Is my team ready for Openscapes?

The Openscapes Champions Program is a remote-by-design, cohort-based mentorship program that supports teams of up to 6 colleagues to re-imagine data analysis and stewardship as a collaborative effort, develop modern skills that are of immediate value to them, and cultivate collaborative and inclusive communities. Teams will focus on their own work with their teams to identify where they are and where they want to go. It’s important to note that individuals and teams do not have to have familiarity or expertise in open science or data science fields to benefit from the Openscapes Champions Program.

Logistically, teams who apply to the 2023 cohort can be comprised of:

• 3-6 people;
• Anyone across all Water Boards Regions, Divisions, or Offices, and job classifications;
• Some team members external to the Water Boards, as long as these team members also fit the characteristics described below. It is strongly recommended that external team members account for fewer than 50% of the individuals on each team.

Characteristics of teams that will get the most return on their investment into the Champions Program include:

• Team members are given the approval and support they need from their management to dedicate the time required to actively participate and engage in the Openscapes Process. The minimum and required time commitment is 2-4 hours/week over 10 weeks for meetings and associated work. For more information, see the cohort process section of the Implementation Cycle.
• Teams that have at least one or two members who do some form of data management, analysis, visualization, or communication in their work on a regular basis. The more regular this work occurs (e.g. weekly is better than quarterly), and the more technically advanced they are (e.g. coding in R, Python or SQL is better than Excel), the more the entire team will get out of the process.
• All team members are interested in exploring the interconnected nature of open science and in taking time to reimagine data workflows and stewardship as a collaborative effort, develop modern skills that are of immediate value to them, and cultivate collaborative, inclusive, equitable, and kind teams and communities.
• Teams want to evolve and invest in their culture, processes, and workflows so that they can embody the better science for future us mindset.
  • “Better science” means science that is more open, reproducible, efficient, and also more diverse, equitable, inclusive, kind.
  • “Future us” is ourselves, teams, communities in the next hour, week, decades – with a focus on onboarding ourselves and others to ongoing work.