Community Building Report: Project Jupyter

2024-08-29T19:21:00+00:00

The Jupyter Community Building Working Group would like to share a report and community building recommendations from interviews with members of Project Jupyter subprojects. We invite you to view the full report by clicking here and we welcome feedback on the Jupyter Discourse channel.

Community Building Report: Executive Summary

In late 2023, the Jupyter Community Building Working Group (JCB) launched a series of discussions with subproject representatives to better understand and support their community-building needs: a Jupyter Community Building Survey. The goals of the survey were to understand community-building needs and goals for each subproject, to gather information necessary to advise the Executive Council (EC) on where and what types of resources would be most impactful to meeting these needs and goals, and to identify and share community practices across Project Jupyter.

The JCB used a hybrid approach including a written survey followed by a 30 minute in-depth interview. The report includes our methodology and findings broken out by cross subproject topics and by subproject interviews. A copy of the interview questionnaire is included as Appendix A. This report will be publicly shared and sent to the EC to inspire or serve as a catalyst for strategic activities moving forward. If you have ideas or feedback, we invite you to reach out to us on Discourse.

Here is a brief summary of our recommendations (in no particular order).

1. Create a sustainable events program for subprojects
Project Jupyter should establish stable sources of funding, allocation procedures, and logistical support specifically for subprojects to conduct synchronous, in-person, collaborative meetings on an annual basis. The Project should also provide a way for associated events funded externally to label themselves as “affiliated” or “endorsed” by Project Jupyter.

2. Establish a mechanism for requesting resources
Project Jupyter should establish a procedure for accepting, reviewing, and funding proposals from subprojects. This could include support for external consulting services, infrastructure, or other items that have the potential to benefit the subproject itself and by extension the wider Jupyter ecosystem.

3. Increase Cross Project Coordination
Project Jupyter should create a regular program of Jupyter-wide meetings (virtual and in-person). These meetings should include opportunities to share news between subprojects, discuss best practices and lessons, and also provide opportunities for the wider user community to share information with contributors.

4. Improve onboarding processes for contributors
Project Jupyter should establish a dedicated effort to improve onboarding processes for contributors. This could be a working group, strategic initiative, or paid staff and should focus on creating a more streamlined, consistent, and inclusive onboarding experience for all contributors. An approach that includes code and non-code contributors is important to success.

For more context on these four recommendations and some idea of what next steps are for implementing them, please visit section 4 of the full report.

Acknowledgements

The members of the Jupyter Community Building Working Group — Rollin Thomas (Berkeley Lab NERSC), Martha Cryan (Plotly), Ana Ruvalcaba (Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo), and Jason Grout (Databricks) — would like to thank all involved in this survey. We extend our gratitude to the subproject participants who found time in their busy schedules to respond to our survey questions and meet with us for interviews! We enjoyed learning more about the different subprojects and connecting with their contributors. This report represents a significant investment of time and we hope that its contents will help drive new strategic initiatives at Project Jupyter.

Jupyter Community Workshops: Call for Proposals

2018-11-14T19:26:00+00:00

The large majority of Jupyter’s work is accomplished through remote, online collaboration; yet, over the years, we have found deep value in focused in-person work over a few days. In-person events are particularly useful for tackling challenging development and design projects, growing the community of contributors, and for strengthening collaborations.

In early 2018 Bloomberg announced funding to enable contributors to Project Jupyter to host workshops and small events in their local communities. We are thrilled with the level of interest generated by our first round of funding and are happy to share that we were able to fund two recipients, Chalmer Lowe and Lorena Barba for events scheduled for mid and late November. Chalmer Lowe’s proposal included a series of community events to engage his local Python and data science community to use support/use/contribute to Jupyter. Lorena Barba’s proposal focuses on hosting a writing sprint to create the first draft of a handbook for teaching with Jupyter. Look for future blog posts to highlight the results and impact of those events.

The second call for proposals and final round of funding is open through December 10, 2018.

The idea behind these workshops is to bring together small groups (12 to 24 people), of Jupyter community members and core contributors for high-impact strategic work and community engagement on focused topics. Our vision is that these events would occur no later than June of 2019.

We are particularly interested in workshops that explore and address topics of strategic importance for the future of Jupyter. We expect the workshops to involve 1–2 dozen participants over a 2–3 day period, and have a total Jupyter-funded budget of approximately $10,000 to $20,000, which may help cover expenses such as travel, lodging, meals, or event space. It is our intent for the workshops to include both participants who are core Jupyter contributors, as well as stakeholders and contributors and potential contributors within the larger Jupyter ecosystem. While not the primary focus of the workshops, it would be highly beneficial to couple the workshop with broader community outreach events, such as sprints, talks, or tutorials, at local meetings or conferences.

Proposal Process Highlights:

Submit initial proposal using this form by Monday, December 10, 8am Pacific time (1600 UTC).
Initial steering council review (up to a week). Proposal goes to Steering Council for initial review and feedback. Proposal is either approved or declined.
Budget and Logistics Development (up to four weeks). Operations Manager will support workshop organizer who work will develop a venue/date proposal, detailed budget, event plan, and proposed list of participants.
Final steering council review (up to a week). Proposal presented for final approval to steering council, including final budget, event details, and an estimate of the potential impact of the event. Assuming the budget included in the initial proposal is fully developed and no major changes are proposed, this period may be waived.

The proposal process for these workshops is being managed by the Jupyter Operations Manager, Ana Ruvalcaba (jupyterops@gmail.com), and the Steering Council. Applications can be completed using the online form and are due by December 10, 2018, 8am Pacific time (1600 UTC). Events should be hosted no later than June of 2019.

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This initiative is organized by Jason Grout, Paul Ivanov, Brian Granger, and Ana Ruvalcaba.