Between October 19th and October 20th, 2019, we welcomed our inaugural Instructor Advisory Board (IAB) to our new New York City office at One World Trade Center as part of the IAB’s very first in-person meeting. Over the course of Saturday and Sunday, the IAB tackled, with the support of DataCamp team members, an ambitious agenda covering a wide range of topics including operational practices and logistics, a thorough discussion on the Working IDEAL report, communication strategies for the instructor community and content and product roadmaps. Based on this agenda, the IAB provided advice to DataCamp, and we have incorporated some of the IAB's recommendations into changes already and continue working to implement others.

From a content, product and instructor perspective, the IAB suggested several new strategies to the DataCamp team including (1) ways to highlight the impact courses have for learners; (2) opening a communication workspace for instructors; (3) possibilities for live training or other interactions between instructors and learners; (4) content areas for future expansion; and (5) opportunities for connecting DataCamp learners to potential employment opportunities.

Going forward, the IAB will continue to meet on a quarterly basis to provide advice on product and content roadmaps as well as the instructor experience. The DataCamp team is excited to continue our mission alongside the IAB and the instructor community to improve data fluency around the world, and to get to work on some of these suggested strategies!