Developing a New Course
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General Structure
All courses follow the same general Academy structure/scheduling and occur in July during the same course date window.
All courses are geared toward the same general audience of late-stage undergrad to early grad student.
Courses will include:
a curriculum component with highly interactive tutorials
a projects component with relevant project templates and data sets
a professional development portion
This guide is focused on the curriculum component of the course.
This guide is for the Curriculum Chair and is mirrored in Day Lead Instructions for Day Leads.
General Timeline of Content Creation
The Academy Course Director, Curriculum Chair, and Domain Steering Committee create the general plan for the course including Learning Objectives and topics for each day.
Day Leads create one-pager/outline of day based on the provided topic, learning objectives, and discussion with Curriculum Team
First Review: Curriculum Team will provide feedback for you
Day Leads develop full day in GitHub (with the help of Curriculum Specialists)
Second Review: Reviewed by Curriculum Team and provide feedback
Day Leads make any updates
Published to Jupyter Book by TeTech Team and Curriculum Specialists
Pre-Pod happens
Third Review: Make final updates to course content and videos based on feedback from Pre-Pod
Final Review & Publishing: Final content and code editing done by 
Production and 
Technical
Production and Technical Published to final course Jupyter Book
Step One: General Concept (9-12 months before course)
A small group of people (including Domain Steering committee, Course Director, and Curriculum Chair) should create the overall focus and scope of a new course
These people should have experience in the topic and in curriculum development and education best practices
How long should the course run
Usually 2 or 3 weeks.
What are the core concepts that should be covered
Potentially being explicit about things that are left out
Who is the target audience
Small group of people brings more details to the course content
Build out a general timeline for the course.
What topics will be covered on what days.
Create guidance for standard language/approaches/notation as applicable to your field
Note: some variability in notation can be helpful for students, they can learn the many ways they many come across information in the real world
Define what python libraries you’d like creators to stick to
The format and schedule of the course will be the same as other Academies.
4.5 hour content block (with an hour break)
There is a total of 3 hours of time dedicated to tutorials
0:00-0:15
Pod discussion I
0:15-1:45
Tutorials I
1:45-2:45
Big break
2:45-4:15
Tutorials II
4:15-4:25
Pod discussion II
4:25-4:30
Reflections & content checks
Step Two: Feedback on General Concept (8-10 months out)
Gather feedback from a larger audience.
This can include a variety of people: other lead organizers, senior faculty in the subject, post-docs, etc.
The goal of this round of feedback is to ensure the curriculum meets the needs and expectations of the community, and gather general feedback on the content of the course and if anything is missing. In this round, you can potentially gather feedback on learning objectives for each day and the flow of the suggested days. You will not be receiving feedback on the actual content of each day yet.
This has been done via Google Form or Airtable Form for a public call for feedback or via one-on-one discussions for more specific feedback
Data Needs & Compute Power Needs for a Course:
All data needs and compute power needs should be achievable through the use of Google Collab and Kaggle
If large datasets are explicitly part of the learning objectives, this rule can be broken.
If it is part of the LOs - there must be course specific funding to support the compute costs
Must have this approved by NiNick Halper.
If using big data sets are not explicitly part of the LOs, then courses must stay within the restrictions of google collab/kaggle
During this time frame, you will also determine 
Portal Application Questions for both student and TA applications.
Portal Application Questions for both student and TA applications. After this step, you will decide on Student Application Review Guidelines by Course , Student Selection Criteria , TA Application Review Guidelines by Course , and TA Selection Criteria by Course
Step Three: Full Concept is Created (6-7 months out)
Original small group takes the feedback and uses it to adjust the first draft.
Small group puts together a more final proposal
Final proposal includes topic and learning objectives for each day. Includes information of topics that are built on throughout the course and how they should be included in individual days.
Storyboards the full course, or whatever other planning tool is helpful also specifies prerequisites and ensured they're met
Prerequisites for students are determined
Day Leads should be provided:
Topics and learning objectives for their day
A full outline of the course
Instructions on how to create an iPython notebook that connects to the course Jupyter book through GitHub
Step Four: Day Leads Assigned and One-Pagers Created (5-6 months out)
Day Leads each create a one-pager that explains in detail what their content for the day will look like
One-pager:
Should include outline of all content, description of exercises and tutorials, key concepts to be covered in mini-lectures
Should not include code details, recorded lectures, etc. but could include links to useful existing educational content.
(This could also be produced by the core team if they want more oversight of the content)
First Review: All one-pagers are reviewed again by original small group
Need to make sure all days are connecting
Need to think about topic flow and move around any days as needed
Provide clear and helpful edits and suggestions to all Day Leads
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Step Five: Full Days Developed (4-5 months out)
Day Leads fully develop each day
All content is ready for pre-pod (videos, tutorials, exercises)
The Curriculum Chair and small core organizing group should decide if they are going to require intro videos, make them optional, or not have them at all.
Opening videos get students excited about the day ahead, give them an overview of what they will be learning, and connect it back to a topics larger implications in the field and/or cool things that are happening in the field
Opening videos are usually 15-30 minutes long, the length should be decided by small core organizing group
They are wanted by students before the synchronous tutorials time
Day Leads are welcome to ask other people for help in completing all the content for the day (grad students, post docs, etc.)
Everyone should be credited for their work on the day
Second Review: Small organizing group reviews all content when complete. This review focuses on:
This review includes: slides, written draft of what videos will include, written text, coding exercises
You are reviewing for:
Cohesion of content across all days
Opportunities for explicit connections across days
Quality teaching techniques
Correct difficultly for students based on prerequisites set
Overall content review by other experts in the field
This review can consist of comment directly in the materials and/or comments through Slack/Email
Day Leads update content based on review and record videos. This updated content and the videos are what is sent to pre-pod.
Step Six: Pre-Pod (3 months out)
Any new content is tested in Pre-Pod
Step Seven: Final Update (1-2 month out)
Core group does a Third Review based on feedback from Pre-Pod and their own review of the updated content and videos.
Day Leads take any feedback from Pre-Pod and the curriculum review committee and update their content
They may need to rerecord videos or change tutorials and exercises
Step Eight: Final Review (1 month out)
Small organizing group does a final review and waxing of course material and ensures Jupyterbook is building properly after the Day Leads last updates. The TeTech Team is responsible for getting the build to work.
After this point, Day Leads are not asked to make any more updates. Curriculum Team and Curriculum Specialists have autonomy to make final updates.
Content is polished by Curriculum Specialists
Step Nine: Course Runs!
The course runs!
Students are sent regular surveys throughout the course. These surveys are analyzed after and content in updated based on suggestions.