THATCamp Organizers' Handbook

In brief

Here’s a set of handy checklists for things you should probably make sure you’ve arranged for your THATCamp, broken down by time frame.

THATCamp Checklists

Two to four months beforehand

• Design a logo
• Build your website
• Arrange a date and a space
• Arrange for coffee, food, tech such as wi-fi and projectors, and swag such as t-shirts based on your budget
• Plan workshops
• Publicize the event
• Begin accepting registrations

One month beforehand checklist

• Make sure all registered participants have user accounts on the website
• Make sure you have created a Participants page such as bayarea2011.thatcamp.org/attendees
• Make sure you have published a blank schedule grid with time slots and rooms to the website, perhaps by embedding a Google Docs spreadsheet (such as our sample)
• Make sure you have published descriptions of any workshops you are running with the instructor’s name, the difficulty level or any pre-requisite skills, and any required accounts or software
• If necessary, arrange transportation for people from their hotels to the THATCamp venue
• Order swag (t-shirts, tote bags, etc.) if you are providing it

Two weeks beforehand checklist

• Remind participants to bring a laptop (not an iPad or other tablet), to update their profiles, and to post session ideas, along with any other information they need to know
• Make reservations at a nearby pub or restaurant for post-unconference gatherings (for day 1, expect 50% of attendees, for day 2, expect 10%-25% of attendees)
• Devise a method for letting people know how to connect to the wi-fi, either by posting the info prominently in a common area or by including it on the back of each participant’s badge
• Decide whether you will ask for donations from participants, and if so, figure out a method for collecting them (PayPal, pass the hat afterward, optional registration fee when people pick up their badges, etc.)
• Plan for what to do with any uneaten food, such as donating it to a local food bank
• Print badges (you can also wait until the day before) or make sure you have blank name tags and pens

During and after checklist

• The day before or on the first morning, review the space to make sure that chairs, tables, power strips, projectors, and signs are all present and in order
• The day before or on the first morning, make sure that the registration table is set up with badges, swag, and any office supplies participants will need for the scheduling
• The day before or on the first morning, make sure that everything needed for voting on proposals (if you choose to do that) and running the scheduling is set up
• Ask for donations, if you have planned to
• Ask participants to fill out a brief evaluation (only two fields required!)

People and things checklist

• Someone to make introductory remarks and run the scheduling session
• • Printouts of session proposals
  • A whiteboard
  • Blank paper
  • Markers
  • Tape
  • Stickers
• Someone to fill in the schedule and publish it to the website
• • A blank schedule on the website with time slots and rooms
  • Someone to run the registration table
  • Table and chairs
  • Badges
  • Swag
  • Brochures / information
• Someone in charge of tech support
• • Extra routers
  • Power strips
  • Extension cords
  • Projectors
  • User accounts
  • Dongles
• Someone to post signs
• • Signs directing people to parking
  • Signs directing people to the building
  • Signs directing people to rooms

In brief

If you are thinking of hosting a THATCamp in your city or region, please fill out the registration form linked to below with the name of your THATCamp, the name of the chief organizer, an email address, a mailing address, and whether you plan to hold workshops. (All other fields are optional.) This will enable us to publicize your THATCamp and to give you advice and technical help.

Register a new THATCamp

Terms of registration

The name “THATCamp” is trademarked by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, so we ask you to agree to just a few easy terms before using the name. These terms, which are aimed at making sure that THATCamp remains true to its founding principles of participatory openness, are as follows:

I agree that our THATCamp will be . . .

• FREE or CHEAP to attend (registration fees of up to $30 USD are fine)
• OPEN to anyone who wishes to apply or register (no institutional, professional, or rank restrictions)
• INFORMAL and participatory (no presentations, papers, or demos longer than 5 minutes with the possible exception of skills training workshops, though these too should be hands-on if possible)
• PUBLIC on the open web (sessions can be blogged, twittered, photographed, recorded, and posted)
• SELF-ORGANIZING (no program committee: all participants are given a chance to help set the agenda, either before or during the unconference)

If you have an annual THATCamp, please do register each separate yearly instance.

Benefits of registration

There are two chief benefits of registration. First, it allows us to provide you with help and support and advice and even a hosted website. Second, it allows us to publicize your THATCamp on our Twitter feed, newsletter, and website, all of which have large audiences.

Once you register, your THATCamp will appear in the spreadsheet listing all past and planned THATCamps (partly displayed below — be sure to scroll right), and you will be given edit privileges to said spreadsheet. If you do not know all the necessary details, such as the dates, you can add them later. Keeping the registry up to date with the details of your THATCamp will help the THATCamp Coordinator provide accurate information in publicity materials.

The THATCamp Coordinator will add the chief organizer to the THATCamp Counselors e-mail list (a listserv for THATCamp organizers) and will give the organizer administrative privileges to the THATCamp Calendar and the THATCamp Map.

In brief

To make things simple for you, we have provided pieces of THATCamp logos in various formats for you to use and build upon. This page gives advice about how to create a custom header and logo for your THATCamp as easily as possible. Please note that we ask that you use our trademark “THATCamp” in the Whitney font in your own logo, though you can choose any color(s) and add any graphic(s) to it that you like. You can also add text in other fonts.

General design guidelines

Our only real rules for logos on websites and merchandise are these: 1) the word “THATCamp” should be spelled just that way (no lower-case “c” please); and 2) the word “THATCamp” should be reproduced in its original font, a proprietary font called “Whitney.” You don’t need to buy the Whitney font; the logo files we offer include an .eps file with the lettering outlined that can be edited in Adobe Illustrator. Please use these files to create logos customized for your THATCamp.

Creating a banner / header

If you choose to host your website with us on thatcamp.org and/or to use a THATCamp WordPress theme, you may notice that the default header for your site says “THATCamp Your Name Here.” All THATCamp themes will allow you to replace that default header with your own header through the administrative panel settings (probably under Appearance –> Header). It will be easiest for you to create a custom THATCamp banner if you have access to both Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. Write info@thatcamp.org if you need help.

First, figure out what size banner you need. On thatcamp.org all THATCamp themes are automatically installed, and you can see the dimensions of the header in the theme’s description by clicking on Appearance –> Themes in your WordPress administration panel. For instance, the “THATCamp Twenty Ten” theme requires a header of 940 pixels by 198 pixels. If you choose to use this theme, you can start making a banner with this file: http://thatcamp.org/docs/logos/thatcamp-header-twentyten.psd. Other THATCamp themes will also have .psd files provided at http://thatcamp.org/docs/logos.

Note that the .psd file has several layers for the THATCamp text, graphic, and THATCamp name. Feel free to change the colors and to add or remove text or graphics, but please don’t warp the shape of any existing text or graphics, particularly of the word “THATCamp.” For additional text, such as that used in “The Humanities and Technology Camp,” you can use any font you like; we’ve found that both Gill Sans Bold and Myriad, which are on most computers, are a good match. Replace the text “Your Name Here” with the name of your THATCamp using the text tool in any font you like. If you would like to change the color(s) of the text for the word “THATCamp,” it’s easier to do that in Adobe llustrator.

Here are a few examples of THATCamp banners — these all happen to be white or transparent, and several use black text for “THATCamp,” but you can use any background or text color you like:

Merchandise

T-shirts and other merchandise (magnets, bags, USB sticks) may need a square logo, such as the marvelous one created by THATCamp Liberal Arts Colleges:

If you create such a logo, make sure that the resolution of your image is high enough (300 dpi at least) to print well on merchandise. Please be sure that “THATCamp” is reproduced using the Whitney font logo files we have provided — you can change the color or size to anything you like, and there are no other limitations.

In brief

The best ways to publicize your THATCamp in order to recruit participants: email, web forums, Twitter and other social media, fliers, and by keeping THATCamp Central apprised of your plans.

General publicity advice

There’s an infinite amount of publicity you can do for a THATCamp. If you have willing helpers, put them on publicity duty — draft an e-mail announcement (see a template for a typical THATCamp “CFP” here) with the link to the registration form and ask your helpers to e-mail it to people, organizations, and departments who might be interested. They can do likewise for topic-focused forums and listservs. Be sure that your announcement carries a notice such as “Please distribute widely” so that others are encouraged to spread it around.

The # hashtag gets lots of traffic and is regularly perused by THATCamp junkies, so if you make sure to have a Twitter account and use the hashtag #, the word will be sure to get out. The @ account also regularly retweets tweets from THATCamp accounts.

Not everyone uses Twitter, of course. Try posting announcements about your THATCamp on the H-Net discussion networks, especially digital humanities-oriented listservs like EDTECH,  H-AHC, H-DigiRhet, and H-Info. (Add to this list any other H-Net groups whose subject matter of interest might be relevant to your particular THATCamp.) Join HASTAC (the Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory), a project bringing together people interested in all things digital and educational; anybody can become a member, and members can post events to the HASTAC calendar. Finally, HUMANIST is a long-standing listserv and discussion group for those interested in the humanities and computing. Email the list’s editor to post a one-time announcement of your THATCamp—or join, and post it yourself.

Don’t forget to advertise locally. Chris Raymond, our designer, has thoughtfully created a set of THATCamp flier templates (.zip) at http://thatcamp.org/docs/thatcamp-fliers.zip in .docx and .tif format that you can customize and post around campus or around town. The blue version is depicted above.

Finally, make sure that we here at THATCamp Central have the correct dates and places for your THATCamp — keep the registry updated and/or email info@thatcamp.org. We send out a newsletter, creatively named THATCamp News, about once a month, and we make sure to keep the home page of thatcamp.org updated with the most current information about upcoming THATCamps.

In brief

You can use the THATCamp Registrations plugin or a Google form to accept applications or registrations for your THATCamp. Expect a 15% cancellation rate. Be sure to make all participants user accounts with Author privileges on your site. Use these sample emails to reply to participant registrations and prompt them to propose sessions.

Applications or registrations?

One decision you’ll need to make is whether to pick and choose who you’d like to attend your THATCamp (i.e., accept applications) or whether to accept everyone on a first-come first-served basis (i.e., accept registrations). That decision is up to you, but in general, we recommend that you set a quota based on how many people you can accommodate (for instance, 75 people) and then accept everyone who applies as long as you have space for them. This is more in line with THATCamp’s principles of openness, and it simplifies logistical decisions such as meal planning. Moreover, most THATCamps don’t fill up, and even those that are oversubscribed don’t usually have to disappoint more than 10-20 people. (There are plenty of THATCamps these days for people to attend!) You can run a wait list if more people want to come than you have space for.

Cancellations

Our experience shows that for local THATCamps, about 15% of registrants will cancel or simply won’t show up. The exception to this rule is THATCamps held in conjunction with other large events for which people have made extensive travel arrangements. After all, THATCamp is usually free, or nearly so, so unless people have booked flights and hotels, there’s not much of a commitment, and emergencies and conflicts will inevitably crop up. Most cancellations will happen in the last few days before the THATCamp takes place.

Website registration forms

There are two ways to create a registration form on your website: use the THATCamp Registration plugin or use a Google form. The former makes it easier to create users with full profiles on your site, while the latter is currently more customizable and makes it easier to see information about all your users at once. See our page on building a THATCamp website for detailed instructions on both options.

Creating user accounts for participants

At THATCamp, we habitually give all participants user accounts on the site so that they can propose session ideas using the site’s blog. If you use the THATCamp Registrations plugin, an applicant will be made a user account on the site when you approve their registration.

If you use a Google form for registrations, however, you can import the user information. What you’ll need to do is make sure that your spreadsheet has the exact same column headers as those in this sample Google Doc (download sample as .csv):

Before importing, you’ll need to make sure that the “user_login” field and the “user_pass” field have something in the cell, so you’ll need to make up user names and passwords for your users. Also, to store t-shirt size data properly in user profiles on thatcamp.org, you will need to convert the data in your spreadsheet to the following values in exactly this form (not including the bullet points):

• mens_s
• mens_m
• mens_l
• mens_xl
• mens_xxl
• womens_s
• womens_m
• womens_l
• womens_xl
• womens_xxl

T-shirt size data formatted differently (e.g., “Men’s Large”) will not be stored in the user’s profile on thatcamp.org.

Once your file is properly formatted, go to Users –> Import From CSV in your thatcamp.org site and import the file. Be sure to check both the checkboxes so that the system will email users and will nag them to change their passwords when they first log in. (If you are running a WordPress site on another domain, download and install the Import Users From CSV plugin to enable this functionality.) By default, users will be imported as Subscribers. Go to All Users and click on “Subscriber” to show all the Subscribers, select the checkbox next to Username to select all users, and do “Change role to Author” in the dropdown.

All the THATCamp Users should have a user account with “Author” privileges so that they can post session ideas, session notes, and other items to the blog. And be sure to let them know that they should fill out their user profile and should begin contributing to the blog!

Emailing participants

As of this writing (May 2012), it is not possible for site administrators to obtain a list of registered THATCamp participants with all their registration information, though we hope to provide this feature soon, by fall 2012 at the latest. Write info@thatcamp.org to obtain a list of registered THATCampers with all their attached information.

Here are some sample emails to participants to send when their registration is Pending or Accepted (these can be entered directly into the THATCamp Registrations Settings) and when it’s time to remind or educaate them on proposing unconference sessions. Feel free to adapt these for your own use.

In brief

Plenty of THATCamp participants are interested in picking up new skills from one another, so you might want to pre-arrange a few workshops to take place during your THATCamp. (Note: our workshop series used to be called “BootCamp,” a term we have now deprecated. Also note that our Mellon fellowship program has ended as of 12/5/2011.)

Finding workshop instructors

As a THATCamp organizer, you might decide up front what workshops you will offer and who will teach them, or you might crowdsource those decisions to your THATCampers, or else you might do some combination of both. You might know some talented people in your area (perhaps even you or your co-organizers) who would be more than willing to teach a workshop at your THATCamp, and you could therefore set it all up beforehand. Alternatively, you can ask people who apply to your THATCamp “What would you like to learn?” and/or “What would you be willing and able to teach?” and plan your workshop offerings based on the answers to those questions.

If your THATCamp applicants have indicated that they’d like a workshop on a particular skill or topic, but you can’t find a qualified volunteer instructor in your region or among your applicants, e-mail the THATCamp Coordinator to ask for help.

Scheduling the workshops

Organizers are increasingly saying that having a separate day dedicated to workshops is a good idea. See, for instance, THATCamp Virginia’s dedicated workshop day, which took place before an additional day and a half of unconferencing. Some workshops have run concurrently with unconference sessions, however, as an educational track through the unconference, also with good success: see for instance THATCamp New England’s schedule with workshop sessions incorporated. (Note: many participants did say in the evaluations that they’d have preferred that the workshop training sessions take place on a separate day.)

Giving participants workshop information

On a page on your website, you should give the following information for all workshops:

• Title
• Instructor’s name (preferably linked to a profile)
• Prerequisites (knowledge, skills, accounts, software)
• Difficulty level of proposed workshop
• Description

Curriculum

We have developed a broad curriculum to help you plan workshops at THATCamp. There can be as many workshops as you like, and they can all fit under one skill heading or under several different skill headings. We advise that all workshops should be introductory (especially those dealing with markup and programming languages; assume no prior knowledge of coding) and should emphasize first principles, background, and context; workshops other than those under the first two headings should also include at least one hands-on exercise (though nothing harder than “Hello, world!”). Workshop examples are given below; other pertinent workshops are more than welcome. See the page on getting training at workshops for examples of past and upcoming workshop offerings.

1. Understanding the history of technology and the humanities
   1. Brief history of computing
   2. Brief history of Digital Humanities
2. Understanding ongoing legal and social issues related to technology and the humanities
   1. Copyright issues in the humanities
   2. Economic issues in scholarly communication
   3. The Google Book Search settlement
3. Finding and managing humanities information
   1. Google Scholar / databases
   2. Google Book Search
   3. Zotero / Mendeley / CiteULike
4. Digitizing, editing, organizing, publishing, and preserving humanities materials
   1. Text / image / audio / video digitization
   2. XML
   3. XSLT
   4. TEI
   5. EAD
   6. Omeka
   7. Metadata standards
   8. Indexing
   9. Linked data
   10. Databases and data structures
5. Collecting, interpreting, analyzing, and manipulating humanities data
   1. Text mining
   2. Visualization tools
   3. Web analytics
   4. Yahoo! Pipes
   5. Open Layers
   6. ARCGIS
6. Creating, presenting, and publishing humanities study
   1. HTML
   2. CSS
   3. Photoshop
   4. Graphic design
   5. Information architecture
   6. Typography
   7. Usability testing
   8. CommentPress / digress.it
   9. WordPress
   10. PowerPoint / Keynote / Prezi
   11. Video creation
   12. Audio / podcast creation
7. Working collaboratively, both formally and informally
   1. Project management
   2. Project budgeting
   3. Getting project funding
   4. Wikis
   5. Google Docs
   6. Social media
8. Using programming languages and tools
   1. JavaScript
   2. PHP
   3. MySQL
   4. UNIX
   5. Perl
   6. Regular expressions
   7. Yahoo! Pipes
   8. Google Inventor for Android

In brief

Don’t worry. It’ll all be fine. It’ll be better than fine: it’ll be fun. Just make sure 1) that everyone has a chance to help create the schedule together, 2) that there is at the same time at least one person in charge of the schedule who tracks the group’s decisions and creates the schedule, and 3) that the opening session of THATCamp leaves sufficient time for the group to make a schedule: about 60-90 minutes.

Why wait so long to schedule sessions?

The fact that no one knows exactly what will happen at THATCamp until they get there is often the most worrying part of the event for both organizers and participants. It’s therefore worth noting here what you’ll gain from leaving the agenda-setting until the first hour or two of the event:

• Participants, instead of carefully preparing what they will say (or staying up late the night before to finish a presentation, which of course we here at THATCamp have never ever done, not once), must perforce speak spontaneously. This usually leads to greater candor and more admissions of uncertainty, which in turn leads to problem-solving instead of posturing.
• Proposing, voting for, sorting, and discussing sessions together in the first hour or two is a great ice-breaker; it means that campers must engage with one another right away. It’s a bonding thing; it’s a collaboration thing; it’s a getting to know each other thing.
• Topics and tasks will be current. Things emerge, change, and disappear fast in technology.
• Everyone will have a chance to make sure the schedule is strong: that the sessions are of interest to everyone and that there is as little redundancy and schedule conflict as possible.
• The schedule, having been so quickly and casually arranged, can be just as quickly and casually disarranged. A last-minute schedule is more flexible: sessions can be eliminated or added (especially if you make sure to leave a few slots free) depending on interest. It’s a very frequent occurrence at a THATCamp that a session is going so well that participants clamor for another; this way you can accommodate them.

Even if you have asked (as many organizers do) for some initial ideas for sessions from THATCampers, you will likely find that not everyone has proposed something, and you will subsequently find that it doesn’t matter. As long as you ask again when THATCamp begins, and as long as you have a reasonable system for tracking and sorting the ideas (more on that below), an agenda will inevitably emerge. Just trust the process.

One final note: the process described below is a set of guidelines more than a set of rules: if you want to alter it in some way, please go right ahead.

The blank schedule online

Create a blank schedule online that lists time slots and rooms. Many people have used Google Docs spreadsheets for this with great success: see for instance the schedule for THATCamp Canberra. Here is a sample blank THATCamp schedule done in Google Docs for you to copy if you like. Publish the Google Doc spreadsheet by going to “Share > Publish as a web page”; you can also embed it on your THATCamp website by choosing “Get a link to the published data > HTML to embed in a page.” You can also create a blank schedule in a simple list on your THATCamp website with both time slots and room numbers listed, or in an HTML table.

The blank schedule on-site at your THATCamp

For the first session of your THATCamp, you will then need some way to create a big empty grid IRL (in real life). Suggested supplies:

• A large whiteboard, chalkboard, an easel, or sheets of large white paper that can be stuck to the walls with tape or similar
• Markers or chalk
• Post-It notes

Before THATCamp begins, draw a blank grid (or list) on your whiteboard, chalkboard, or empty piece of paper with the same number of cells (spaces) as your schedule grid. Before or during the first session, as people are gathering, ask them to write a word or two describing their idea for a session in one of the cells (or on a Post-It note that they can put on a cell). Ask them also to put a hash mark or other indication of interest beside sessions they are interested in attending; you could also do this with a simple show of hands for every session. Cells can have more than one proposal, or none at all. Give everyone a chance to propose a session, and give everyone a chance to vote (some, of course, will choose to abstain from the former and perhaps also the latter). Afterward, you’ll have a board that looks something like the one of those pictured on this page. Here’s a picture of the schedule board (with Post-Its) at THATCamp Bay Area:

Finalizing the schedule

Once you’ve gathered session proposals and votes, you can begin a process of light editing. Session proposals that are of little interest to participants can be combined with other, related sessions, or eliminated altogether. Popular sessions can be assigned to larger rooms. Sessions can be arranged so that sessions on related topics are not happening at the same time. A few empty time slots are a boon rather than a curse; it means that exciting conversations that happen during the unconference can be given a time and place to continue. If the discussion about the schedule threatens to exceed the time allotted, you can always schedule the sessions in the first time slot first, send participants off to their sessions in that first time slot, and continue the process of creating a workable schedule.

After this editing is more or less complete, fill in the blank schedule online. The schedule should be left up on a prominent screen so that participants can refer to it as they begin the day. It’s also a very good idea to print copies of the finalized schedule and post them outside the session rooms, or at least to write down session topics on pieces of paper with their time slots and post those at the session rooms. Participants should also be encouraged to contact the scheduling person with additions and changes as the unconference continues, or even to make changes themselves if you want to allow them to do this.

Additional tips

• It’s always a good idea to schedule wrap-up sessions of at least fifteen minutes for all participants at the end of every day. People need closure. Organizers may also need to make logistical announcements about road conditions, food, social events, and the like.
• Same goes for introductory sessions at the start of each day.
• Scheduled “free play” sessions are also a good idea, sessions where people can try out new technologies they’ve learned in a hands-on way and/or continue discussions they’ve had in the sessions. It might sound like a contradiction in terms to schedule free time, but time is like lunch — it’s never really free.
• Even at an unconference, some of the best conversations take place in the hallway. Leave time between sessions: at least ten minutes, or fifteen, or even thirty.

One final picture of a schedule board, this one made with tape and paper on a glass wall, from THATCamp Research Triangle Park in North Carolina:

In brief

The THATCamp Coordinator will ask participants to give feedback on the THATCamp you have organized by filling out a brief survey. You can also conduct your own, more detailed evaluations if you like. We have recently made the results of the evaluations entirely public (all evaluators are anonymous), so anyone can browse through the evaluations for any or all THATCamps.