| date | 2026-06-15 | ||||||
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| draft | true | ||||||
| title | Develop an Open Source Lesson with the UC OSPO Network | ||||||
| description | The UC OSPO Network is running four Carpentries Collaborative Lesson Development Training cohorts this summer and fall. We're looking for people to join an already-scoped lesson team or propose a new lesson. | ||||||
| author | Tim Dennis | ||||||
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The UC OSPO Network is running four Carpentries Collaborative Lesson Development Training (CLDT) cohorts this summer and fall. The software licensing cohort is confirmed and already full.
We're looking for people to fill two roles: join an already-scoped lesson team, or propose a new lesson and form your own team.
Teams of 2-5 people spend the training applying backward design to their lesson idea: who they're teaching, what learners need to be able to do, what exercises will help them get there, and how to structure the lesson in the Carpentries Workbench.
By the end of the training, you'll have a complete lesson outline and a working draft of lesson sections.
Carpentries certification requires one additional step: teaching part of the lesson and then debriefing with a trainer about what you learned and how the lesson can be improved.
Before joining the training, at least one team member must have completed Carpentries Instructor Training or Learner-Centered Teaching.
This lesson is scoped and ready for a development team. It builds on skills librarians already have: curation, preservation, metadata, and community stewardship, and frames them as open source contributions.
We're looking for 2-4 people to help develop and pilot the lesson.
If you have a lesson idea that fits the open source and OSPO ecosystem - for example security practices for academic open source, open source in non-CS research, governance models, contributing as a non-coder, or reproducibility and open data - we have one remaining slot available for a new team.
This is not a firm commitment. All that is required to get started is a topic, a rough sense of who you're teaching, and 2-4 colleagues who would work on it with you.
Finished lessons live in the UC OSPO curriculum catalog and are intended to be taught through UC OSPO and partner programs.
From there, there are two possible routes. Lessons can move into the broader Carpentries lesson programs, or they can go through Carpentries Lab, an open peer-review process focused on lesson design, content quality, and accessibility.
Lab-accepted lessons receive a URL on carpentries-lab.org and are publicized through the Carpentries community. The Lab is currently reviewing by invitation, so reaching out early is helpful.
Lab acceptance creates the option to submit to JOSE (Journal of Open Source Education). The JOSE review is separate - it evaluates an accompanying paper rather than the lesson itself.
Authors who complete both processes receive a Crossref DOI. The publication is peer-reviewed, indexed by Google Scholar, and remains part of your scholarly record if you move institutions.
The UC OSPO Network will provide editorial support for teams interested in pursuing JOSE publication, including mentorship through the submission and review process.
Lessons that remain institutional can still receive a Zenodo DOI. The UC OSPO Network maintains a Zenodo community connected to our GitHub organization, and DOI minting is part of the publication process before a lesson goes public.
You do not need broad community adoption to receive credit for your work.
The UC OSPO Network provides Workbench-compatible repository templates and setup support, so teams arrive at CLDT ready to build.
Most lessons stall at the pilot stage. We actively create teaching opportunities through UC Carpentries and the CURIOSS network so lessons can be tested and refined.
If contributors move institutions, lessons hosted in the UC OSPO GitHub organization can continue to be maintained through network oversight.
Open an issue on GitHub or email tdennis@library.ucla.edu.
Tell us which option you're responding to, who would be joining you, and, for Option 2, a brief description of the lesson idea.