CSCCE QSS Session | Project managing timelines and workflows across your team and/or community
2025-12-03 11:00 - 12:30 (America/New_York)
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.

CSCCE December Community Call: Annual community potluck
2025-12-16 11:00 - 12:00
As in years past, our December community call is an opportunity to close out the year in reflection and intention setting. The call will be roughly divided into three “courses,” with participants encouraged to “bring a dish to share” – in other words, our collective contributions will create a unique gathering, which you can expect to include reflection prompts, gentle activities, and opportunities to discuss and set intentions for the year ahead.
Specifically, please bring a dessert to share this year: something that inspired you in some way over the last 12 months. Some suggestions for what to bring include:

A book or article
A podcast series or episode
A poem, quote, or song lyric
A piece of music or new (to you!) artist
A TV show or movie
A recipe
A painting

You can find more information about the event in this blog post: https://www.cscce.org/2025/11/19/decembers-community-call-seventh-annual-cscce-community-potluck/
Zoom link to join: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88123402630?pwd=[REDACTED]

CSCCE Community Tools Trial: Zulip
2026-01-21 11:00 - 12:30 | https://us02web.zoom.us/meetings/83142974212/invitations?signature=diQ6rsI45PPUaynUdY0FO6enNS6XlFvZ2Eu8FmNgsZc
Zulip is an open source platform, similar to Slack, that supports community engagement through threaded discussions and curated channels. It is growing in popularity in STEM, and within our community of practice there is a collective interest in learning more about the platform, as well as several resident experts willing to demo Zulip and answer questions.
Zoom link to join: https://us02web.zoom.us/meetings/83142974212/invitations?signature=diQ6rsI45PPUaynUdY0FO6enNS6XlFvZ2Eu8FmNgsZc
So, we’re bringing back our community Tools Trials format to facilitate a conversation about Zulip! Our panel of Zulip experts includes:

Samantha Wittke, CSC-IT Center for Science
Danny Garside, Digital Research Academy
Maria Doyle, Bioconductor
Philip Durbin, Dataverse

They’ll each share a brief demo or presentation to highlight the features of Zulip, and then they’ll all be available to answer any questions you might have about the platform.
CSCCE Tools Trials are free events that are open to anyone convening communities in STEM, and this session is perfect for you if you:

Are interested in learning more about setting up Zulip as a new community platform
Want to learn more about what it takes to transition a community from Slack to Zulip
Already run a Zulip community, but are interested in “advanced” features such as integrating bots
Want to get to know your fellow scientific community managers

We intend for this to be the first in a short series of Tools Trials focusing on open-source tools for community engagement. Please check our Events calendar for future events, and/or reach out to info@cscce.org if you have a suggestion of a platform to trial.

CSCCE Quarterly Skills Share Session: Coordinating and implementing community-engaged communications campaigns
2026-03-04 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.
Community management work regularly involves telling your members about upcoming activities, leadership or staffing changes, and relevant news (e.g., funding opportunities or community publications). Speakers will share their experiences coordinating community events, restarting community efforts after a pause, and more. This session will highlight what it takes to coordinate a complex communications campaign, including creating scaffolding materials – a process we discuss, work through, and template in Content Design (CODE).
Speakers

Amber Nelson (Sage Bionetworks)
A.L. McMichael (Barnard College)
Tajuddeen Gwadabe

Please note: This is not a public event – participation is by invitation only.

CSCCE Community Book Club: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
2026-03-11 11:00 - 12:30
This 90-minute book club session will focus on The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni, a short fable that is used to explore a model outlining five things that are essential for a healthy, collaborative team (or working group, steering committee, or sub-community). If possible, we do ask that you read the book before the call, but we will also offer a recap of the key themes at the beginning of the session.
Facilitators:

Jody Peters (University of Notre Dame / EFI)
Lou Woodley (CSCCE)
Katie Pratt (CSCCE)

Register for the event on Zeffy to receive a calendar invitation and Zoom link.
More information is available on the CSCCE blog.

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.

CSCCE Community Tools Trial: CiviCRM
2026-03-25 14:00 - 15:30 | https://www.cscce.org/event/cscce-community-tools-trial-civicrm/
For our second Tools Trial of the year, we’re continuing our theme of open-source platforms that support community engagement by hosting a session about CiviCRM.
CiviCRM is an open-source constituent relationship management (CRM) platform designed for nonprofits. It can be used to manage community member data, design and implement communications campaigns, and support fundraising efforts. For STEM community managers, like those in the CSCCE community of practice, CRMs like Civi hold the potential to better understand their members and how they interact with the community and each other. How to unlock that potential, however, can feel overwhelming, with significant technical and financial barriers (not to mention initial setup time).
At the Tools Trial, we’ll explore some of these topics, and get a better sense for what is possible with Civi.
Speakers:

Lauren Collister (IOI)
Yo Yehudi (OLS)

Join us on Zoom

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.

Mini-workshop | Creating core values statements
2026-04-29 11:00 - 13:00
Core values statements describe the values underpinning how community members would like to interact, and include a definition of each value as well as examples of what they look like in action. Core values statements are most effective when they are co-created with community members and are specific to the community, rather than re-using values statements that others have created. In this Mini-workshop, you will practice a process for developing core values that you can adapt for your own community.
Price: $175
Register here: https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/cscce-mini-workshop-creating-core-values-statements-corevalues26
Registration deadline: Wednesday, 22 April 2026

Mini-workshop | Giving and receiving feedback
2026-05-28 11:00 - 13:00
Providing useful and kind feedback to others and being open to receiving feedback ourselves is a critical skill for effective collaboration – including during other CSCCE activities! During this session, we’ll explore the functions of feedback, how to structure yours, and what can make receiving feedback easier.
Price: $175
Register here: https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/cscce-mini-workshop-giving-and-receiving-feedback-feedback26
Registration deadline: Thursday, 21 May 2026

Quarterly Skills Share Session | How to support a sense of belonging and productive community engagement - and measure them!
2026-06-03 11:00 - 12:30
Ensuring that your members feel like they belong and are empowered to engage in community activities is fundamental to community management. In this Quarterly Skills Share session, our speakers will discuss how to co-create codes of conduct that support inclusive engagement, different ways of assessing engagement and community health, and how to ensure that the meetings and events you host support your community’s purpose. We’ll consider these topics in the context of large, online communities as well as smaller, in-person gatherings, and will touch on themes from various CSCCE training courses including co-creation of community resources, designing community programming, and developing champions programs.
Speakers:

Kevin Gott (NERSC)
Rebecca Hartman-Baker (NERSC)
Mike Lipka (NASA)
Samantha Wittke (CSC – IT Center for Science, Finland)

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 three to four presentations, with ample time for Q&A and discussion.
Please note: This is not a public event – participation is by invitation only!

Creating Community Playbooks (PBK26F)
2026-09-15 11:00 - 2026-10-30 12:30
This seven-week course is for anyone who wants to create or update a playbook but needs some guidance and/or accountability to get it made. All learners must be actively managing a community, collaboration, or team. This course is also appropriate for community managers interested in creating a playbook for a community champions program.
REGISTER
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.
Our fall offering of Creating Community Playbooks (PBK26F) will run on Tuesdays and Fridays beginning Tuesday, 15 September until Friday, 30 October 2026.
The key dates are:
Week 1

Tuesday lesson: 15 September at 11am – 1pm EDT / 3pm – 5pm UTC
Friday Co-Lab: 18 September at 11am – 1pm EDT / 3pm – 5pm UTC

Weeks 2-7

Tuesday lessons: 22, 29 September; 6, 13, 20, 27 October at 11am – 12:30pm EDT / 3pm – 4:30pm UTC*
Friday Co-Labs: 25 September ; 2, 9,16, 23, 30 October at 11am – 12:30pm EDT / 3pm – 4:30pm UTC*

*Note that daylight savings changes in the UK and Europe in late October may affect the timing of the last two sessions of the course in your region.
Registration deadline: Friday, 28 August 2026
REGISTER

Project Management for Scientists Bootcamp (PMB26F)
2026-09-21 12:00 - 2026-10-22 18:00
This seven-session online bootcamp intensive offers a grounding in the basics of project management, tailored to apply to specific STEM contexts and with a strong emphasis on the interpersonal considerations that support successful collaborative work. 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.
REGISTER
Over the course of this training, we will introduce you to a variety of concepts and approaches that scientists can use in managing their collaborative projects. You will 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 will use detailed STEM-specific case studies to support you with completing the Project Canvas in small groups, with application sessions intended to aid you in implementing the concepts in your own projects. 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.
Our Fall offering of Project Management for Scientists Bootcamp (PMB26F) will run on Mondays and Thursdays beginning Monday, 21 September until Thursday, 22 October 2026.
The key dates are:

Optional orientation session: Monday, 21 September 2026 at 12pm – 12:30pm EDT / 4pm – 4:30pm UTC
Introductory session (required): Thursday, 24 September at 12pm – 2pm EDT / 4pm – 6pm UTC
Monday sessions: 5, 12, 19 October at 12pm – 2pm EDT / 4pm – 6pm UTC
Thursday sessions: 8, 15, 22 October at 12pm – 2pm EDT / 4pm – 6pm UTC

Registration deadline: Friday, 28 August 2026
REGISTER
