client overview

The National Microbiome Data Collaborative (NMDC) is a US Department of Energy-funded center focused on “support[ing] microbiome data exploration through a sustainable data discovery platform that promotes open science and shared-ownership across a broad and diverse community of researchers, funders, publishers, societies, and other Collaborators.”

The process

TDI workshops feature a short presentation on the method, a survey-like instrument consisting of prompts that users rank on a rating-response scale, a lightly facilitated dialogue about the instrument, another round of the instrument, and a co-creation activity that builds on the topics from the dialogue. Along with my co-facilitators, we decided on a three-hour duration for this workshop in order to give participants time to dig deep into prompts and the co-creation.

I led the creation of our set of prompts with input from the other TDI facilitators, taking care to tailor them to areas of interest to NMDC, such as FAIR data standards and data interoperability, as well as to communication and collaboration. Prior to the workshop, these prompts were shared with the client to gain their feedback on wording and appropriateness for the audience. Our final instrument consisted 25 prompts across four themed modules (Open Science & Standards, Data, Communication, Collaboration).

The adoption of co-creation activities in TDI workshops is an innovation that I spearheaded during my time as a postdoctoral researcher with TDI. They are now an integral part of the TDI workshop process. Prior to the workshop, NMDC asked each participant to submit a data set. I wanted to combine this pre-work with opportunities for participants to brainstorm, get to know each other, and start to unpack issues they would be discussing for the rest of the workshop. This resulted in a three-step co-creation activity:

1. Participants spend five minutes individually brainstorming what makes the data set they submitted (or a data set in general) “good” or “bad”

2. They were then invited to share these results in small groups and create lists of these qualities on large post-its (using markers and smaller post-its)

3. Each discussion group then came back together and used these “good” and “bad” lists to create a post-it describing the characteristics of an ideal data set.

I served as the lead facilitator for our three-hour, in-person workshop on October 21, 2019. I began the workshop with the short presentation and then we split the workshop participants into three groups, each of which was facilitated by a member of the team. Each group engaged with the instrument, had a lightly facilitated dialogue, and participated in the co-creation activity. Discussions around the instrument were lively and brought together a variety of different perspectives.

At the end of the workshop, we brought all three groups back together for a wrap-up where each discussion group then shared their final good/bad data set criteria with the full NMDC workshop group.

Deliverables

In addition to the three-hour workshop itself, I led the creation of a co-authored report that summarized the dialogue, the co-creation activities, and the survey results, as well provided recommendations to NMDC based on the qualitative and quantitative data collected. This report is hosted on NMDC’s website here: http://microbiomedata.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/10/TDI-NMDC-Report.pdf

This report includes a set of recommendations for NMDC moving into the future including: defining “open science,” giving credit for sharing well-curated datasets, working with communities to incentivize data sharing, acknowledging that this work will evolve, and continuing to engage with the community.

Based on the NMDC team’s response, the workshop was a success. In Vangay, P., et. al.’s  2021 paper, “Microbiome Metadata Standards: Report of the National Microbiome Data Collaborative's Workshop and Follow-On Activities,”  the authors acknowledge the TDI team for “for leading activities at the start of the workshop to prepare participants for open, respectful dialogue.”

Lessons learned

Developing Mutually Beneficial Interactional Expertise
I appreciate the opportunity to become an interactional expert with all of the groups I work with, but in this case, working with NMDC opened me up to thinking and learning about FAIR data standards and open data, which also impacted my work with NSF, NASA, and at my home institution. Designing and facilitating events can be moments for both parties to learn and grow from each other’s expertise and to find ways to move each other forward. 

Standalone Versus Integrated Experience Design
When planning an experience that is part of a larger event, make sure that you gather as much information as you can about the rest of the event, including about other facilitators of design activities/workshops that may be taking place. You want to design an experience that is both unique, memorable for the users, but also fits into the goals for the entire workshop and helps create a cohesive workshop experience for the participant. As this workshop was the kickoff event for a larger workshop, I needed to make sure our activities fed directly into the goals of the overall workshop and created an engaging first opportunity for participants to get to know each other. Transparent, frequent communication with the NMDC team allowed for smooth planning and execution of an event that worked in tandem with the rest of their kickoff workshop.