In late 2017, representatives from the Bakar Institute, CTSI, the UCSF Library, SOMTech and CDHI partnered to form a "Research Data Guild" to help provide guidance and support for a number of research technology and data science initiatives on campus. A particular focus was on providing infrastructure, resources and guidance to help address the numerous requests from researchers on campus looking to improve our ability to extract knowledge from unstructured text. While the primary focus of these initiatives was technological, a parallel need was connecting researchers and technologists on campus and helping to create a community of NLP doers. Historically, work at UCSF is largely siloed. Faculty, staff and students often work on similar problems without capitalizing on the value of sharing their struggles and their successes with one another. We worked to build an NLP Community of Practice to overcome this shortcoming.

As organizers of NLP@UCSF, we will tell a story of how a community of practice at UCSF around new field of interest - Natural Language Processing - was started and how it turned into a "thing" - with its living "rhythm" of meetups, vibrant and real people connections, intense knowledge sharing, contagious energy and motivation to learn and  most importantly, the gift of professional opportunities - both expected and surprising - it keeps giving. We will also share some lessons learned from being the organizers of this CoP - things that worked and didn't, with the aim of inspiring others to create their own communities!

We will also share our own perspectives (and perspectives of some community members) on why Technical Communities of Practice are vital to any organization that relies on growing the sophisticated knowledge and technical skills of its workforce.

Slides: https://ucsf.box.com/s/ry2oinx6cnsjzdjjhq6nweh85i8qcnee (MyAccess login required)