Initial Publication Date: January 9, 2009

Designing, Planning, and Executing Cutting Edge Follow-On Workshops

These pages, developed by the Cutting Edge PIs, WebTeam, and Evaluators, are designed to support follow-on workshop leaders in the process of designing, planning, and executing Cutting Edge workshops.

Budget

Plan your budget such that registration fees will cover all of your (workshop leader) costs, including your travel expenses. There is a stipend for leading a workshop, but your expenses should not have to come out of that.

Timeline

Planning for a Cutting Edge workshop begins several months before the workshop will occur. Here is our suggested timeline for developing a vision for the workshop, advertising, developing your program, and more.

Designing Your Workshop

Planning an effective workshop is much like planning an effective learning experience for students in the classroom and lab. From choosing goals to designing workshop sessions and evaluating whether participants have benefited from the workshop, this page provides both requirements and advice for those who are designing Cutting Edge workshops, based on our years of experience.

Taking Advantage of the Website

One of the hallmarks of the On the Cutting Edge program has been the close integration of workshops and websites. This integration has two parts, using the website to prepare workshop participants for the workshop and using the workshop to generate new materials for the website. Our goal is to raise the quality of discussion at the workshop while producing resources that allow the broader community to reap the benefits of the workshop.

Recruitment and Publicity

In developing a recruitment plan for your workshop, it's useful to consider your target audience and how you can best reach them. Recruitment strategies will be different for different target audiences. Here are some suggestions, again based on our years of experience.

Checklist

This page is intended to help Cutting Edge follow-on workshop leaders (and their mentors) keep track of all of the tasks associated with planning and running a follow-on workshop, from the beginning of planning through the final report.