Posted by j.laird on 24 June 2020 - 9:30am 

Collaborations Workshop 2020 (CW20) took place online from 31 March - 2 April 2020 and the documentation created to facilitate the virtual unconference is now available for reuse. 

Originally scheduled to take place at Queen’s University Belfast, CW20 was reorganised within three weeks to take place online due to the situation surrounding COVID-19, and was supported by Microsoft, F1000 Research, Figshare, eLife and Overleaf.

A number of documents and resources were developed to help facilitate the smooth running of the virtual event, and help maintain the collaborative, unconference nature of many of the CW20 sessions. We have made this collection of resources available via Figshare, which include:

• An index of links to documentation and event resources for organisers to easily navigate on the day.

• A duties roster with lists and descriptions of the extra roles we needed for our online event.

• A spreadsheet for the mini-workshop and demo sessions assignments to demonstrate how we organised parallel sessions.

• Zoom instructions for events with parallel sessions to make sure all account hosts are on the same page.

• A start of event checklist to remind the event chair what tasks need to be done before and at the start of the event (such as a reminder to send the connection details, assign co-hosts, record the event and take a “group photo”). 

• An example collaborative notes document (with agenda) to guide participants through the event, provide another pathway to engagement and compile questions, notes and outputs from the event.

• The spreadsheets which we used to facilitate our unconference sessions (discussion groups, collaborative ideas and hack day).

All resources are licensed CC BY 4.0.

Read the highlights from Collaborations Workshop 2020. 

If you have any questions regarding the resources, how we ran CW20 online, or running virtual events in general, please email SSI Community Manager Rachael Ainsworth: r.ainsworth@software.ac.uk.