Anelda Van Der Walt on The Carpentries

Wrapping Up the Rural Campuses Connection Project Capacity Development Initiative.

Tue, 09 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000

The Rural Campuses Connection Project (RCCP) ran since 2010 in South Africa with the aim of bringing better internet connectivity to various rural campuses of publicly funded universities and research institutions. In the earliest phase the project included funding for physical infrastructure as well as design and implementation of networks. During RCCP phase 2 (RCCPII) a portion of funding was set aside for capacity development around internet connectivity. RCCP was funded through the South African Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), managed by Universities South Africa (USAf), and implemented by the Tertiary Research and Education Network (TENET).

Growing The Carpentries Community in Africa: Hiring a Regional Coordinator

Tue, 05 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

The Carpentries activities in Africa have been growing through exemplary volunteer work of the community and outstanding workshop coordination and community leadership from Anelda van der Walt. We are now looking to hire a Regional Coordinator to continue this work and support the community and workshops as activity in Africa grows. This position will join our team of Regional Coordinators - read more about that group and the work they do to support their regional communities.

A Wrap-up from the African Task Force

Tue, 29 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

At the end of 2017 eight Carpentries community members volunteered to serve on the African Task Force to help strengthen the local community. At a meeting in February 2018 we decided to focus on mentoring trained instructors and on creating awareness of The Carpentries in Africa. In this short report we share some of the highlights of the past year, give an overview of our activities, and also reflect on the lessons learned.

CarpentryConnect Johannesburg 2018: Building Bridges for Digital and Computational Literacy.

Tue, 29 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

During the first week of September 2018, CarpentryConnect Johannesburg was run in South Africa.

Although we initially dreamt of running an open event (similar to CarpentryCon in Dublin) we had to weigh up the benefits of opening the event up with the risks of not being able to attract enough people due to the associated costs. Over the past few years we’ve realised that getting institutions to invest (pay registration fees and cover travel costs) in something they have never heard about, is quite hard. Especially at a time when travel budgets are cut and embargoes are being placed on travel (most notably for university support staff).

More than Workshops

Fri, 07 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

There are a variety of ways people find The Carpentries. Belinda Weaver, of Griffith University and until recently, The Carpentries, blogged about her path. At CarpentryConnect Davis 2018, some of us discussed the different paths we had when joining this community. As you may see from the image below - no two people find their way into or around The Carpentries following the same path (zoom in to see details)…

CarpentryCon Experienced by the African Carpentry Task Force

Sun, 01 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks to The Carpentries and funding from conference sponsors, as well as TENET, the members of the African Carpentry Task Force were all able to attend the inaugural CarpentryCon event that took place at University College Dublin, Ireland, between 29 May and 1 June, 2018. Each of us has written a brief summary of our experience and takeaways from the conference, and we all agree that the event was an extremely valuable experience that exceeded all our expectations!

Running workshops on limited budgets

Fri, 13 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Anelda van der Walt and co-host Toby Hodges ran the first themed discussion session in March to brainstorm ideas about running workshops with little to no funding. Attendees from Australia, the US, the UK, and Canada joined to hear and contribute ideas.

Existing Funding Models

The Brisbane model is to use Eventbrite to charge a low fee (around AUD $60) for attendance at workshops. This has a few benefits - waitlists can be managed, the booking widget appears in the workshop website, fees can be easily refunded up to a week before the workshop, and attendance is generally good because people have paid out of their own pockets or have been sponsored by their school to come. The fee covers the costs of room hire and the fairly lavish morning and afternoon teas that keep people from wandering off in search of sustenance during breaks. The Brisbane instructor pool is fairly large so there is no need to fly people in, which means we don’t have to factor in those costs. One drawback is having to pay the catering and room hire costs up-front by personal credit card as the Eventbrite payout comes only after the workshop. This is a break-even charge - we could charge more and return some money to The Carpentries, but our main interest is in keeping costs low.

Revival of the African Task Force

Tue, 13 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Over the past five years, the Carpentries have gained considerable traction in Africa. Since the first online instructor training in 2015, more than 100 African-based instructors have been trained of which more than 40 had qualified. An estimated 50 workshops have taken place on the continent in countries including South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Mauritius, Kenya, Ghana, Gabon, and Ethiopia. More than 15 instructors from other continents have visited the continent to join local instructors in building community and teaching workshops. These include instructors from the UK, several states in the USA, Canada, the Netherlands, and New Zealand.

CAB-Alliance Bioinformatics Workshop in Franceville, Gabon

Thu, 09 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Over the past five years, researchers from the University of New Orleans (UNO) in the USA and the Université des Sciences et Techniques de Masuku (USTM), Franceville, Gabon and University of Buea (UB) - have been working closely together as part of a larger collaborative initiative to map patterns of genomic and phenotypic variation in rainforest species across central Africa. This international partnership known as the Central African Biodiversity (CAB) Alliance is made up of a number of institutions in the US, Africa and Europe and is primarily funded through the National Science Foundation’s Partnership in International Research and Education program.

Software Carpentry Introduces Mauritian HPC Users to Tools for Data Analysis

Sun, 10 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) has been branded as one of the biggest scientific projects to date and spans not only country borders but also continents. Although the SKA’s primary aim is to address many of the questions around our universe, the spin-offs of this project will touch people from all research disciplines as well as communities around the SKA sites.

One of the spin-offs is expanded human and infrastructure capacity in terms of High Performance Computing (HPC) in other African countries. The South African Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) is involved in a programme named the HPC Ecosystems Project. The Ecosystems Project focuses on the distribution of decommissioned HPC equipment to be used as mid-tier systems at various sites across Africa. This is followed with training of the system administrators to run the equipment.

The First Ever Data Carpentry in Ethiopia

Sun, 10 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

The Ethiopian Education and Research Network (EthERNet) from the Ministry of Education in collaboration with the German International Cooperation (GIZ) Sustainable Training and Education Programme (STEP), the Education Strategy Center (ESC) and Talarify organised its first ever Data Carpentry workshop for young academics and researchers in Ethiopia. The workshop was conducted over two and a half days from 14-16 August 2017 at Addis Ababa Institute of Technology (AAiT). The main aim was to increase data literacy for researchers and establish a community of good research data practice in Ethiopia in order to increase the presence of Ethiopian researchers in the global research community. Note: UNESCO Statistics Institute reveals that in 2016 1.1% of the global research community are researchers coming from Sub-Saharan Africa. On average 30.4% from all Sub-Saharan researchers are females, whereas Ethiopia counts 13.3 % female researchers out of all Ethiopian researchers.

Instructor Training in South Africa 2.0

Tue, 09 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

One of the main goals of our community is to make Software and Data Carpentry workshops accessible for all researchers from all disciplines and all regions of the world. In the past three years workshops in South Africa and other African countries have started gradually picking up and I think we may soon see exponential growth!

This has been made possible thanks to a lot of effort and hard work from a number of amazing people, including Anelda van der Walt. In 2014 we realised that the biggest obstacle to running workshops in Africa, was the lack of qualified trainers on the continent. Since then we’ve put significant focus on building a local instructor pool to enable research organisations in the region to run Software and Data Carpentry training. In 2015 several instructors were trained online. Last year North West University at Potchefstroom hosted the first in-person Instructor Training with attendees from South Africa and other African countries. Just last week, between 30th April and 2nd May, we (Anelda, Kari Jordan and Aleksandra Pawlik) ran another Instructor Training in Cape Town with 28 participants.

Optimised for Learning

Fri, 07 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

In 2014 I fell in love with Software Carpentry. I wasn’t quite sure what it was that was *that* appealing about the workshops, but I knew we had to run more of these in South Africa.

I had been following the activities and blogs of Software Carpentry since 2012 when I started working at a next generation sequencing (NGS) facility as lead (only) bioinformatician. Working with our clients I found that most of them had no idea how to deal with NGS data and very often didn’t know how/where to access computing infrastructure that would allow them to analyse their data.

South Africa's North-West University Becomes Software and Data Carpentry’s first African Partner

Fri, 20 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

In November 2014 the first large-scale Software Carpentry event was run in South Africa as part of the eResearch Africa conference in Cape Town. Since then 15 more Software, Data, and/or Library Carpentry events were run by the Southern African community across many disciplines and several institutions.

![Feedback from the NWU Genomics Data Carpentry Workshop in September 2016]({{ site.filesurl }}/2017/01/Feedback-SA-DC-Genomics.png)

The North-West University has been heavily involved in further developing the Southern African Carpentry community. In 2015 NWU led the development of a 12-month proposal that kicked off in April 2016 with the first South African in-person instructor training event. Since 2015 NWU has been involved in four internal Software and Data Carpentry events as well as four events run at other Southern African institutions. The university currently has five qualified instructors as well as two preparing for check-out. Instructors hail from diverse disciplines such as genomics, digital humanities, chemistry, and IT.

South Africa's North-West University Becomes Software and Data Carpentry’s first African Partner

Fri, 20 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Data Carpentry website

In November 2014 the first large-scale Software Carpentry event was run in South Africa [1] as part of the eResearch Africa conference [2] in Cape Town. Since then 15 more Software, Data, and/or Library Carpentry events were run by the Southern African community across many disciplines and several institutions [3, 4, 5].

Building Genomics Data Analysis Capacity at NWU

Wed, 07 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Data Carpentry website

The North-West University in South Africa boasts two next generation sequencing (NGS) platforms and additionally receive terabytes of NGS data annually from local and international service providers. Research projects with NGS components exist in the areas of Microbiology, Zoology, Botany, Nutrition, Agriculture, and more.

The three biggest challenges experienced by researchers and postgraduate students in terms of data analysis are as follow:

many of the students entering NGS projects have limited prior exposure to molecular techniques such as Sanger sequencing and PCR, and genetics concepts;
there is limited access to bioinformatics support and training (although there is lots of access to short interventions like 1- or 2-day workshops with no sustained follow-up);
and they are not aware of the range of research compute infrastructures which are available to them.

In September 2016, the NWU eResearch Initiative helped to establish a Genomics Hacky Hour (GHH) Study Group to support postgraduate students and researchers using NGS technologies. The original intention of the GHH was to bring researchers together to work on their current projects. However, limited shared NGS vocabulary hampered constructive communication amongst researchers and it was decided that specific topics would be discussed during the first few sessions, lead by a study group leader.

9 - 31 May, 2016: The First Bimonthly Report, Instructor Data Analysis, R Instructor Training, Measuring the Right Stuff, RSE Conference, and a Bug Barbeque

Tue, 31 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

##Highlights

The 2016 Steering Committee’s first bimonthly report provides an overview on happenings in the community in the past two months. The joint partnership agreement with Data Carpentry is now available, together with a written version of the instructor training model, a call for subcommittees and task forces, and an official space on Facebook. Make sure to read the Code of Conduct in support of our welcoming, friendly, and diverse community.

##Instructor training

24 April - 4 May, 2016: Subcommittees and Task Forces, Partnerships, Instructor Training, A Vacancy, Lab Meeting, Bug Barbeque, Discuss, and New Videos and a Book

Mon, 09 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Highlights

The 2016 Steering Committee invites you to help organize and develop resources and activities to support our community members by proposing new initiatives in the form of subcommittees and task forces. Full instructions on the proposal process can be found here. The Steering Committee will gladly help! Also check out the subcommittee listing for information on existing and past subcommittees.
Joint partnerships are now offered by Data Carpentry and Software Carpentry! Read the partnership information on how to become a partner and get in touch.

Vacancy

Data Carpentry is hiring a Deputy Director of Assessment. Visit the Data Carpentry jobs page for a full job description and application procedure.

Events

Tune in to the Software Carpentry Lab Meeting on May 10th to discuss what’s new and upcoming in the community. Check out the Lab Meeting Etherpad for the schedule and connection details.
Join the worldwide Software Carpentry Bug Barbeque on June 13 to help fix bugs in Version 5.4 of Software Carpentry lessons before publication. All contributors will receive credit for your hard work with a citable object.

Conversations

A recent conversation on the discuss mailing list prompted the creation of two new issues open for discussion in GitHub:
- How should we deal with high-volume discussions on the mailing list?
- Is the Code of Conduct saying what the community want/need it to say and how should it be enforced?

Videos and Books

Greg Wilson published a video of “things not to do while teaching”. The material is great to use during instructor training to demonstrate to instructor trainees what we’re trying to avoid when teaching and is based on suggestions made in this discussion on GitHub.
Support Data Carpentry by buying the book How to Be a Modern Scientist written by Jeff Leek. The book includes guides for reviewing papers, reading papers, career planning, and giving talks.
Iñigo Aldazabal Mensa (CSIC-UPV/EHU) provided a video of him explaining Software Carpentry in great detail at the 2016 HPC Knowledge Portal Conference - Software Carpentry: teaching computing skills to researchers.

Other

Did you recently participate in a Software Carpentry workshop and had questions that weren’t answered by the lessons? Do you teach workshops and hear questions from participants that can’t be addressed by the existing materials? Please add these questions to this post.
What have we learned from our lesson discussion sessions so far? We welcome all new instructors to provide feedback about their experience of the sessions by commenting on the post.
Aleksandra Pawlik recently blogged about her experience when she visited South Africa for the first face-to-face Software and Data Carpentry Instructor Training in Africa.
Planning on running a Software Carpentry workshop with R? Read how three sticky notes and chocolates helped participants in the Sotware Carpentry workshop at Griffith University.
Staff members from iDigBio gave their perspective on attending a Software Carpentry workshop. They encourage all researchers who’d like to work with the iDigBio datasets to particpipate in a workshop near them or request one at their own institution.
16 workshops were run over the past 16 days. For more information about past workshops, please visit our website.
Upcoming Workhshops

4 - 18 March, 2016: Instructor Trainee Mentoring, Debriefing vs Lesson Sessions, Version Control, Big Data in Biology Summer School, New Lessons

Fri, 18 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

##Instructor Training

How can we help instructor trainees complete their training? Belinda Weaver is working hard to support new instructors in Australia. Do you have any other ideas?
Several opportunities are now available for new and experienced instructors to join the conversations about workshops. Should we be combining various sessions to better integrate new and old instructors and give more options for participation?
You can also read about the abovementioned discussions in the latest summary of instructor debriefing rounds 4 and 5.

##Conversations

Software and Data Carpentry Instructor Training Comes to Africa

Fri, 18 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Data Carpentry website

by Anelda van der Walt

North-West University eResearch, UCT eResearch, and Talarify are excited to announce that a Software & Data Carpentry Instructor Training event will take place in Potchefstroom, North-West Province, South Africa from 17 - 20 April 2016.

The lead trainer will be Aleksandra Pawlik, a Data Carpentry Steering Committee member. She will be joined by several of the more experienced South African instructors who provide additional support working with the trainee instructors.

Software and Data Carpentry Instructor Training Comes to Africa

Fri, 18 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Our lead trainer will be Aleksandra Pawlik and several of the more experienced South African instructors will also join the workshop to work with the trainee instructors.

In line with a previous post from Belinda Weaver about helping new instructors through the pipeline, this workshop will form part of a larger 12-month programme to help new instructors truly integrate into the community. The programme, an initiative of the three hosting organisations and currently under development, will include supporting instructor trainees to:

16 February - 3 March, 2016: New Steering Committee, Software Carpentry Value Proposition, Webinar, Vacancies, Community Building, Instructor Training, and Modern Scientific Authoring

Thu, 03 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

##Highlights

Our new steering committee has been elected. Congratulations to Rayna Harris, Kate Hertweck, Karin Lagesen, Bill Mills, Raniere Silva, Belinda Weaver, and Jason Williams!
Looking for a good model to show potentially interested stakeholders what value Software Carpentry brings? Jonah Duckles, our executive director, shared his views. Let us know how we can improve on this?

##Webinars

DataONE is hosting Greg Wilson for a webinar titled Research Computing Skills for Scientists: Lessons, Challenges, and Opportunities from Software Carpentry on 8 March 2016 at 9am Pacific Time.

##New

17 January - 1 February, 2016: SCF Election Candidates, Lessons Learned, Instructor Survey Results, and an Intermediate R Lesson

Mon, 01 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

##Highlights: Steering Committee Election

The 2016 Software Carpentry Foundation Steering Committee election dates are set for February 15-19. Remember to join our Community Lab Meeting on 9 February to meet the candidates.
Read more about the candidates for the 2016 elections by following the links below:

##Published

6 January - 16 January, 2016: Election Candidates, SCF Strategic Plan, New Book, Pre-Workshop Help Sessions, AMY Version 1.3, Mistakes, and Recorded Lessons

Sat, 16 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

##Highlights: Steering Committee Election

The 2016 Software Carpentry Foundation Steering Committee election dates are set for February 15-19. Please make sure your name is on the members list to cast your vote.
Read more about the candidates for the 2016 elections by following the links below:
The Software Carpentry Foundation strategic plan as developed by the current steering committee is available.

##New

2016 Election: Anelda van der Walt

Fri, 15 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

## Who am I?

I have always been involved with, and am passionate about, multidisciplinary, multi-institutional projects. Over the last six years most of my work has focused on collaboratively providing support and training to researchers at various institutions across South Africa. Initially the support focussed specifically in areas of Next Generation Sequencing as I was employed by two national *omics platforms, but more recently I’ve participated in local eResearch initiatives. Through eResearch I’ve been fortunate to collaborate with researchers from a broad array of disciplines including life scientists, medical doctors, engineers, linguists, historians, and more. While I may not be the most computationally advanced person in this community, I have a knack for creating connections between those who need help and those who can help. I specifically love to work with people who are blissfully unaware of the power of technology, and upon exposure, blossoms into the greatest advocates and users with huge impact.

A Year Of Software Carpentry in South Africa

Wed, 06 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

After the [Software Carpentry workshop]({{site.baseurl}}/blog/2014/12/cape-town-swc.html) ran jointly with the [eResearch Africa conference](http://www.eresearch.ac.za/eresearch-africa-2014)in November 2014, we were looking for opportunities to run more workshops in South Africa in 2015. In May we ran our [first remotely instructed workshop]({{site.baseurl}}/blog/2015/06/remote-workshop-cape-town.html) (with thanks to [Laurent Gatto](https://twitter.com/lgatt0) and Software Carpentry for the remote option) focusing only on R to counter possible time loss due to technical glitches. Then it was onto [remote instructor training]({{site.baseurl}}/blog/2015/05/online-instructor-training.html) together with two groups on other continents (one in the USA and another in the UK) in June. Six new instructors were trained, four of them having gone on to teach one or more subsequent workshops. In July we joined forces with [UCT eResearch](http://www.eresearch.uct.ac.za/) to host a [third local workshop](http://www.eresearch.uct.ac.za/news/software-carpentry-powerful-initiative), joined by an experienced SWC instructor, [Matt Lammens](https://mlammens.github.io/) from the US, who happened to be visiting. Another workshop was offered in conjunction with the [SAEON Graduate Student Network Indibano](http://www.saeon.ac.za/enewsletter/archives/2015/october2015/doc11) in September. The next one was co-organised by [Adrianna Pińska]({{site.baseurl}}/blog/2015/10/jozihub-workshop.html) from the Cape Python User Group in October in Johannesburg. In November 2015 we ran the sixth Software Carpentry workshop in 12 months at [North-West University](http://www.nwu.ac.za/).

In all, six new instructors were trained, approximately 28 helpers recruited, and more than 200 learners from over 18 local organisations have participated in the 6 workshops between November 2014 and November 2015. There have been a number successes, but of course also some large, and small, bumps in the road.

November 11 - December 16, 2015: 2016 Steering Committee Election, Projects, Instructor Training and More, Lessons, Workshop Feedback, and Data Carpentry is Hiring.

Wed, 16 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Highlights

The Software Carpentry Foundation will hold its annual Steering Committee election in February 2016. Active Software Carpentry community members are invited to both stand for and vote in the elections.
The first candidate for the Steering Committee elections is Belinda Weaver. Learn more about her history with Software Carpentry and see what she plans to do for the community in 2016.
Want to contribute to Software Carpentry, but don't know how? There's a fantastic array of projects including development of new lessons, fixing up old ones, and much more. Jump in or contact us if you're interested in participating.

Other News

The past month saw a huge amount of Software Carpentry activities including:
Instructor Training events and feedback
Many Software Carpentry workshops were run and several people provided great write-ups about these. Write-ups are also available for a number of other workshops from which the Software Carpentry community could learn a great deal.
A few exciting developments in Data Carpentry
New lessons were developed and ideas to improve existing lessons were discussed
Several other posts have been published by community members

October 27 - November 10, 2015: Maneesha Sane, Retreat Activities, Instructor Training, Code Review Revisited, and a WiSE Workshop.

Tue, 10 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Highlights

Meet Maneesha Sane, the Software Carpentry (and now Data Carpentry) course coordinator.
Our instructor/helper/community retreat is planned for 14 November with participating sites around the world. Line-ups include roundtable discussions, open house sessions, Worldwide Library Hour, and more. Join us virtually or live for the whole day or only the sessions of interest.

Conversations

Do you have any experience with code review? David Pèrez-Suárez described his experience over ten years and asks some interesting questions.

October 19 - 26, 2015: 500 Workshops and 16,000 Participants, Retreat, Debriefing Sessions, Digital Data Storage, and A Science Competition.

Wed, 28 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Highlights

The Software Carpentry team has now run more than 500 workshops for 16,000 participants!
Remember to join our global instructor/helper retreat on 14 November. If you care about training, join a site near you or dial in via Google Hangouts.

Dates

Please take note of the planned dates for upcoming debriefing sessions for instructors.

Publications

Ten Simple Rules for Digital Data Storage: A new article on the importance of considering data storage and metadata tagging that started as a discussion on the Software Carpentry mailing list.

Opportunities

Are you building products or developing services to advance Open Science? Read more about the global science competition launched by the Wellcome Trust and NIH.

October 5 - 18, 2015: Jonah Duckles, Instructor/Helper Retreat Still Growing, Peer Reviewed Lessons, Data Management, and AMY 1.0 Released.

Sun, 18 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Highlights

Meet our new executive director, Jonah Duckles.
14 sites worldwide have registered for the first ever Software Carpentry and Data Carpentry instructor and helper retreat on 14 November. If you care about training, join a site near you or dial in via Google Hangouts.

Lessons

The obvious next step for the Software Carpentry lessons: Peer review

Contribute

Rayna Harris suggested we look at how Software Carpentry and Data Carpentry can play a role in teaching or disseminating information about data management plans. Please let us know if you are aware of good resources or would like to discuss how we can contribute as community?
AMY 1.0 was released. Django web programmers are welcome to join the development team.

September 20 - October 4, 2015: A New Executive Director, Instructor and Helper Retreat, Data Visualisation Lesson, Teaching, and Lesson Citations

Sun, 04 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Highlights

Please welcome our new executive director, Jonah Duckles!
Please join us on 14 November for the first international multi-site instructor and helper retreat. The blog post explains how you can get involved or host a site.

Lessons

Read about the new lesson on Data Visualisation with D3 and the pros of interactive data visualisation in Isabell Kiral-Kornek and Robert Kerr's post.

Contribute

We're actively revising our teaching practice and lesson design. The latest feedback from people who've taught the Python lessons is summarised and there's another opportunity for you to add your thoughts via a short survey or longer discussion. We'd love to hear from you!
We're still talking about the citation format for our lessons. You can follow the latest discussion and contribute your suggestions at the blog post.

September 6 - 19, 2015: A Retreat, New Mentors, Instructor Training Update, Preparing Researchers, Interactive Excercises, and a Student's Experience.

Sat, 19 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Highlights

The first Software Carpentry and Data Carpentry instructor and helper retreat will be held on 14 November 2015! Please get involved by hosting a local session or attending one. Remote participation will also be possible.
We have seven new members on the Mentoring Subcommittee. Thanks to Rayna Harris, Christina Koch, Sue McClatchy, Mariela Perignon, Phil Rosenfield, Michael Sarahan, and Belinda Weaver for joining us in this important task.
Instructor training has been revised. Read the blog to learn about the new plans for 2015 and beyond.
Jazib Askari, a remarkable 6th form Student at Altrincham Grammar School for Girls wrote about her Software Carpentry work experience.

Recommended

Christina Koch mentioned some fun interactive excercises for explaining concepts related to automation and version control in her latest blog.

Contribute

"What would you teach to prepare researchers better to do good science given the changing technological landscape?" An interesting post by Naupaka Zimmerman about being wrong, provenance, and structured data. What are your ideas?

Events

Join the Software Credit Workshop on 19 October 2015 in London to participate in the conversation about career advancement for research software developers.

August 27 - September 5, 2015: Lessons Published, ReScience, SSI Fellowships Open, Interview, and Mailman Threads as GitHub Comments.

Sat, 05 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Highlights

Our lessons are now published! Please find important citation information in the blog post.

New

You can now publish your computational studies that replicates previous findings in ReScience.
The Art of Data Science by Roger D. Peng and Elizabeth Matsui has been published.
Greg Wilson's recent CS Education Zoo interview about Software Carpentry is available via YouTube.

Contribute

Do you know of a tool that can convert Mailman mailing list threads into comments on a GitHub issue?

Opportunities

Applications are open for the Software Sustainability Institute's Fellowship programme. Apply before 1 October 2015.

August 18 - 26, 2015: Instructors' Retreat, Applying Discounts, Adding Lessons, Be a Mentor, Undergraduate Training, and Improving RStudio.

Wed, 26 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Highlights

Do you want to meet other Software Carpentry instructors and share your training experience? Let us know when you'll be available for our first Virtual Instructors' Retreat. We've already heard back from 60 people!
How do you know if a fee waiver or discount will apply to your Software Carpentry Workshop? Read our new guidelines.
Mike Jackson wrote about how easy and rewarding it is to add lessons to the Software Carpentry repertoire. It's inspirational to see the power of openness and collaboration.

Contribute

Join our mentoring sub committee — it's a great opportunity to simultaneously learn and give back.
Share your ideas for a Maths undergraduate Python curriculum with Ian Hawke (and us).
RStudio wants to hear from you about how to improve their software for training purposes. An interesting discussion is already under way.

August 3 - 17, 2015: Data Carpentry Funded, Citations, Improving Our Lessons, and Lab Data Management.

Mon, 17 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Highlights

Fantastic news from our sibling organisation, Data Carpentry, who received USD 750,000 in funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

Contribute

Do you have suggestions for the citation format of our lessons? Should all contributers be named? Please participate in this discussion to help us move forward with making our lessons citeable.
How can we improve the next version of our Python 3 lesson? Contribute to the discussion before September when content of the next release will be decided upon.
Meanwhile, a few posts focussing on preparing for and teaching various lessons have appeared over the past months. You can help improve what and how we teach by sharing your experience in terms of content, format, and preparation for teaching at a Software Carpentry workshop.
Have you designed and built a data management system for your lab or project? Please share your experience to help us rethink how we teach databases and their integration with other tools.

July 23 - August 2, 2015: Online Survey Still Open, Recorded Lessons Available, and Another WiSE Workshop Coming Up.

Sun, 02 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Highlights

Complete the online SWOT survey before 5 August to help steer Software Carpentry in the right direction over the next few years.
Software Carpentry lessons from SciPy 2015 were recorded and is available in YouTube.

Opportunities

We're developing a template to provide solutions to challenges in a sensible way. Please share your ideas for a template with us.

Events

Another workshops for women in science and engineering will be held at UC Davis on August 17-18, 2015.

July 07 - 22, 2015: Hiring an Executive Director, Strategic Planning, SWC-inspired Book, Open Research Repository, AMY version 0.6, and New Team Members.

Thu, 23 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Highlights

Software Carpentry is entering the next phase and will be hiring a new Executive Director. Please apply if you are passionate about the mission of the Software Carpentry Foundation!
Do you want to help steer Software Carpentry in the right direction over the next five years? Help us by completing a short anonymous SWOT survey.

Changes

Two new coordinators, Maneesha Sane and Katarzyna Zaczek, have joined the Software Carpentry team, and we're saying goodbye to Amy Brown.
We've changed the workshop administration fees. Please read the post for details.

Resources

"Effective Computation in Physics" written by two Software Carpentry instructors, Anthony Scopatz and Katy Huff, is now available.
An Open Research Glossary generated through a crowd-sourcing effort with a number of named contributors is now available.
AMY version 0.6 has been released with a long list of new features and some fixes.

June 29 - July 06, 2015: Research Software Engineers, Not Changing Lesson Build Tools, and Moving to Python3.

Mon, 06 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Highlights

Do you know what a Research Software Engineer is or why we desperately need to recognise the role RSEs are playing in research? Read about the history of RSEs and a fellowship programme available for RSEs in the UK.
Version 5.4 of our lessons will be released at the end of November, rather than mid-August, and lesson build tools will remain unchanged until then. Most importantly we'll be changing the Python lessons to run on Python 3.

Contribute

Are you looking for other ways to contribute to Software Carpentry? Visit our Projects page to see an exciting list of opportunities for you to get involved.

June 17-28, 2015: A Lesson on Make, AMY 0.4 Released, Opportunities to Contribute, Practical Tips for Running Workshops, and Appointing a Program Coordinator.

Sun, 28 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Vacancies

Software Carpentry is hiring a Program Coordinator. Please see the blog post for more information.

Highlights

A new lesson on Make has been added to the Software Carpentry repertoire.
AMY 0.4 was released. New features are listed in the blog post.

Contribute

Would you like to contribute by recycling previously submitted assessment excercises and adding the best ones to our lessons? It can now easily be done by visiting the newly created repo of submitted MCQs and exercises.
Learner assessment has been receiving a lot of attention over the past months. A first draft of the new feedback survey is now available. We're looking forward to your comments/contributions.
Should we change our lesson templates to make use of Jekyll rather than Pandoc? Please contribute to the discussion to help us make an informed decision.
Greg Wilson summarised lessons learned from teaching instructors. There is again an opportunity for you to contribute to the direction instructor training takes in future. Let us hear from you?

Useful Tips

Splitting the terminal window allows the instructor to display recent commands while continueing with the lesson at the same time. Read the post by Raniere Silva to see how it's done.

June 10-16, 2015: Software Carpentry is Saving Time, Lessons Version 5.4, Greg's Time, Our Project List, and a Lesson on Reproducible Research.

Tue, 16 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Highlights

Software Carpentry get more done in less time is the latest publication about Software Carpentry and the impact it's having on research. It reports research done by Alexandra Simperler and is available at arXiv.
Version 5.4 of our lessons is currently in the pipeline and due for release in the middle of August. Please join the discussions and participate in addressing new and existing issues to help us reach our next milestone.
Over the last few months a lot has improved in the way Software Carpentry operates. Greg Wilson revisited some changes and the impact on how his time is spent six months after election of the Steering Committee.
Do you want to know how you can help to move Software Carpentry forward? Take a look at our project list or get in touch. There are loads of opportunities for people with a wide variety of skills.

Resources

Titus Brown posted a lesson on reproducible research on YouTube.

Running a Remote Workshop in South Africa

Sat, 13 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Last month we ran a workshop at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. The workshop instructors were Laurent Gatto (from the UK - coming in as remote instructor), and two local instructors - David Merand and Anelda van der Walt. We had four helpers in the room and 32 participants.

May 29 - June 9, 2015: New Lesson About Data, SWC at ScipPy 2015, Updating our Lesson Templates, and Amy 0.3.

Tue, 09 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Highlights

Our latest addition to the Software Carpentry curriculum focuses on using Python to work with data on the web.
We've created an ambitious list of proposed improvements to our lesson templates and aim to have it implemented by September. Please add your comments or help us improve the templates.
Amy 0.3 has been released and include several improvements that will make administrators' lives easier.

Events

One of the aims of running a Software Carpentry workshop at SciPy 2015 is to provide Python novices with the basics ahead of the conference. There are still spaces available for the workshop.

May 19 - 28, 2015: New Learner Assessments, Remote Instructor Training, Coding for Librarians, and Evolution of a Geoscience Computing Course.

Thu, 28 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Highlights

Software Carpentry instructors are encouraged to help develop new assessments for learners by suggesting questions that should be asked of learners.
A two-day remote instructor course will be trialed across three sites on June 8-9. Watch this space for feedback about the experience.

Resources

Andromeda Yelton has produced a wonderful resource for librarians who code (or want to code) in the form of six articles titled "Coding for Librarians: Learning by Example".
Christian Jacobs, Gerard Gorman, and Lorraine Craig's paper on the evolution of their geoscience computing course and the influence of Software Carpentry is available from arxiv.org.

May 12 - 18, 2015: 79 New Instructors and Instructor Debriefing Round 9.

Mon, 18 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Highlights

79 new instructors have qualified since the last announcement made in March!

Instructor Tips

Changing your prompt in the terminal when teaching the Shell lessons could provide more screen real estate. "export PS1='$ '" will change your current terminal only.

May 6 - 11, 2015: Lesson Prep for Publication, Capturing Instructors' Commands, and Instructor Debriefing.

Wed, 13 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Highlights

15 people in 5 countries are preparing the Software Carpentry lessons for publication.

Instructor Tips

Do you find that participants fall behind during Software Carpentry workshops because they can't follow commands entered into the terminal? You can use redirect and Dropbox to create a live document for participants to follow.

April 28 - May 5, 2015: GSoC Projects, Nightly Rebuilds, Katy Huff, and a PhD Starter Kit.

Tue, 05 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Highlights

The Google Summer of Code students have been selected. Well done to Piotr Banaszkiewicz, Ian Henriksen, and Amit Jamadagni!
Nightly rebuilds of the Software Carpentry lessons version 5.3 are now available.

People

Meet Katy Huff - chair of the Steering Committee and a member of the finance subcommittee.

Resources

Achintya Rao wrote a fascinating PhD Starter Kit listing some best practices and useful tools postgraduate students could find useful on their journey towards graduation.

Events

Learn about Research in the Cloud in Feltham this July.

April 21 - 27, 2015: The People Behind Software Carpentry, Debating Scientific Software, Learning Objects, and Ally Skills Workshops.

Mon, 27 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Highlights

Get to know the people behind Software Carpentry. First up: Matt Davis.

Conversations

A lively conversation about scientific software has been taking place on Titus Brown's blog, culminating (for now) in this post on popping the open source/open science bubble.

Recommendations

We'd like to encourage our instructors and lesson contributors to read about the paradox of learning objects as discussed by David Wiley.
Watch the video of the recent Ally Skills workshop offered by the Ada Initiative at PyCon 2015.

April 13 - 20, 2015: A DOI for Software Carpentry Lessons, Good Enough Scientific Computing Practices, Code Reviews, and Library Carpentry

Tue, 21 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Highlights

Publication of our lessons to obtain DOIs is planned for May 14th. Please help us tidy lessons up or get in touch if you have any experience in publishing lessons built in GitHub.

Conversations

Let's write a follow-up to our article "Best Practices in Scientific Computing" called "Good Enough Practices in Scientific Computing".
Should or could Software Carpentry teach participants how to do code reviews? What are your thoughts?

Events

Library Carpentry is a new program piloted by James Baker. The first Library Carpentry event will be hosted in London in November 2015.

April 6 - 13, 2015: The Steering Committee, Workshops for Companies, and a Discussion of WiSE Events

Mon, 13 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Highlights

A summary of the steering committee's activities has been provided by Karin Lagesen. Her post includes links to board meeting minutes and an overview of the newly-formed subcommittees.
Software Carpentry will be running five workshops for companies. Please get in touch if you are aware of companies that may be interested to participate in this pilot program.

Conversations

What are your feelings about women-only events to address the gender gap in STEM? Read about the experiences and observations from instructors during a recent WiSE workshop.

March 31 - April 6, 2015: A Lab Meeting, a LinkedIn Group, Two New Capstones, and Ideas for Instructors

Mon, 06 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Highlights

A summary of last week's lab meeting is now available. Please take a moment to read through the highlights and notes.
Software Carpentry and Data Carpentry instructors are invited to join our newly-created LinkedIn group.

Resources

Do you need to create a brand new lesson repository? The new process is outlined with an example - please try it out and send us your comments.
Damien Irving created a capstone example specifically for oceanographers.
A biomedical engineering MATLAB capstone was made available by Isa Kiko.

Technical Challenges

Git on Mac OS X 10.8: Instructors can find or propose solutions to the "Lazy symbol" error when installing git on old Macs (Mac OS X 10.8)

March 23-30, 2015: A Lab Meeting, a Dataset, NGS Course at MSU, and Postdoc Positions at BIDS

Mon, 30 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Highlights

Please remember to join us for the next online lab meeting on April 1st at 10:00 and 19:00 Eastern time.

Resources

If you are looking for a teaching-ready dataset, take a look at Ethan Whites simplified version of the Portal Projects Database now availble in csv, json, and sqlite.

Events

A 2+1 week NGS course will be offered by Titus Brown and others from 10 - 21 August. Applications are now open.
EuroSciPy 2015 call for papers is open until 20 April. The conference will take place in Cambridge, UK on 26-30 August.

Opportunities

Berkley Institute for Data Science (BIDS) is inviting applications for Postdoctoral Researchers in Data Science. Apply before 20 April.

Weekly Update: March 16 - March 22, 2015

Sun, 22 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Highlights

The next online lab meeting will take place on 1 April at 10:00 and 19:00 Eastern time. Remember to sign up.

Resources

Jenny Bryan contributed a Gapminder data package now available through CRAN which might be helpful in setting up for Software Carpentry workshops.
Data Carpentry developed new material for teaching dplyr using their ecological dataset.

Opportunities

Students can apply to participate in our Google Summer of Code projects until 19:00 UTC on 27 March 2015. We have several exciting projects available.
Insight Data Science launched a new seven week fellows program in Health Data Science.

Weekly Update: March 7 - March 15, 2015

Tue, 17 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Conversations

Get some fantastic teaching tips from novice and seasoned trainers. Join the conversation by adding your tips.
Useful advice is given about what to pack when you teach. Your contributions can potentially help fellow trainers.
The Steering Committee has voted to remove SQL from the list of core topics for workshops. Instructors should still teach it if they think it's right for their audience, but they may also now use that time for more programming, testing, or other topics.

Weekly Update: Feb 28 - March 6, 2015

Mon, 09 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Highlights:	Do you want to help shape the future of Software Carpentry? The Software Carpentry Foundation is now calling for volunteers to serve on various standing committees.
	NumFOCUS has been selected as a Google Summer of Code mentoring organisation. Students can apply between 16 and 27 March 2015.
	A Contributor Covenant was added to our lessons and other repositories to promote a harassment-free environment for contribution to Software Carpentry.
Resources:	An early release version of Bioinformatics Data Skills is available via O'Reilly. Vince Buffalo's book is highly recommended for both novice and experienced bioinformaticians.
Opportunities:	Scientific Software Engineer positions are available at the UK Met Office
Changes:	Daisie Huang will be taking over from Jess Hamrick to maintain our Git lessons with Ivan Gonzalez. Our thanks to Jess for all her help.

Weekly Update: Feb 21 - Feb 27, 2015

Sun, 01 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Conversations:	How do you fund your SWC workshops? Please join the conversation.
	Should we remove old material when adding new in order to keep the lessons manageable? Should people have to teach the standard material a couple of times before introducing their own? Please contribute your ideas.
Resources:	Remember to sign up for Software Carpentry's mailing lists. They are rich resources for scientific computing.
	Great R cheat sheets available at RStudio include sheets for dplyr, tidyr, Shiny, and R Markdown.
	A preview release of RStudio v0.99.315 is now available for testing and feedback. New features include for example the removal of the 1K row limit in Data Viewer.
	IPython 3.0 has been released - congratulations to the whole team.
	So you think you can data? The rOpenSci Hackathon is going to host a friendly data challenge between Hadley Wickham and Wes McKinney - please follow this GitHub issue for news.

Quotable:	"This is @swcarpentry: try to teach enough in two days that things people find on the internet make a little more sense." @jiffyclub

Weekly Update: Feb 14 - Feb 20, 2015

Sun, 22 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Highlights:	We're looking for mentors and projects for Google Summer of Code: please get in touch if you have questions or suggestions.
	Research Bazaar was again a highlight on Twitter this week, and Damien Irving summarised plans for Software Carpentry in Australia and New Zealand.
Conversations:	An interesting conversation about "Library Carpentry" started by James Baker took place on Twitter.
New resources:	A new Browsercast tutorial "Creating a workshop website" was published. Please let us know if you have any comments.
	An early release of "Effective Computation in Physics" has been made available. The book is relevant to scientists of all kinds
Opportunities:	SciPy call for participation is open. Please submit your proposal for tutorials, talks, or posters.
	Call for Data Science Fellow applications through the Berkley Institute for Data Science is now open.

Weekly Update: Feb 07 - Feb 13, 2015

Fri, 13 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Highlights:	NeSI (New Zealand) became a SWF affiliate.
	SWC instructor training at the Research Bazaar in Australia created a lot of activity on Twitter this week - 50 trainees attended the workshop.
Conversations:	Daniel Chen made his "Project Cookie Cutter" bash script available and triggered a conversation about this. Please get in touch with us via GitHub or email us if you use cookie cutter project templates or have comments.
Vacancies:	The National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) is looking for a Science Educator/Evaluator in Boulder, Colorado.

Weekly Update: Jan 31 - Feb 06, 2015

Mon, 09 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Highlights:	SWF gets 2 new affiliates (iPlant and Lab for Data Intensive Biology at UC Davis) and a new partner (University of Washington).
Conversations:	"...what matters most in teaching is the act itself - the verb": some observations on teaching and a book recommendation.
	Scientific coding and software engineering: what's the difference? A post by Daisie Huang: please add your comments.
	Rewarding Software Sharing by Mapping Scientific Software A post by Chris Bogart: please share your ideas.
Events:	SWC instructor training and Intro to Web Programming at Lawrence Berkeley Lab: March 2015
	rOpenSci Unconference: March 2015
	Software Sustainability Institute's Collaborations Workshop: March 2015
Other News:	Eight new instructors

Weekly Update: Jan 24-30, 2015

Mon, 02 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Highlights:	New steering committee selected
	We have now taught ten thousand people
Conversations:	Keeping momentum going after workshops
	Factors and formulae in R lessons
Other News:	First new instructors of 2015
	Our first workshop in South Korea