programmers. We're still not exactly sure why these people are applying because we think that the fact that the workshops are for absolute beginners is very clear. Perhaps people just want more exposure to data science?
Once again, quite a large number of people applied were already skilled programmers. We're still not exactly sure why these people are applying because we think that the fact that the workshops are for absolute beginners is very clear. Perhaps people just want more exposure to data science?


Once again, the constraint on scaling the workshop is the number of mentors. Every mentor means that the workshop can accommodate four more mentees.
Once again, the constraint on scaling the workshop was the number of mentors. Every mentor we added means that the workshop can accommodate four more mentees.


One suggestion was allowing mentees with have some programming skills — especially for the second and third workshops (given predictable rates of retention). There was not consensus among the organizers and mentors on this approach and preferred getting more newbies and invest more in them?
One suggestion was allowing mentees with have some programming skills — especially for the second and third workshops (given predictable rates of retention). There was not consensus among the organizers and mentors on this approach and preferred getting more newbies and invest more in them?