6  Communications

The communication of the program includes two aspects: the internal communication, with its participants, and the external communication, to shared and inform the community in general.

The Champions Program have a communication strategy that contemplates the different stages of the program:

6.1 External communication

There will be a series of blog posts introducing participants, thanking mentors and trainers, discussing the champion program, and documenting what has been learned so far. Blog post would be shared on other media and can be complement with other kinds of communication artifacts.

The blog posts will be a way of codifying everything the champions are learning, and shows them how far they’ve come. It also offers visibility for all involved in the program, including mentors, champions, and trainers, as well as being useful content to share with funders.

Blog posts are also a nice way to thank and acknowledge the contributions of all the folks involved in the champion program.

The external communication use the following media:

  • Champions Web Page.
  • rOpenSci Blog Post and Newsletter.
  • rOpenSci Social Media.
  • rOpenSci Community Calls and Co-working sessions.
  • Events with other communities.
Note

During the two years pilot of the program the social media landscape changed substantially due to the change of ownership of X (former Twitter), which implied a change in the way the program was communicated externally.

As the ?sec-comm-plan-recruitment details the communication plan for the Recruiting champions and mentors phase and how we use the differents media, in the following sessions we describe the communication plan and tools for the rest of the phase of the Champions Program.

6.1.1 Selection and onboarding

  • The first step is to inform the results of the call, e.g. the number of applications received, the type of project and from where are the applicants.

For example, this blog post for the first cohort rOpenSci Champions Program Kick off (also in Spanish) presents general stats for the applications and introduce the selected participants. Also share information about the kick-off meetings and training activities.

This Mastodon post is about the second cohort:

All blog post are shared on the monthly newsletter and in some Slack related with the program.

  • The second step is to update the Champions Program webpage:

  • Create an author profile for each Champions and Mentor selected: this will allow Champions and Mentors to be author on different type of contributions to rOpenSci.

  • List them on the Champions Program’s web page: this means upload their profile picture and add their affiliation and path for communication.

  • Remove from the main page all of the information about the open call.

  • Add the information about the program’s timeline on the main webpage.

  • The third step is draft the blog post introducing champions and mentors to the community. We tried two ideas to communicate about the selected champions and mentors.

6.1.1.1 Blog post series on champions and mentors

For the first cohort we write a series of ten blog posts, two each week. Each one will focus on a project team, which will typically consist of a champion and mentor, and the content will include who they are (biographical information) and what the project is about.

The Champions and Mentors have already filled out an AirTable form with headshots and other biographical information that will be useful in these blog posts. The Community Manager will create the skeleton with the info she already has, and the champions / mentors can edit it.

This are the published blog post in the series:

For the second cohort, we selected Mentors first because they helped with the review and final selection of champions. We decide to do two blog post, the first one introducing mentors and after the Champions selection was finished one blog post introducing champions.

The process was the same we use for the first cohort strategy regarding using the AirTable picture and information. We provide better instruction on how to write the text, for example, write your bibliography in the first person. The result was less time to edit the text for the blog post and less time to review the text by mentors and champions before post them.

These are the two second cohort’s introduction blog post:

6.1.2 Training

During champion and mentor training we report at three points:

  1. Each meeting is mentioned on social networks, the topic, who the instructors are and the materials are shared. You can also accompany the social media post with a screenshot of the workshop attendees.
  1. During the workshops we identify topics and advice that result in blog posts published on our website, or on the instructors’ websites. They are shared in the newsletter and on social media.
  1. At the end of the training phase, a blog post is made closing this stage where we share how the training was structured, what topics were taught and the feedback from the attendees.

This helps to share with the community what is happening in real time, what was learned during the whole process and makes the materials available for the community to benefit from.

Finally, the training details are include in the final report for our funders.

6.1.3 Champions Project and Outreach

There are two goals in the communication about Champions’ projects and outreach activity:

  1. Share details about the projects with the community.

  2. Support champions outreach activity spreading the word and sharing results.

For example, this is a series of post on social media about each Champion project:

  • Package eph: https://hachyderm.io/@rOpenSci/110967418654944210

  • Package naijR: https://hachyderm.io/@rOpenSci/110972893704549099

  • Package Agroclimatico: https://hachyderm.io/@rOpenSci/111030133176328601

  • Cagri’s project: https://hachyderm.io/@rOpenSci/111063737136002081

  • Package Lextale: https://hachyderm.io/@rOpenSci/111057655654084693

  • Package chartkickR: https://hachyderm.io/@rOpenSci/111052400785146165

  • Package karel: https://hachyderm.io/@rOpenSci/111046359173545680

  • Package rgeeextra: https://hachyderm.io/@rOpenSci/110985914847076073

  • Package odbr: https://hachyderm.io/@rOpenSci/110978882839376351

These are two blog post, the first one is a Champions’ blog post and the second one a summary of all Champions’ activities:

To support the outreach activities we publish the event in rOpenSci Events Calendar, announce it on social media and different Slack before the event. After the event we publish the material on rOpenSci website, vimeo and Slack. We shared these material on social media.

For example for the package eph organize a Community Call in Spanish. These are the communication pieces, also in Spanish:

6.1.4 Offboarding and evaluation

The external communication contemplates to write funder reports and summarizing activities and results for the wider community.

6.1.5 Blog post series on documenting the program

During all the pilot of the Champions Program, we discuss and documents our processes. We also change those base on our participant and community feedback. We write a series of blog post, organize events and delivered a series of talk to document and share what has been learned so far. Here are examples:

6.2 Internal communication

Communication with champions and mentors takes place in the following spaces:

  • Slack (more detail in ?sec-infrastructure).
  • Email.
  • Champions Program meetings (training sessions, cohort meetings, etc.)

The Program Manager share important information using always two channels: Slack and emails. Most of the time is the same message for both media.

6.2.1 What to do when Champions are disengaged from the program

In the first year, the rOpenSci Community Manager noted that three of the ten champions were slightly off track from the goals of the program. One champion had a project idea that was out of scope, while two were not showing up to the training sessions and meetings.

Each situation will be unique, and so it is important to consider the champion’s specific circumstances and tailor an intervention to the needs of the situation. However, some general guidelines can be helpful when champions are off track:

  • Have one-on-one meetings with the champion and / or their mentor. Often, just talking through the problem can be enough to generate solutions.

  • Intervene early and check-in often. Don’t let the problem get out of hand – at the first hints of an issue, reach out to the mentor or champion and make sure they are feeling supported.

  • If a champion can’t participate for whatever reason, offer the opportunity to another applicant.

    • Make expectations for the program clear from the start in early communication, and disclose that lack of proper engagement may lead to removal from the champion program.

In the three specific situations listed above, speaking with the mentors and champions allowed the Community Manager to co-create solutions that fit everyone. The out of scope project will have a different status in the R ecosystem, but will still benefit from the rOpenSci review process and therefore be fast-tracked to publishing in a journal. Meanwhile, the disengagement was handled by changing training schedules to be more accommodating.

6.2.2 Time Zone Concerns

Given the explicit goal of including a diverse range of people in the champion program, the issue of time zones has emerged – champions have nine hour time differences. It is important to organize training sessions accommodating these time zones, and to take into account that the United States and the UK have Daylight Savings time in March and November which disrupt typical time differences.

An important solution is to ask for the applicant’s time zone in the application form for the champion program to ensure that all those accepted will have some working-hour overlap in which they are able to meet.

A helpful resource for planning across time zones is this Time Zone Converter – Time Difference Calculator which allows you to compare times in several time zones at once and determine whether it is during waking hours or not.

6.2.3 Coffee Chats

The Community Manager should set up coffee chats for the champions. This is a great way to give them permission to reach out to one another outside of facilitated chats, and allows them to connect outside of official meeting times. It will add to the sense of camaraderie and community if they have personal connections to one another; champions have already noted and interest in engaging with each other outside of training sessions.

6.2.4 Offices hours and co-working session

6.3 Infrastructure for communications and documentation

A useful R package called rocartero sends out personalized emails, and the Community Manager only has to give an email template and list of names.

Another program called Quartificate creates quarto books automatically: rOpenSci Community Contributing Guide (Yani has one for mentors and champions)