Add minutes for swc-lpgc meeting - Dec 16, 2025

minutes/2025/2025-12-16Minutes.md

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+# **Minutes – December 16, 2025**
+
+## **Attendees**
+
+* Sarah Stevens (Chair)
+* Deborah “Debs” Udoh (Secretary)
+* Magnus Hagdorn
+* Annajiat Alim Rasel
+* Martino Sorbaro
+* Erin Becker
+* Toby Hodges (Director of Curriculum, The Carpentries)
+
+## **Agenda**
+1. Welcome & introductions
+2. Visioning exercise (continuation)
+3. Goals for the next 3–5 years
+4. Term lengths for committee members
+
+## **Notes**
+
+### **1. Welcome & Introductions**
+Brief welcome to participants.
+
+### **2. Visioning Exercise (Continuation)**
+A summary of the previous meeting’s visioning discussion was reviewed (see [2025-11-18Minutes](https://github.com/swcarpentry/governance/blob/main/minutes/2025/2025-11-18Minutes.md)).
+
+#### **Git lesson and platforms discussion**
+
+* **Magnus** raised concerns about reliance on GitHub, noting its centralising nature and questioning whether SWC should take a clearer values-based stance versus a pragmatic one.
+* **Sarah** noted that the current Git lesson is largely platform-agnostic and suggested offering learners choices of hosting platforms. She also acknowledged growing interest in graphical-first or GitHub-web-interface-only approaches.
+* **Martino** referenced a previous idea of splitting content into a “Git only” lesson and a separate “GitHub/forge-specific” lesson.
+* **Magnus** highlighted similar concerns with the increasing use of VS Code in intermediate workshops and questioned the sustainability of supporting multiple tools.
+* **Sarah** suggested polling the community to understand which alternative hosting services would be most welcome.
+
+The group agreed these topics require further, dedicated discussion over time.
+
+### **3. What New Things Would You Like to See in SWC by 2030?**
+
+* Development of more “next-step” and intermediate lessons, many of which already exist in the Incubator (Magnus).
+* Lessons on reproducible workflows, reporting and document production, and ML/AI, with awareness that some content may later fit better in a different lesson program (Sarah).
+* More proactive, holistic updates to existing lessons rather than only incremental maintenance.
+* Creating explicit opportunities and invitations for community members to contribute larger lesson changes (Martino).
+* Exploring stronger links between SWC lessons and teaching-methods expertise within The Carpentries ecosystem.
+* Improving accessibility through review by people with lived accessibility needs and considering recognition mechanisms for contributors (Annajiat).
+* Including clearer pointers to continued learning, alternative tools, and workflows not covered in core lessons (Annajiat).
+
+
+### **4. Goals for the Next 3–5 Years**
+
+The committee discussed possible medium-term goals (dates tentative):
+
+* Draft and agree on a committee decision-making paradigm by **March 2026**, using consensus.
+* By **end of 2026**, adopt **2–3 intermediate lessons** from the Incubator into the official SWC curriculum, with at least one related to ML/AI.
+* Publish clear documentation explaining how curricula connect across SWC and The Carpentries.
+* Develop and publish a clear process for lesson adoption and maintenance.
+* By **end of 2026**, include Git hosting alternatives (e.g. GitLab) in the novice Git lesson, with discussion needed on maintenance models.
+* Explore inclusion of a graphical-interface-based Git lesson using free and open tools.
+* Improve accessibility of challenging lessons (e.g. shell) where possible.
+* Conduct an annual review of **3–5 lessons** to identify larger, strategic updates.
+* In **2027**, host a sprint focused on helping new contributors make substantive lesson improvements.
+
+Some ideas were noted as outside the committee’s direct mandate but appropriate to advocate for with the Core Team and Board.
+
+### **5. Term Lengths for Committee Members**
+
+The committee discussed whether to introduce recommended term lengths:
+
+* General agreement that having a defined cadence for check-ins would help avoid unintentional disengagement.
+* **Two-year terms** were broadly supported as a reasonable balance, with flexibility to step off earlier if needed.
+* Strong opposition to strict term limits; several members noted that long-term service can be mission-driven.
+* Discussion included staggered terms to preserve institutional memory and mechanisms for off-boarding and conflict management.
+* The importance of clear communication and transparency when capacity changes was emphasised.
+
+No final decision was made during the meeting.
+
+## **Action Items**
+
+* **Toby** to bring the discussion on term lengths back to the Library Carpentry Governance Committee and explore alignment across committees.
+* **All committee members** to review and asynchronously comment on the proposed 3–5 year goals, adding suggestions and refinements.
+
+## **Next Meeting**
+
+Date to be confirmed.