Software Carpentry Courses at the University of Bergen - An introduction to coding and (research) data management

Software Carpentry Course An introduction to coding and (research) data management Illimar Rekand, Senior Engineer Department of Informatics + Chemistry This presentation is available under a CC-BY 4.0 license at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14192639 The Problem? ●🔢Research is becoming more and more data driven ●🔊Increase of data volume ●💻Many researchers wish to use programming as a tool, but lack the necessary skills ●😖The barrier to learn programming is perceived as difficult to overcome Rekand, Brenk J. Chem. Inf. Model. 2021, 61, 8, 4068–4081 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jcim.1c00155 CC-BY 4.0 2 What are the Software Carpentries? ●Nonprofit organization since 2015 ●Software Engineering & Data Science ●Openly licensed (CC) lesson material free for anyone to use ●Core lessons: Unix, Git, Python, R ●Foundation for UiB’s Software Carpentry (SWC) Courses 3 Advantages of SWC Lessons ●🆓Free and easy to use ●✅Minimal preparation ●💻Easy to install software ●󰞹Aimed at learners with no experience with coding ●🔬Research oriented 4 What is the SWC course? 💻📊󰞲 ●📅5-day crash course with basic entry to coding and how to handle data as a researcher ●#Capacity: 30 learners + 4-6 instructors, helpers each/day ●🥇No ECTS accreditation from our side (can qualify for 1 ECTS department-side) ●📈Data types, plotting, loops, etc. ●Expectation: - Learners will not become experts - Understand what is possible - Apply principles to own work 5 Schedule (11.11-15.11.2024, 7th iteration): ●Day 1: UNIX Shell ●Day 2: R || Python ●Day 3: Database management (SQL) ●Day 4: Version Control with Git ●Day 5: Research Data Management SWC Ideology ●🔓The course should be free and open for anyone ●🔬Core demographic: Researchers (Ph.D candidates, PostDocs, etc.) with little to no coding experience ●🎭Carpentries Code of Conduct Photo: Illimar Rekand (CC-BY 4.0) 6 Photo: Illimar Rekand (CC-BY 4.0) 7 ●Everything physical! ●Live coding - learners code together with instructor in real time ●No slides - instructors scrolls through the lesson ●Helpers aid whenever someone is stuck ●Enough helpers necessary for smooth sessions Photo : Illimar Rekand (CC-BY 4.0) 8 How do we do this? ●Instructors and helpers volunteer their (working) hours ●Collaboration between: University Library of Bergen (Digital Lab), NRIS, ITA, ELIXIR Norway, Didactics Group (Dep. of Informatics), Dep. of Chemistry, Digital Life Norway, NORBIS ●Sporadic funding (Food+External Instructors) ●Students who volunteer receive a letter of recommendation ●Networking Opportunities Photo: Illimar Rekand (CC-BY 4.0) 9