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.

Maia Lesosky on The Carpentries

A Year Of Software Carpentry in South Africa