Engaging a Student Science Community with Talkspirit: The CNES Story
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How do you energize discussions and make it easier to share information between the members of a research project scattered across every corner of France? That is the challenge taken up by CNES, which adopted Talkspirit in 2018 to centralize communications and interactions on its PERSEUS project.
CNES (Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales) is a public body tasked with shaping and implementing France's space policy.
In 2005, CNES launched PERSEUS (Projet Étudiant de Recherche Spatiale Européen Universitaire Scientifique) to promote careers in the space sector among a community of students. The programme now brings together seven space projects, on which 350 students from engineering schools, technical institutes (IUT) and universities across France are working.
Key figures (CNES):
- 4 centres in Paris, Toulouse and Kourou (French Guiana)
- 2500 employees, 80% of them engineers and managers
In this interview, Marie-Sophie Lachesnais, administrative manager of the PERSEUS project, reflects on Talkspirit's deployment, how it is used, and the benefits identified.
Centralizing the Sharing of Information and Documents
“As the community is spread out geographically, we needed a dynamic, modern platform that would make it easier to share information:
- first, between the managers of the PERSEUS programme and the students,
- and second, between the students taking part in the various projects.
It was also important to be able to centralize all working documents. Which was achieved through a shared drive, so that the students can access them easily wherever they are”, says Marie-Sophie Lachesnais.
Read also: Boosting productivity by centralizing communications: the CNPF story
Security: A Key Criterion for CNES
“As a state body, data security and digital sovereignty are key criteria when we choose a new digital tool. That is why we had to choose a platform that hosts its data on French soil.”
Read also: Talkspirit's data security commitments
100% made-in-France software, Talkspirit quickly stood out from the competition. “Unlike Talkspirit, most of the tools we had identified beforehand hosted their data abroad. So we quickly ruled them out of our benchmark.”
A collaborative platform with sovereign hosting, Talkspirit is a perfect fit for CNES's security requirements. That is why CNES chose it to centralize all communications relating to the PERSEUS project.
A Smooth and Simple Deployment
“The deployment was very straightforward. We tested the tool within the project team (4-5 people), to see how we could exchange information and store files on it. Then we rolled Talkspirit out across the whole PERSEUS project, around 350 students”, explains Marie-Sophie Lachesnais.
“When students leave the community or join it, we send them their Talkspirit login details straight away.”
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“The tool is fairly easy to get to grips with. So there is no need to run a training session for the students. The only thing we ask of them is to fill in their profile properly”, so that they can then be easily identified.
A Go-To Tool for Communication
Talkspirit is the preferred communication channel for PERSEUS project students.
“The chat and the posts are the features they use the most to share information about the project.
We created two types of groups to structure these exchanges:
- project groups with open or restricted access;
- thematic groups (for example, dedicated to the rocket engine or trajectory), accessible to all students.
Each student is attached to a specific thematic group, where they can find all the related information. They can also consult documents and discussions on other topics.
“When you build a rocket, it is not just one team that is involved. It is all the teams that take part. To see the project through, it is therefore essential for everyone to have an overall view of how all these elements can interconnect with one another”, explains Marie-Sophie Lachesnais.
“We also use the groups to highlight important events or decisions. Sometimes we also share polls there, for example to agree on the time of a meeting, or to ask the students to choose a topic.”
Read also: Making information sharing easier with Talkspirit: the SantéCité story
The Drive: Ideal for File Storage and Sharing
More than a communication tool, “Talkspirit makes it possible to store all the data from the PERSEUS project thanks to the shared drive. On it we put the students' working documents, but also the technology watch reports produced by engineers” on behalf of CNES.
What is more, “we favour Talkspirit for transferring and sharing large files, for example technical notes that contain a lot of visuals and generally cannot be sent by email.”
“All the documents shared on the drive are accessible to every student”, which allows them to quickly find the information they need.
Genuine User Buy-In
Three years on, the platform is still very popular with the students. “Talkspirit is a tool that speaks to them, that they find fun and intuitive. For them, the platform also means belonging to a group”, because it is through the platform that they can interact with the whole community.
Despite being far apart geographically, “the students do not hesitate to get involved and take the initiative: they talk on the chat or share their views in posts, and sometimes create their own groups”, adds the project's administrative manager.
More Effective Communication
“Talkspirit meets 100% of our information sharing needs. Thanks to the platform, the students can communicate and exchange information very quickly, wherever they are (in mainland France or in French Guiana), at any time of day, and on any device.”
As the tool is used by every stakeholder in the project, it gives everyone the same level of information, and lets them take part in discussions on a range of topics.
Talkspirit's Take on CNES
Streamlining communication and information sharing between the members of a project team can be a real challenge when they are working remotely.
That is the case on the PERSEUS project. Easy to get to grips with and user-friendly, the Talkspirit platform makes interaction easier between the students, helps coordinate their various projects and ensures transparency of information within the community.
Thanks to the drive, everyone can access all the documents they need and work independently with ease. “In the short term, our aim is to optimize the way the drive is organized by creating a more precise naming convention, so that documents can be found more easily”, adds Marie-Sophie Lachesnais.
100% hosted in France and compliant with the GDPR, Talkspirit also makes it possible to secure all the data exchanged by the community.
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For all these reasons, Talkspirit has real strengths to offer public bodies. Many of them have already chosen Talkspirit. At the CEA (Commissariat à l’énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives), 10,000 employees already use the platform to work and communicate every day. Read about their experience in this article:
Photo credit: ©Université de Bordeaux
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Author: Emmanuelle Abensur
