content/2023/large-course-registration: Draft post

content/2023/large-course-registration.rst

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+:blogpost: true
+:date: 2023-06-21
+:author: Richard Darst
+:category:
+
+
+How we do large course registration
+===================================
+
+It's recently been asked how we (Aalto Scientific Computing) do
+registration for large courses, so this explains it.  This is in
+particular about our large MOOC-like livestreamed courses, where we
+accept registrations from anywhere in the world.  This isn't quite
+what `CodeRefinery <https://coderefinery.org/>`__ does, but there are
+some similarities (CodeRefinery is more ambitious).
+
+There is a basic trade-off of "many people registering, high no-show rate,
+low interaction" and "low no-show rate, but fewer people registering, users
+very motivated".  It would be nice to not have to choose between these
+two options... let's get back to this.
+
+
+
+Basic registration
+------------------
+
+Our basic principle is to have a registration form open to the whole
+world, and anyone is welcome to sign up.  Registering only promises to
+give you emails about the course - the extra things listed below that
+provide more interaction are optional and may be restricted to certain
+categories.  We also try to put all necessary information onto the
+course website (updated each day with the end-of-day / prepare for the
+next day info), so that someone can follow along without registering.
+This is an explicit goal: the course can be followed for free, without
+even giving personal information to us.
+
+And that's basically it.  Follow the course, or don't.  Sign up to get
+emails with information or check the website yourself.  No one will
+know if you register and don't attend (nor does it take a seat from
+anyone else).  It's OK to register just because you are interested and
+might follow the material later on (you could call this the
+`r-selection strategy
+<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory>`__: go for number
+of registrations, not the percentage who show up).
+
+The basic concept scales to however many people with no extra effort
+on our part.
+
+
+
+Optional extras
+---------------
+
+The above isn't necessarily a very interactive course, so our
+registration can be complemented by the following things.  There is no
+extra registration form or field based on this: you get a different
+version of the email including these if your info (affiliation)
+matches the target audiences:
+
+* **Collaborative notes** (`info
+  <https://coderefinery.github.io/manuals/coderefinery-mooc/>`__):
+  this is our core way of interaction.  Our anti-troll strategy is to
+  not give the notes document publicly, but only for (a) anyone
+  registering or (b) anyone registering from a partner.  The live
+  notes are not linked on the course website or provided on the stream
+  (though sometimes they get leaked, or we straight up provide on the
+  livestream chat).
+
+  People who do *not* have access to the notes can still see them when
+  they are shared on the livestream.  They also have access to the
+  archive notes (read-only archived version after each day), which are
+  linked on the course website.
+
+  We've usually done (a) in many courses.  We've never had a problem
+  with collaborative notes trolls so far.
+
+  The notes are still an r-strategy: as many people as want them can
+  get them, and low attendance is OK.
+
+* **Zoom exercise room**: based on registration email, we offer to
+  people at Aalto and other partners the opportunity for more
+  interaction in Zoom.  This is something for live support during the
+  exercise times of the course.
+
+  In practice, there usually aren't that many people that are in Zoom,
+  and handling all the questions we might get is pretty easy.  Thus,
+  this is still an r-strategy (offer to as many people as possible
+  *within the selected group* and see who comes).  It's possible we
+  would have to change this sometime.
+
+  Usually, this would be offered for anyone from a country of one of
+  the organizing partners (the usual suspects are Finland, Sweden,
+  Norway).
+
+* **In-person exercise session**: Offered to those from Aalto (or
+  really, from all Finnish universities).  There have been anywhere
+  from ~3 people to a busy room of ~15 (for a course with hundreds of
+  registrations).  We have always made this a "drop-in" thing with no
+  special sign-up needed, and supermarket snacks provided (so that we
+  can buy plenty cheaply, save them, and not have to worry about
+  no-shows).
+
+  Others in other locations could easily do this, too.
+
+  So far, this has also been a "as many people as possible" thing.
+  While we've never hit the limit, it might also be self-regulating:
+  if it's too busy on one day, the people who least need it wouldn't
+  come future days.
+
+
+
+What else could be done
+-----------------------
+
+These take more work from us and active advance preparation on the
+part of the participants, thus are not as scaleable.
+
+* **Teams (organized)** (`info
+  <https://coderefinery.github.io/manuals/coderefinery-mooc/>`__):
+  What we *don't* do in our courses is teams in the way that
+  CodeRefinery accomplished in 2020-2021 (which involves
+  custom-creating small groups of people with a trained team leader).
+  This worked very well when it worked, but is usually beyond the
+  amount of coordination time we have for our (Aalto) courses.
+
+  This is definitely a `K-selection strategy
+  <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory>`__ (low number,
+  high attendance): we need fewer people registered here, there must
+  be high attendance (since an empty team is a bad experience for
+  other learners and the trained team leader), and it requires lots of
+  coordination effort.  We'd hope that the high amount of personal
+  effort put into leads to a low no-show rate.
+
+* **Teams (self-organized)**: We also encourage learners to form their
+  own teams and work together (like watching and doing exercises
+  together in a meeting room).  We know some people do this, but don't
+  really have ways to know just how many do so (since we can't rely on
+  our polls).  While this is listed on the website, we haven't done
+  much to support this otherwise (but interested people could be
+  invited to our team leader onboarding sessions).
+
+These *could* be scaled by getting other partners to handle the teams
+for their own communities, probably in conjunction with their local
+Zoom/In-person/etc.
+
+
+
+How to balance high attendance with low no-show rate?
+-----------------------------------------------------
+
+If it's not clear yet, by having these different categories of
+registrations, one can keep a course open for all but hopefully narrow
+down to a highly interactive group of those people who want high
+interaction.  This is all part of the `CodeRefinery MOOC strategy
+<https://coderefinery.github.io/manuals/coderefinery-mooc/>`__.
+
+
+
+Sharing registration data
+-------------------------
+
+To make some of these possible, we need to share registration data
+with others so that they can announce things like local in-person
+rooms / Zoom sessions.  What we have said in our privacy notice lately
+is during the registration that we may share registrations with
+partners for these type of local things, but doesn't scale to many
+partners (for data protection reasons).  In practice, this has only
+been CodeRefinery partners for the obvious reason, and probably won't
+go beyond that.
+
+* **Local partner registration**: When a local partner forwards the
+  message to their own audience, they could change the registration
+  form to their own, or give *both* registration forms, so they get
+  emails both from us and from the local partner.  We still need to
+  figure out a way to do this well with the least amount of confusion
+  for the audience.
+
+  In practice, signing up for either one or the other would work, so
+  it doesn't matter that much.
+
+We also list all local activities on the website, so that the audience
+could use the registration forms of these other partners directly.  We
+can also mention these partners in our general emails.  This is more
+scaleable, since we don't have to worry about sharing personal data,
+but also means that some of these opportunities might be missed.