Study Groups are currently convened by members of the existing Berkman community, including Fellows, Faculty, and Staff. Some Study Groups are also convened and facilitated by partnering organizations. If you are interested in convening a Study Group to explore and discuss with a diverse group, thinking through these questions is a good place to start.
There are a couple key things that make a Study Group a study group:
- Interdisciplinary participants from the public and broader Boston community
- Short turn around to address timely topics and questions in an agile and responsive way
- Some public-facing output of the discussions, in the form of blog posts, syllabi, op eds, commentary, etc.
What is the proposed title of your Study Group?
Describe the Study Group in a paragraph, and in 140 characters.
What key questions will the Study Group address?
What are the goals of convening the Study Group?
We encourage Study Groups solving a set of problems or coming up with concrete next steps. What do you hope to get out of the group by leading it? What will participants get out of joining and contributing?
What outputs do you expect to publish or share beyond the Study Group?
We hope that Study Groups impact will reach beyond the group to impact the wider Berkman community, so sharing findings in the form of blog posts, podcasts, op eds, and other materials are encouraged.
Who is convening the Study Group?
What partnering institutions might be involved in organizing the group?
What is your target group size?
Study Groups are generally encouraged to shoot for a standard seminar size to best facilitate conversation and active participation, but other scales might be appropriate depending on your topic needs.
Who are your target participants?
What expertise are you looking to bring to the table? Do you want a mix of students, industry professionals, disciplinary expertise?
How do you expect to conduct the Study Group in terms of facilitation format?
Will it look more like a discussion, or an active workshop? Will you need to designate a note taker or other support during the sessions? Consider whether the workshop will be private, follow Chatham House rules, or on the record (or some mixture).
Where would you like to meet, how frequently, for how long, and what time of day?
Consider that your target participants may heavily influence this. Study Groups are aimed to fill a gap between a typical hour long lunch talk or panel discussion, and a full semester course. Study Groups are also intended to meet over a finite amount of time. More international Study Groups might consider online meeting tools like Google Hangouts.
What materials or supporting reading do you need to collect to set the conversation?
Study Groups often develop a reading syllabus to guide discussion.
Do you have any communities or groups you would like to target for advertising the application to participate? Are there specific individuals you would personally like to invite?
If you are interested in convening a Study Group, reach out to Becca Tabasky to further discuss if the Study Group format is a good fit to explore your topic <rtabasky@cyber.harvard.edu>.