CSCCE Training Update – General registration courses and Mini-workshops!

General registration is now open for Scientific Community Engagement Fundamentals (CEF24W), Creating Community Playbooks (PBK24W), AND some of CSCCE’s new Mini-workshops! In this blog post, we highlight some key dates and deadlines, as well as answer some questions you might have about your participation (see the FAQ section at the end). 

Please note that priority access to PBK24W and all CSCCE Mini-workshops is given to participants in our Community Manager Certification Program. This means that there are a limited number of spots available (we cap participation at 25). So, if you’re interested in taking any of these trainings, don’t delay in signing up! 

If after reading this post you have any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to reach out to training@cscce.org and a member of our training team will get back to you ASAP. 

Scientific Community Engagement Fundamentals (CEF24W)

While the content is designed for any level of learner, it should not be thought of as a “beginner” course. Rather, it is intended to create common ground so that scientific community managers can converse across disciplines, more efficiently learn from one another, and build successful engagement strategies that are grounded in theory.

Included in your registration: 

• Access to slides and course materials via Canvas, our learning management system
• A digital badge upon completion, which you can share online to demonstrate your new qualification 

CEF is also a prerequisite for anyone interested in our Community Management Certification Program, which launched in September of 2023. We’re currently accepting enrollment in our March 2024 cohort of the program.

Creating Community Playbooks (PBK24W)

In this workshop-style, multi-week course, we’ll talk about the different contexts in which playbooks are useful and the different strategies for creating and maintaining them. Then, you’ll use CSCCE’s playbook framework and custom templates to create a “lite” playbook of your own.

Included in your registration: 

• Access to slides and course materials via Canvas, our learning management system
• A digital badge upon completion, which you can share online to demonstrate your new qualification 

Upcoming Mini-workshops

CSCCE Mini-workshops are 90- to 120-minute sessions that introduce discrete ideas in community management or go deeper on a core framework. They do not duplicate any of the materials covered in our multi-week courses, nor do you have to complete CEF to participate. 

Enacting culture change: The Four-Frame Model

Many culture change projects are met with general enthusiasm at the conceptual level, but fall short during their implementation. In this Mini-workshop, participants will reflect on their own role as change agents and use Bolman and Deal’s Four-Frame Model to assess and describe different types of barriers to culture change initiatives (structural, human resources, political, and symbolic). We will then use the model to identify where community managers might exert leverage  – and what specific actions could help to overcome the identified barriers.

Preparing for large-scale collaborations (Part 1)

In this first of a two part series of two-hour workshops, participants will explore dimensions of team readiness for large, multi-stakeholder collaborative initiatives and how a team readiness assessment can be used to identify the stage of their project and which areas they need to address as a priority. By the end of this workshop, participants will have drafted a survey for their project, and be ready to determine how to translate the survey responses into practical next steps in the second workshop.

Designing for large-scale collaborations (Part 2)

Prerequisite: Preparing for large-scale collaborations (Part 1)

In this second workshop of a two part series, participants will debrief the team readiness surveys they drafted in workshop one. They will explore how to deploy the survey and how to report the results back to the community and determine next steps. Then, using a framework describing collaborative approaches, participants will identify which combination of approaches or activities will be helpful for the next stage of their collaboration.

Coming up later in 2024

We’ll be offering more Mini-workshops in 2024, including: 

• Making a PACT for engaging virtual meetings and events
• Making decisions during virtual meetings
• Selecting supplementary tools for virtual meetings and events
• Working with volunteers
• Planning to facilitate
• Being an effective meeting facilitator

Keep an eye on our Events calendar, which we’ll be updating as details are finalized, and you can be sure to hear from us if you’re signed up to our mailing list. 

FAQs

Do I need to have completed CEF to take PBK? 

No! PBK is a standalone, workshop-style course in which you’ll start building a playbook for your community. It’s a great option for new community managers to get started on key documentation, and learn more about options for maintaining and socializing their playbooks. 

What about the Mini-workshops? 

No! They are also standalone training options. 

I already have a playbook, is PBK really for me?

Even if you already have a playbook or existing documentation about your community, this course will help you to identify gaps, make updates, or improve the adoption and reuse of existing content. We’ve found that previous learners in similar trainings that we’ve offered appreciated the opportunity to audit and update documentation and processes to enhance existing communication norms.

Someone else on my team also contributes to our playbook. Should they take part in PBK with me? 

This likely depends on how you share the responsibility of updating your playbook, or whether you maintain multiple playbooks for different sub-groups in your community. Since the course is very hands-on, you’ll be spending some of your classroom time actually working on your playbook, meaning that you and your colleague could work together in real time if you both took part. If you have multiple playbooks for your members (e.g., one for a Champions program and one for the community as a whole) another option is for you each to take on updating a separate playbook. 

I’m signed up for the CSCCE Community Manager Certification Program in March – should I sign up for any of these offerings? 

No – all of these offerings will be included in your Certification Program registration fee. PBK will run again in the summer of 2024, and all of these Mini-workshops will run again during your enrolment. 

I would like to take part in the March cohort of the Certification Program. Will CEF24W end in time for me to do so? 

Yes! And we encourage you to register in advance for Certification if that is your intention. Please DO NOT wait until CEF24W concludes to register for certification, as there will not be time to onboard you to the program. The deadline to register for the March intake of the CSCCE Community Manager Certification Program is Friday, 19 January 2024. 

If I take PBK now, will it count towards my potential future enrolment in the Certification Program? 

Yes, however if you are considering enrolling in the program we strongly recommend that you wait and complete the program all at once. Taking PBK now and then enrolling in the program at a later date will likely incur a fee, and will impact your experience as part of your enrollment cohort. 

Will you be making any other multi-week courses (e.g., CODE) available for general registration? 

We don’t currently have plans to do this within the next 6 months or so. Based on early enrollment, the March cohort of the Certification Program will be so large that it will fill CODE24Sp and PBK24S. We can, however, create private cohorts of these courses if your organization or institution is interested in sponsoring a domain-specific cohort. If this is of interest, please reach out to training@cscce.org.

If you are interested in taking more than one of our courses, we highly recommend that you sign up for Certification – and we’d be happy to talk to you about options for enrollment and payment plans (training@cscce.org).