CSCCE offers a range of training options to support scientific community professionals. From individual multi-week online courses and mini-workshops to our new Community Manager Certification Program, we are confident we can support your professional development journey. To stay up to date on CSCCE training offerings, please check back regularly or join our mailing list.
Table of Contents
- Our training philosophy
- Our instructors
- Multi-week online courses
- Mini-workshops
- CSCCE Community Manager Certification Program
- Your learning journey with CSCCE
- Organizational partnerships and custom trainings
- Our learning technologies
- FAQs
Our training philosophy
Learning and sharing together is one of CSCCE’s core values and we believe that in an emerging, dynamic profession such as scientific community engagement there are two complementary learning needs.
- The first is the creation of a shared vocabulary and set of frameworks to guide the way we talk about the work that we do – materials that we develop at CSCCE.
- The second is the need for trusted learning spaces where we can discuss our own challenges and successes and learn from one another’s experiences.
Learning together in cohorts is at the core of how we run our longer-form trainings, which is why we usually limit participation in multi-week courses to 25 participants.
Our instructors
We are a team of skilled communicators and facilitators, with extensive experience in academic publishing, international research collaborations, and research centers. We’re systems thinkers, passionate about building community, with an emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Multi-week online courses
Our online trainings are tailor-made for scientific community managers and other facilitators, contextualizing and synthesizing decades of research spanning organizational theory to marketing – all while honoring the wisdom that comes from practice and the value of peer support.
What you can expect from a CSCCE online course:
- Synthesis of theory and easy-to-use frameworks to empower you to discuss your work and make strategic decisions with confidence.
- Contextualized examples to help you to apply key concepts to common scenarios.
- Worksheets, activities and discussions to support you in leaving with a plan to implement what you’ve learned in your own community.
- Connection to other community managers in STEM – and multiple opportunities to learn from their experiences and share your own.
The precise format of each multi-week course varies with the course content. Check out the course pages for our current courses for more details, and when each course will be offered next.
Mini-workshops
CSCCE mini-workshops are an opportunity to dive deeper into some of our core frameworks and models. They are a great way to get a taste of our more in-depth online training modules, or acquire a broad understanding of the importance of STEM communities and the role of the community manager in STEM.
Each of these mini-workshops – which last between 90 minutes and two hours – includes presentations and interactive activities designed to inspire and empower you to reassess your own work through a community-centric lens. You will come away from each mini-workshop with actionable insights and new language and frameworks to discuss collaborative work and community-building roles.
Mini-workshops coming up on our 2023/24 calendar include:
ENACTING CULTURE CHANGE: THE FOUR-FRAME MODEL
Details
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.
Related resource: Bolman, L.G. & Deal, T.E. (2017). Reframing organizations: artistry, choice, and leadership. Sixth edition. New Jersey: Jossey-Bass.
MAKING A PACT FOR ENGAGING VIRTUAL MEETINGS AND EVENTS
Details
With virtual work increasingly the norm, community managers are often tasked with convening and facilitating virtual meetings. In this mini-workshop, participants will discuss the opportunities and challenges of virtual meetings and explore the “Making a PACT” framework (Purpose, Attendees, Community management, Tech tools) for effective meeting design. Community managers will apply the framework directly to example scenarios so that they leave feeling empowered to use the framework in their own community management.
Related resource: Center for Scientific Collaboration and Community Engagement. (2021) Using virtual events to facilitate community building: Making a PACT for more engaging virtual meetings and events. Woodley, Pratt, and East doi: 10.5281/zenodo.4987666
MAKING DECISIONS DURING VIRTUAL MEETINGS
Details
Meetings and virtual events often involve asking attendees to make decisions. Decision-making invokes numerous considerations, including how to negotiate power dynamics, empower everyone to express their opinions, and actually reach the outcome(s) you desire. In this mini-workshop, participants will explore four broad decision-making modes (authority rule, consultation, voting, and consensus) and then use the PACT framework to plan a decision-making process. Community managers will leave prepared to deploy decision-making processes in a way that invites all attendees at their meetings and events to contribute.
SELECTING SUPPLEMENTARY TOOLS FOR VIRTUAL MEETINGS AND EVENTS
Details
Community managers regularly use online tools to support the needs of community members in virtual meetings and events. With so many possible needs to solve for, and so many potential online tools to use – how can you quickly determine which tools to explore and then use? In this mini-workshop, participants will apply CSCCE’s BASICS framework and SCORE method to determine an appropriate tool for a provided use case scenario. They will also explore two online tools in a “sandbox” setting to explore functionality and usability, preparing them to select and implement tools for their own virtual meetings and events.
Related resource: Center for Scientific Collaboration and Community Engagement. (2021) A guide to using virtual events to facilitate community-building: Selecting and testing online tools. Woodley and Pratt doi: 10.5281/zenodo.4521211
WORKING WITH VOLUNTEERS
Details
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.
PREPARING FOR LARGE-SCALE COLLABORATIONS
Details
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, ready to determine how to translate the survey responses into practical next steps in the second workshop.
DESIGNING FOR LARGE-SCALE COLLABORATIONS
Details
In this second workshop of a two part series, participants will explore what they can do with the results of their team readiness assessment and determine next steps for the management of their projects. By the end of this workshop, participants will have drafted an outline of a collaboration guide and identified which type of facilitation tools or activities will be helpful for the next stage of their collaboration.
PLANNING TO FACILITATE
Details
During this workshop, participants will discuss the opportunities and challenges involved in hosting online meetings and outline the “Making a PACT” framework for effective meeting design. In addition to examples of the framework in action, there’ll be an opportunity to apply it directly to some example scenarios so that participants leave feeling empowered to use the framework in their own work.
BEING AN EFFECTIVE MEETING FACILITATOR
Details
This workshop will cover different components of meetings (e.g., recapping context and purpose, icebreakers / welcome, activity, debrief, activity/discussion, debrief, next steps, close out), and facilitation techniques to encourage participation during each component. We will also discuss how to set expectations, scaffold materials to promote engagement, and troubleshoot challenges that can emerge such as power imbalances and lack of engagement.
CSCCE Community Manager Certification Program
CSCCE’s Community Manager Certification Program builds upon our foundational Scientific Community Engagement Fundamentals (CEF) course to create a longer-form, multi-component, online program for STEM community managers. The program will equip community managers and their organizations with necessary skills and frameworks to ground their work in a community-centric leadership approach – and to signal those qualifications to others.
Registration for our fall 2023 certification cohort is now open – contact training@cscce.org.
Your learning journey with CSCCE
Our goal is to provide ongoing professional development opportunities for professionals in the STEM ecosystem who are working to build and nurture communities. We are currently working to expand our offerings so that you can self-select the pace and configuration of a learning journey that meets your needs.
The prerequisite for enrollment in all new CSCCE multi-week courses will be graduation from Scientific Community Engagement Fundamentals (CEF) – or an approved exemption. CEF provides community managers of all levels critical language and frameworks for understanding what is a unique emerging leadership role. Participants develop confidence and increased clarity about their role, and build relationships with other scientific community managers.
Completion of CEF is not required to participate in CSCCE mini-workshops.
Organizational partnerships and custom trainings
For organizations where multiple staff members or grantees would benefit from community management training, we can create private, custom cohorts of our existing courses or workshops. We have also created new trainings for a specific need. Please visit our consultancy page to learn more about this option, or email training@cscce.org.
Our learning technologies
As of 2023, we now supplement our use of Zoom, Google Workspace tools, and various additional apps with the learning management system Canvas. Canvas supports learners with accessing and managing course materials as well as submitting homework. Instructions and a video tour of Canvas is provided as part of the onboarding process to all of our online courses.
FAQs
My job title isn’t community manager – is CSCCE training for me?
If you are working with scientific communities or research collaborations in an academic, industry, or professional association setting, then yes. Additionally, program officers or funders who oversee community-centric initiatives, or professionals involved in running mentoring or alumni networks, might be particularly interested in some of our webinars.
If you are uncertain if a particular session or series is right for you, please contact us by emailing training@cscce.org.
Do you offer financial support?
Yes. We are currently building an Accessibility Fund to support learners for whom course and webinar fees are a barrier to participation. Please contact training@cscce.org for more information about how to apply.
Do the mini-workshops duplicate materials from CSCCE courses?
No. Our mini-workshops either go deeper on concepts and frameworks mentioned in our courses, or they cover entirely new topics. We use similar pedagogical techniques, however, so by taking a CSCCE mini-workshop you will get a taste of what it feels like to take a longer course.