Crerar Library CSIL #4

November 15, 2019

9:00 am - 4:30 pm

Instructors: Arjun Biddanda, Briana Mittleman

Helpers: Shelby Mahaffie

General Information

Software Carpentry aims to help researchers get their work done in less time and with less pain by teaching them basic research computing skills. This hands-on workshop will cover basic concepts and tools, including program design, version control, data management, and task automation. 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 "Best Practices for Scientific Computing".

Who: The course is aimed at researchers working with the UChicago Consortium on School Research You don't need to have any previous knowledge of the tools that will be presented at the workshop.

Where: CSIL #4. John Crerar Library. 5730 S Ellis Ave, Chicago, IL 60637. Get directions with OpenStreetMap or Google Maps.

When: November 15, 2019. 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). If you are unable to bring a laptop with administrative privileges, please email uccarpentries@gmail.com

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.

Accessibility: We are committed to making this workshop accessible to everybody. The workshop organizers have checked that:

Materials will be provided in advance of the workshop and large-print handouts are available if needed by notifying the organizers in advance. If we can help making learning easier for you (e.g. sign-language interpreters, lactation facilities) please get in touch (using contact details below) and we will attempt to provide them.

Contact: Please email uccarpentries@gmail.com or abiddanda@uchicago.edu for more information.

Surveys

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

Pre-workshop Survey

Post-workshop Survey

Schedule

Before Pre-workshop survey
09:00 Introduction to R and RStudio
09:30 Introduction to Programming in R
10:30 Morning break
10:45 Starting with Data
11:30 Manipulating Data Frames with dplyr
12:00 Lunch break
13:00 Manipulating Data Frames with dplyr
14:30 Afternoon break
14:45 Data Visualisation with ggplot2
16:00 Wrap-up
16:30 Post-workshop Survey

Syllabus

  • Overview of R and RStudio
  • Introduction to R
  • Starting with Data
  • Manipulating Data Frames with dplyr
  • Data Visualisation with ggplot2

    • Data

    The data that we will be working with can be found at the following link SAFI_Survey_Results. Make sure to download the cleaned version of the data!

    Resulting Scripts

    Throughout our workshop, we generated several pieces of code that may be useful to revisit and we have posted them below:

    Setup

    To participate in a Software 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.

    R

    R is a programming language that is especially powerful for data exploration, visualization, and statistical analysis. To interact with R, we use RStudio.

    Video Tutorial

    Install R by downloading and running this .exe file from CRAN. Also, please install the RStudio IDE. Note that if you have separate user and admin accounts, you should run the installers as administrator (right-click on .exe file and select "Run as administrator" instead of double-clicking). Otherwise problems may occur later, for example when installing R packages.

    You can download the binary files for your distribution from CRAN. Or you can use your package manager (e.g. for Debian/Ubuntu run sudo apt-get install r-base and for Fedora run sudo dnf install R). Also, please install the RStudio IDE.

    The Bash Shell

    Bash is a commonly-used shell that gives you the power to do simple tasks more quickly.

    Video Tutorial
    1. Download the Git for Windows installer.
    2. Run the installer and follow the steps below:
      1. Click on "Next" four times (two times if you've previously installed Git). You don't need to change anything in the Information, location, components, and start menu screens.
      2. Select "Use the nano editor by default" and click on "Next".
      3. Keep "Git from the command line and also from 3rd-party software" selected and click on "Next". If you forgot to do this programs that you need for the workshop will not work properly. If this happens rerun the installer and select the appropriate option.
      4. Click on "Next".
      5. Select "Use the native Windows Secure Channel library", and click "Next".
      6. Keep "Checkout Windows-style, commit Unix-style line endings" selected and click on "Next".
      7. Select "Use Windows' default console window" and click on "Next".
      8. Leave all three items selected, and click on "Next".
      9. Do not select the experimental option. Click "Install".
      10. Click on "Finish".
    3. If your "HOME" environment variable is not set (or you don't know what this is):
      1. Open command prompt (Open Start Menu then type cmd and press Enter)
      2. Type the following line into the command prompt window exactly as shown:

        setx HOME "%USERPROFILE%"

      3. Press Enter, you should see SUCCESS: Specified value was saved.
      4. Quit command prompt by typing exit then pressing Enter

    This will provide you with both Git and Bash in the Git Bash program.

    The default shell in all versions of macOS is Bash, so no need to install anything. You access Bash from the Terminal (found in /Applications/Utilities). See the Git installation video tutorial for an example on how to open the Terminal. You may want to keep Terminal in your dock for this workshop.

    The default shell is usually Bash, but if your machine is set up differently you can run it by opening a terminal and typing bash. There is no need to install anything.

    Git

    Git is a version control system that lets you track who made changes to what when and has options for easily updating a shared or public version of your code on github.com. You will need a supported web browser.

    You will need an account at github.com for parts of the Git lesson. Basic GitHub accounts are free. We encourage you to create a GitHub account if you don't have one already. Please consider what personal information you'd like to reveal. For example, you may want to review these instructions for keeping your email address private provided at GitHub.

    Git should be installed on your computer as part of your Bash install (described above).

    Video Tutorial

    For OS X 10.9 and higher, install Git for Mac by downloading and running the most recent "mavericks" installer from this list. Because this installer is not signed by the developer, you may have to right click (control click) on the .pkg file, click Open, and click Open on the pop up window. After installing Git, there will not be anything in your /Applications folder, as Git is a command line program. For older versions of OS X (10.5-10.8) use the most recent available installer labelled "snow-leopard" available here.

    If Git is not already available on your machine you can try to install it via your distro's package manager. For Debian/Ubuntu run sudo apt-get install git and for Fedora run sudo dnf install git.