UC Libraries Forum 2021: Leading with Innovation, Stronger through Collaboration

In the spring of 2021, the UCSF Library organized an online 7-part workshop series on reproducibility for biomedical researchers. The series, offered in partnership with the UCSF Graduate Division, was the second iteration, having originally been taught in-person in the fall of 2019. The workshops were designed to translate reproducibility principles and best practices from societies, publishers, and funders into actionable steps and training that could be immediately implemented into research practice. Graduate students could also meet NIH Responsible Conduct of Research training requirements by participating in all seven workshops. When the COVID-19 pandemic forced us to move our teaching online, it presented an opportunity to rethink our approach to the series to emphasize collaboration at all levels. We formed a planning team of two UCSF librarians and one visiting (virtual) fellow from the UNMC McGoogan Health Sciences Library and met regularly to sketch out the workshop topics, learning goals, and online engagement strategies. We optimized the online classroom by designing and co-instructing our workshops with librarians from other campuses, including UCLA and UC Riverside. We fully embraced the virtual classroom and re-designed the content to use breakout room discussions, small group activities, and collaborative online notes. This shared, team-based approach to teaching the series was essential for planning the content and managing the zoom sessions. In the end, this new online iteration of the series allowed us to practice new team-teaching approaches, develop new teaching partnerships, and increase participant engagement.