Supporting rOpenSci Mentors with Practical Tools

Mentoring is at the heart of what makes rOpenSci a community. Our members mentoring each other at different moments: when someone new joins and needs help navigating the community; when a member steps into a new role, like a reviewer for our software peer review, or project, like become the maintainer of a package, and could use some guidance; during everyday interactions, where people share tips and advice with each other; when someone shares an idea and gets constructive and friendly feedback or when a more experienced member helps others grow into leadership roles. Each of these moments is a chance to share what you know, build connections, and keep the community strong.

Since 2022 we have had our Champions Program with a formal role of mentoring. To help our Champions Program mentors do their best work, we’ve put together a set of resources: a training, a handbook, and a monthly charter. In this post, we’ll walk you through what we’ve created and show how these resources can support your mentoring as well —whether you’re part of rOpenSci or mentoring in another context.

Mentoring workshop

The Mentorship Training and Orientation course is a key resource in the rOpenSci Champions Program, equipping mentors with the skills and tools they need to guide their mentees.

Key learning outcomes include active listening, effective questioning, providing constructive feedback, and setting expectations for mentorship relationships. The course also provides practical resources to help mentors navigate their roles.

Built on materials from open initiatives like Mozilla Open Leaders and The Carpentries Instructor Training, this training embodies a collaborative and inclusive approach to mentorship. All materials are openly licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0, ensuring they can be freely reused and adapted. The course includes slides, collaborative note-taking templates, exercises, and instructor notes for instructors who want to use the material to teach.

Mentor Guidelines

We wrote the rOpenSci Champions Program Mentor Guidelines to provide mentors with a comprehensive framework of tools and insights to navigate their roles effectively. It begins with an overview of mentors’ responsibilities, emphasizing their role in inspiring and advising mentees while connecting them to valuable resources, networks, and experiences. The “Mentors Tools” section offers practical guidance on essential resources, including program infrastructure, tools for effective meetings, collaborative note-taking systems, scheduling aids, and a Code of Conduct. In “Mentorship Meetings,” the handbook emphasizes the importance of setting an agenda for the meetings, note-taking, setting an appropriate meeting frequency, and maintaining structured tracking to ensure accountability and progress. It provides templates for all these items. The “Mentorship Skills” section is meant to be a reminder of the core competencies mentioned in the mentors’ training, like active listening, effective questioning, and giving constructive feedback. Additionally, this section describes the GROW model, a goal-setting framework that helps mentors and mentees define clear objectives and actionable plans. We developed this resource as a living document, and we are always grateful for feedback and updates to ensure it remains a valuable resource for our mentors and community

Monthly charter

A monthly charter is a document that outlines the action items for a specific month within the Champions Program. It is particularly useful for our structured program because it helps mentors, mentees, and program management stay focused and organized while tracking progress in a manageable, time-bound way.

This is an example of the monthly charter we use with the second cohort of mentors of the Champions Program.

Summary

These tools are designed with the rOpenSci Champions Program mentors in mind, but we hope they’re also useful for anyone in a mentoring role. We would love to hear if you know of other useful resources for mentors.