Hi all,
I agree with Tracy about getting to the visualizatuons as quickly as
possible. Sorry for the delayed reply Laura, but the following might be
useful for future reference.
I've managed to convince a few people to consider using R (or rather
RStudio), simply by running 4 commands in RStudio (from the DC R Ecology
lesson):
1. download.file("https://ndownloader.figshare.com/files/2292169";,
"data/portal_data_joined.csv")
2. surveys <- read.csv('data/portal_data_joined.csv')
3. summary(surveys)
4. plot(surveys$sex)
I usually emphasize the dimensions (or size) of this data and the speed
with which R executes the commands, and then ask "How many clicks would it
take to get these results in Excel?". They usually then smile and ask when
the next Carpentry workshop will be.
Thanks to everyone for sharing great resources and advice!
Bianca
On 29 Sep 2017 15:51, "Tracy Teal" <[email protected]> wrote:
Hi Laura,
This is a really neat idea, and I'm sorry, it sounds like it's too late
already for ideas for more ideas for your presentation. Let us know how it
went! This seems like a generally useful kind of presentation to have
available though, and these ideas have been great.
A class at UC Davis does an exercise where they have people fill out a
survey on random things, like how many siblings do you have, what is your
favorite color, what kind of shoes are you wearing, are you a cat person or
a dog person? Create the survey so it makes intentionally confusing data,
for instance leaving number of siblings as a fill in the blank rather than
as a drop down numerical response.
Then show the data, and show how messy the data is. Then demo how to clean
it up and do some visualizations. In a half hour (if you knew generally
what kind of data was going to be produced), you could have people fill out
the survey, show the data and do a clean up and visualization with command
line and Python or R. You could maybe get version control in there too to
show how you could change the script. Maybe the messy data part is too much
for a half hour, but you could have a survey that creates cleaner data.
Getting to visualizations in a short amount of time seems to be the thing
that really is exciting to people. Especially when they don't have a good
idea of how they would have approached it in something like Excel.
Best,
-Tracy
On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 3:06 PM, Moore, Nathan T <[email protected]> wrote:
> I havn't tried what you're attempting, but here's a idea. Describe the
> computer/lab notebook side of a data intensive project, estimate the time
> associated with things like clicking and dragging and computing by hand,
> and then show a brief example in which that time is reduced
> (substantially). Eg, tell the story from one of the learner profiles in
> more detail, in a context that the MS students would be familiar with.
>
>
> I assume you've seen learner profiles?
>
> https://software-carpentry.org/audience/
>
> Nathan
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Discuss <[email protected]> on behalf
> of Laura Fortunato <[email protected]>
> *Sent:* Thursday, September 21, 2017 8:44:14 AM
> *To:* [email protected]
> *Subject:* [Discuss] core concepts for novices in 30 mins
>
>
> Hello list,
>
> I am looking for input on how to introduce core concepts about
> reproducibility, effective research computing, etc to complete novices in a
> 1/2-hour slot. Any ideas/suggestions/materials welcome!
>
> The background: I have been asked to give a talk on effective computing
> for research reproducibility at the Oxford Reproducibility School next
> week. The target audience is a group of incoming masters-level students in
> psychology, most of whom I assume will be complete novices.
>
> Normally, given the format (30-min presentation + 10 mins for questions) I
> would give a "motivational" talk, and then point people to various
> resources (including Carpentry workshops, lessons). However, this slot is
> part of a much longer event, including "motivational" talks and talks on
> discipline-specific tools (e.g. open, reproducible neuroimaging) by several
> others.
>
> Looking at the programme, it seems that what will not be covered are the
> "basic" tools/skills taught in a standard Software Carpentry workshop ---
> shell, version control, programming.
>
> So, one idea I have been toying with is to do a brief demonstration of
> these tools to have the students see them "in action". However, I am not
> sure this is possible in a 1/2-hour slot.
>
> Does anyone have experience doing something similar, or can anyone point
> me to resources that do this? If anyone has tried and failed, it would also
> be good to know, of course.
>
> Thanks for any input!
> Laura
> --
> *Laura Fortunato* || Associate Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology |
> University of Oxford || External Professor | Santa Fe Institute ||
>
> _______________________________________________
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> [email protected]
> http://lists.software-carpentry.org/listinfo/discuss
>
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