CSCCE

Mini-workshop | Working with volunteers
2025-09-29 11:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York)
Community managers are often trying to create spaces that support group learning and self-expression to build something members of the community couldn’t create alone – and this almost always includes incorporating volunteer contributions. In this Mini-workshop, we’ll explore common community manager concerns related to working with volunteers. We’ll discuss how to flip the narrative from self-doubt and scarcity to center volunteers in a way that empowers and supports them in working together and builds your confidence as a community organizer. We will discuss making contributor pathways visible so that work gets done, while being respectful of members’ different contexts. If you’ve ever found yourself thinking things such as “I feel really self-conscious about asking for contributions from our volunteers – are we being too demanding?” and “I know that different members in our community need different things, but I don’t know where to start.” then this discussion-based workshop is for you.
Price: $175
Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cscce-mini-workshop-working-with-volunteers-tickets-1286675584309?aff=oddtdtcreator
Registration deadline: Wednesday, 24 September 2025

Nurturing Online Communities (NOC)
2025-09-30 - 2025-11-14
Building and nurturing a community in an online environment comes with specific needs and challenges. This seven-week course is designed with community managers of scientific communities of practice in mind, and will explore a variety of social science claims about how people behave in online communities to inform actions that you might take to support increased engagement, commitment, and constructive behavior.
In this seminar-style course, participants will engage with instructors and each other in regular discussions, guided by the course textbook, Building Successful Online Communities by Kraut and Resnick. The course will cover 6 topics related to managing online communities and each week we will review the corresponding chapter of the textbook, focusing on key themes identified by staff, and work together on a case study to apply the concepts. Later the same week, learners will spend a 90-minute Co-Lab working in breakouts on a CSCCE-designed activity to apply a translation of the core concepts to their own community, followed by a debrief.
Our fall offering of Nurturing Online Communities (NOC25F) will run on Tuesdays and Fridays beginning Tuesday, 30 September until Friday, 14 November 2025.
The key dates are:

Tuesday lessons: 30 September; 7, 14, 21, 28 October; 4, 12** November at 12pm – 1:30pm ET / 4/5pm – 5/6:30pm UTC*
Friday Co-Labs: 3, 10, 17, 24, 31 October; 7,14 November at 12pm – 1:30pm ET / 4/5pm – 5/6:30pm UTC*

*Note that daylight savings may affect the timing of live sessions for those outside the US in the final week two weeks of the course).
**CSCCE will be closed on Tuesday, 11 November 2025 in observance of Veterans Day. To accommodate this, our week 7 lesson will take place in the same time slot on Wednesday, 12 November.
Registration deadline: Friday, 5 September, 2025
REGISTER FOR NOC25F

Mini-workshop | An introduction to project management for scientists
2025-11-05 11:00 - 13:00
This two hour session provides an overview of the concepts and approaches scientists can use in managing their collaborative projects. You will leave the session able to describe what a project is and the relationship between projects and operations. We’ll also discuss the three types of project and their relationship to uncertainty and complexity. Finally, we will explore the competencies of an effective project leader, whatever their job title. Please note that we also offer a two-day Project Management for Scientists Bootcamp that significantly expands on the topics covered in this Mini-workshop, and sets you up to put many of these principles into practice using HBR’s Project Canvas.
Price: $175
Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cscce-mini-workshop-an-introduction-to-project-management-for-scientists-tickets-1286709465649?aff=oddtdtcreator
Registration deadline: Wednesday, 29 October 2025

Project Management for Scientists Bootcamp (PMB)
2025-11-18 - 2025-12-12
This six-session bootcamp intensive offers a grounding in the basics of project management, tailored to apply to specific STEM contexts. This training draws upon a core text, The Harvard Business Review Project Management Handbook by Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez, with materials contextualized for STEM scenarios and applied to custom STEM case studies by CSCCE staff.
Over the course of this training, participants use CSCCE-created templates to create a Project Canvas describing the three key domains of a project (Foundation, People, and Creation) and the three building blocks of each domain (which include the project’s purpose, benefits, stakeholders, sponsor, and the plan for delivery and evaluation).
We use detailed STEM-specific case studies to support participants with completing the Project Canvas in small groups, with application sessions intended to aid participants in applying the concepts to their own project. In our experience, this provides the most value – supporting high fidelity acquisition of key concepts as well as dedicated time to make progress on individual projects with instructor support.
The Fall 2025 offering of the Project Management for Scientists Bootcamp (PMB25F) will run on Tuesdays and Fridays beginning Tuesday, 18 November until Friday, 12 December 2025.
The key dates are:

Tuesday lessons: 18 November; 2, 9 December at 12pm – 2pm EST / 5pm – 7pm UTC
Friday Co-Labs: 21 November; 5, 12 December at 12pm – 2pm EST / 5pm – 7pm UTC

*Note: Due to the Thanksgiving Holiday in the U.S., there will be no sessions on Tuesday, 25 November and Friday, 28 November.
Registration deadline: Tuesday, 28 October 2025
REGISTER FOR PMB25F

CSCCE QSS Session | Project managing timelines and workflows across your team and/or community
2025-12-03 11:00 - 12:30
Quarterly Skills Share (QSS) sessions are an opportunity for participants in the CSCCE Community Manager Certification Program to share insights and expertise about their roles as STEM community managers. Sessions last 90-minutes and include two or three presentations, with ample time for Q&A and discussion. This quarter, our speakers will be talking about the temporal aspects of community management: Project managing timelines and workflows across your team and/or community.
The successful, on-time delivery of community projects and activities regularly requires community managers to use project management tools and strategies to coordinate work. In this Quarterly Skills Share session, we’ll discuss tools and tactics for managing projects both within a staff team and across a community of volunteers, with a particular emphasis on time-dependent, deadline-driven workflows. This session will draw on themes from all of the multi-week courses in CSCCE’s Community Manager Certification Program, connecting the dots between effective content and communication, engagement strategy, project management, and documentation.
Speakers

Pooneh Sabouri, Project Manager for STEP UP, Florida International University
Jody Peters, Community Manager for the Ecological Forecasting Initiative, University of Notre Dame
Saranjeet Kaur Bhogal, Research Software Engineer, Imperial College London

This is an invitation-only event.

Scientific Community Engagament Fundamentals (CEF26W)
2026-03-19 - 2026-05-07
This eight-week course is designed to offer new and existing community managers a core set of actionable skills and strategies. Participants meet twice a week, with lecture-style content interspersed with discussion and project work.
Our winter offering of Scientific Community Engagement Fundamentals (CEF26W) will run on Mondays and Thursdays beginning Thursday, 19 March until Thursday, 7 May.
The key dates are:

Social hour: Thursday, 19 March at 12pm – 1pm EDT / 4pm – 5pm UTC
Monday lessons: 23, 30 March; 6,13, 20, 27 April; 4 May at 12pm – 1:30pm EDT / 4pm – 5:30pm UTC
Thursday Co-Labs: 26 March; 2, 9,16, 23, 30 April at 12pm – 1:30pm EDT / 4pm – 5:30pm UTC
Graduation: Thursday, 7 May at 12pm – 2pm EDT / 4pm – 6pm UTC

Registration deadline: Thursday, 5 March 2026
REGISTER
More information is available on the CEF webpage.

Content Design (CODE26Sp)
2026-04-21 - 2026-05-29
Content Design (CODE) is a six-week course that introduces a strategic approach to designing and creating community-engaged content that energizes and inspires your community members. During the course, we cover the fundamentals of writing clear and actionable prose. However, this course should not be thought of as a “writing 101” course – instead, it’s a design approach that can impact how you create a range of different content types for your community.
Our Spring offering of Content Design (CODE26Sp) will run on Tuesdays and Fridays beginning Tuesday, 21 April until Friday, 29 May 2026.
The key dates are:

Tuesday lessons: 21, 28 April; 5, 12, 19, 26 May at 10am – 11:30am EDT / 2pm – 3:30pm UTC
Friday Co-Labs: 24 April; 1, 8, 15, 22, 29 May at 10am – 11:30am EDT / 2pm – 3:30pm UTC

Registration deadline: Friday, 3 April 2026
REGISTER
More information is available on the CODE webpage.
