Cohort Planning

Overview

Since 2018 we have iterated on a strategy that works well for planning and coordinating with partners, and engaging and attracting research teams to participate in the Champions Cohort.

Planning with partners can take several months, depending on the needs of their community and how well they already know about the opportunities in the Openscapes Champions Program.

Planning document

We make a copy of our Openscapes-CohortPlanningDoc to share with our Partners. This planning document is to help us finalize dates and text language for announcing and coordinating our Openscapes Cohort.

The following is a high-level overview of what is in the Planning Doc and announcement, with example text. It also includes example checklists we use in GitHub Issues.

This issue is to help track the pre-cohort setup, following the [approach-guide](https://openscapes.github.io/approach-guide/champions/pre-cohort-engage.html#planning-document) and focused on the engagement and tech setup after dates are set.

These TODO's are for @jules32 unless otherwise noted. cc: [ Openscapes/2022-noaa-afsc-assist ]

## Quicklinks

- [Planning Folder] - includes Planning Doc that also serves for Seaside Chats and Debriefs, also [LessonPlannning Spreadsheet]  
- [Cohort Folder] - to share with Champions (a subfolder within planning folder)
  - [ParticipantsList]


## Prep Announcement

- [ ] draft events page (https://openscapes.github.io/events)
- [ ] create google form - Ady made and internal spreadsheet
- [ ] post events page (with linked google form)

## Tech Setup for Cohort 
For Cohort Planning Team  (Stef, Julie, Ady)

- [ ] invite co-leads/assists to Google Calendar Cohort Calls
- [ ] GitHub:
  - [ ] create GitHub repo for cohort with cohort name: eg github.com/openscapes/2022-noaa-sefsc-summer
  - [ ] Make it a website: Settings > Pages > Source: main, dir: root
  - [ ] Add our Code of Conduct (kyber)
  - [ ]  Write Cohort info on the README (kyber)
  -  *Add Evaluation information upcoming*
  - [ ] Add co-leads/assists to GitHub repo with maintainer permission
  - [ ] create Cohort Planning Checklist Issues, tag planning team
- [ ] Google Folder:
  - [ ] create Google Folder for participants: `Openscapes_CohortCalls [ cohort_name ]` 
  - [ ] add co-leads/assists to Google Folder for participants

## Adding Participants: Before Call 1
(giving access at the right time)

- [ ] Emails
  - [ ] draft welcome email
  - [ ] send welcome email
  - [ ] send "reminder" email 1 day before, after adding participants to `Openscapes_CohortCalls [ cohort_name ]`
- [ ] Google Calendar:
  - [ ] add participants emails to Google Calendar Invites: Cohort Calls - Do this when you send Welcome Email
  - [ ] add Google Folder link to the Google Calendar description: 

  > We'll meet with the above Google Meet link. 
  > [Openscapes_CohortCalls] is our Cohort Folder that will have Agendas prior to each call

- [ ] Google Folder: 
  - [ ] add participants emails to `Openscapes_CohortCalls [ cohort_name ]` - Do this the day before Cohort Call 1
  
## Adding Participants: After Call 1
  
- [ ] Slack
  - [ ] Add participant emails to Slack; create cohort channel - Do this after Cohort Call 1
- [ ] Google Calendar
  - [ ] add participants emails to Google Calendar Invites: Co-working times (optional) - Do this after Cohort Call 1

## Adding Participants: Before Call 2

- [ ] GitHub:
  - [ ] add participants to GitHub repo with `kyber` - Do this before GitHub Clinic 
  - [ ] create GitHub Clinic files with `kyber` - Do this before GitHub Clinic

Partners Planning Call

The Partner Planning Call kicks of the collaboration. In this meeting we share lessons learned from recent Cohorts, introduce cohort structure and teams, Pre-Cohort Engagement, and onboarding any assistants. Partners share more about the research community, and we discuss the planning timeline and propose dates for the Cohort.

Schedule Cohort Dates

Schedule the Cohort dates early as possible!!

We have found this procedure to work best:

  1. We schedule date-times for all Cohort Calls that work for anyone involved with leading the Cohort Calls. This includes asking/exploring for any big conflicts like conferences that this community attends.
  2. We announce the opportunity ~2 months ahead with the scheduled date-times and ask for team leads to nominate their teams. We’ve found setting the date-times in advance (no doodle) streamlines scheduling and it makes this event seem more “official”. Plus, having team leads commit to the times on behalf of their whole teams creates more buy-in.

The [NAME] Openscapes Champions Cohort will run from September - October 2021. We will meet as a Cohort via Zoom five times over two months for 1.5 hours, on alternating Thursdays or Fridays. We propose the following three options (we’ll send Google Calendar Invites when confirmed). Would these times work for us:

Option 1) Thursdays at 12-1:30 pm ET. Dates: September 16 & 30, October 14 & 28, November 11

Option 2) Thursdays at 2-3:30 pm ET. Dates: September 16 & 30, October 14 & 28, November 11

Option 3) Fridays at 12-1:30 pm ET. Dates: September 17, October 1, 15 & 29, November 12

Example: NOAA Fisheries

Openscapes has led 5 Champions Cohorts with NOAA Fisheries (NMFS, the National Marine Fisheries Service) since 2020. We’re planning 2-3 more Cohorts for 2022. Planning each Cohort has involved proposals to center supervisors, presentations to center leadership, coordination with center staff, and presentations to recruit participants and “ask me anything” sessions to answer questions, building from Openscapes’ pubs, slides, etc and operations overview.

Coming soon: link to the NMFS Openscapes README with planning resources reused/remixed across NMFS science centers.

(We additionally have a 3-year proposal for NMFS-wide Openscapes 2023-2025 modeled after NASA Openscapes that we’re presenting to leadership).