Data Carpentry Workshop

Smithsonian Institution

Online

Nov 23-24 and Nov 30/Dec 1, 2020

9 AM to Noon

Instructors: Jennifer Giaccai, Luis Villaneuva, Mike Trizna, Alex White

Helpers: Amanda Devine

This workshop has unfortunately sold out. You can join the Waitlist by going to https://www.eventbrite.com/e/quarterly-si-data-carpentry-autumn-2020-edition-tickets-128544944389, click on “Register” and then “Join Waitlist”.
You can also go to https://datascience.si.edu/carpentries and click the “Sign up for the Carpentries-announce mailing list” button to be alerted when future Smithsonian Carpentries workshops are announced.

General Information

Data Carpentry develops and teaches workshops on the fundamental data skills needed to conduct research. Its target audience is researchers who have little to no prior computational experience, and its lessons are domain specific, building on learners' existing knowledge to enable them to quickly apply skills learned to their own research. Participants will be encouraged to help one another and to apply what they have learned to their own research problems.

For more information on what we teach and why, please see our paper "Good Enough Practices for Scientific Computing".

Who: The workshop is for Smithsonian badge holders at any SI Unit working with research and collections data.

Learners do not need to have any previous knowledge of the tools that will be presented at the workshop.

Where: This training will take place online. The instructors will provide you with the information you will need to connect to this meeting.

When: Nov 23-24 and Nov 30/Dec 1, 2020. Add to your Google Calendar.

Requirements: Participants must bring a laptop with a Mac, Linux, or Windows operating system (not a tablet, Chromebook, etc.) that they have administrative privileges on. They should have a few specific software packages installed (listed below).

Accessibility: We are dedicated to providing a positive and accessible learning environment for all. Please notify the instructors in advance of the workshop if you require any accommodations or if there is anything we can do to make this workshop more accessible to you.

Contact: Please email SI-DataScience@si.edu for more information.

Roles: To learn more about the roles at the workshop (who will be doing what), refer to our Workshop FAQ.


Code of Conduct

Everyone who participates in Carpentries activities is required to conform to the Code of Conduct. This document also outlines how to report an incident if needed.


Surveys

Please be sure to complete these surveys before and after the workshop.

Pre-workshop Survey

Post-workshop Survey


Schedule

Day 1 (Mon Nov 23)

OpenRefine

Before starting Pre-workshop survey
9:00 AM Workshop Introduction
9:20 AMOpenRefine for Data Cleaning
Noon END

Day 2 (Tue Nov 24)

Querying Data with SQL

9:00 AM Previous Day Review and Question Session
9:15 AM Introduction to SQL
9:45 AM Basic Queries
10:15 AM Break
10:30 AM SQL Aggregation and aliases
11:15 AM Joins (if time allows)
Noon END

Day 3 (Mon Nov 30)

Working with data with R

9:00 AM Previous Day Review and Question Session
9:15 AM Introduction to R and RStudio
10:00 AM Manipulating Data Frames with dplyr
10:30 AM Break
10:45 AM More Data Frames with dplyr
Noon END

Day 4 (Tue Dec 1)

Visualizing data with R

9:00 AM Previous Day Review and Question Session
9:30 AM Data Visualization with ggplot2
10:15 AM Break
10:30 AM More Data Visualization with ggplot2
11:30 AM Workshop wrap-up
Noon END

Setup

To participate in a Data Carpentry workshop, you will need access to the software described below. In addition, you will need an up-to-date web browser.

We maintain a list of common issues that occur during installation as a reference for instructors that may be useful on the Configuration Problems and Solutions wiki page.

Install the videoconferencing client

If you haven't used Zoom before, go to the official website to download and install the Zoom client for your computer.

Set up your workspace

Like other Carpentries workshops, you will be learning by "coding along" with the Instructors. To do this, you will need to have both the window for the tool you will be learning about (a terminal, RStudio, your web browser, etc..) and the window for the Zoom video conference client open. In order to see both at once, we recommend using one of the following set up options:

This blog post includes detailed information on how to set up your screen to follow along during the workshop.

The setup instructions for the Data Carpentry Ecology workshops (with R) can be found at the workshop overview site.