Our Joint Initiatives and Events to Build Research Data Capacity
Ongoing Activities
Activity
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Description
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Date
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Collaborators
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we-DELIVER: Holistic service delivery to older people in local government through ICTs | A research project that aims to use technology both in the research process and as an intervention to improve people's lives. | January 2017 - Current | North-West University, OpenUp (Code4SA) |
The National E-science Postgraduate Teaching and Training Platform (NEPTTP) | The platform, funded by the Department of Science and Technology and administrated through DIRISA, will develop suitable curricula and pedagogic interventions to advance the training of postgraduate students in interdisciplinary research fields. | December 2016 - Current | North-West University, University of the Witwatersrand, University of Pretoria, University of Limpopo, University of Venda, Sol Plaatjies University |
Continuous collaborative meetups to build genomics capacity at NWU. | October 2015 - Current | North-West University, Mozilla Science Lab | |
A proposal to support the development of a computational savvy community of researchers and postgraduate students not only in South Africa, but also in other African countries. The proposal has four stages:
| April 2016 - Current | North-West University, University of Cape Town, the Software Carpentry Foundation, Data Carpentry, Mozilla Science Lab |
Past Events
Event
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Description
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Date
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Collaborators
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NWU Research Conversation series: Research Software Engineers | This NWU Research Conversation Session focussed on the topic of Research Software Engineers (RSE) – what this is, who they are, and how to join the international community of RSEs. | 19 May 2017 | North-West University, Dr James Hetherington, (University College London), Dr Aleksandra Pawlik (New Zealand eScience Infrastructure) |
A 2.5-day workshop where 28 new instructors were trained and joined by 14 instructors from the 2015/2016 cohorts to share experiences and lessons learned about workshops, teaching, learning and more. | 30 April - 2 May 2017 | Dr Kari Jordan (Data Carpentry, Software Carpentry), North-West University, Dr Aleksandra Pawlik (New Zealand eScience Infrastructure), Takealot, DHET RCCP II (funding), DIRISA (funding) | |
An NWU Research Conversation Session during which Michelle Willmers and Thomas King shared their experience in terms of opportunities that are arising as more research datasets are becoming available in digital format, how to share data legally, ethically, and responsibly, and what the positive impact of data sharing is for researchers and research projects. | 20 April 2017 | North-West University, Michelle Willmers & Thomas King, Centre for Innovation in Learning & Teaching, UCT | |
NWU Research Conversations: Enhancing your research with digital tools (Theme: Open Science) | An NWU Research Conversation Session during which Drs Bianca Kramer and Jeroen Bosman (both from Utrecht University) shared results from their international survey about the use of various digital tools throughout the research life cycle. | 24 March 2017 | North-West University, Jeroen Bosman & Bianca Kramer, Utrecht University |
Research Conversation Series: Research Archives and Data Repositories in South Africa and at NWU (Theme: Open Science & Research Data Management) | Several research groups have collected large data sets over time - often partially in hard copy and partially digitised. The datasets could be of national importance but may not be preserved with re-use and discoverability in mind. In this 2-hour conversation we introduced researchers to national initiatives looking at Data Preservation and also discuss new initiatives at the NWU. | 1 March 2017 | North-West University, DIRISA, University of Pretoria Libraries |
Exploring the Digital Research Landscape (Theme: Open Science and Research Data Management) | Many researchers are still uncomfortable with terminology such as Digital Humanities, Digital Scholarship, and eResearch. In this half-day workshop we aimed to define these concepts, provide some context in terms of the history and origin, as well as the future and how researchers can adopt new methodologies and practices in their own work. | 27 January 2017 | North-West University, Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa, Optentia, Glen Worthey, Stanford University Libraries |
NWU Research Enabler's Workshops | Half-day workshops for NWU research support staff (re-branded as research enablers) to discuss the changing landscape of research support and the changing role of research support staff - from service provider to collaborator and project partner. | 13 January 2017 11 May 2017 | North-West University, Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa, Pip Willcox, University of Oxford Centre for Digital Scholarship Dr Aleksandra Pawlik (New Zealand eScience Infrastructure) |
A Python-based workshop that was ran as part of the bigger capacity building initiative where 3 of our new instructors taught for the first time. | 16 - 18 November 2016 | Stellenbosch University, North-West University, Software Carpentry, Yae Ulrich Gaba (AIMS), Jordan Felicien Masakuna (AIMS), Warren Jacobus (UWC/SANBI) | |
Co-hosted the first South African based OpenCon Satellite event with a focus on Open Data and capacity building initiatives to support open science practices amongst researchers and postgraduate students. | 14 November 2016 | University of Cape Town Libraries, University of Pretoria Libraries, CSIR, North-West University Libraries | |
Workshop hosted at UniVen, Limpopo aimed at researchers and postgraduate students with limited prior experience in research computing. Participants were mostly from Environmental Sciences. | 31 October - 2 November 2016 | TENET, DIRISA, University of Venda, North-West University, Dr Andy South (UK), Data Carpentry | |
Collaborated with NWU Libraries, Research Support Office, Technology Transfer & Innovation Support Office, and IT to develop a comprehensive programme for International Open Access Week 2016 that was broadcasted to all three NWU campuses. | 24 - 28 October 2016 | NWU Libraries, Research Support Office, Technology Transfer & Innovation Support, IT | |
Introduction to commandline tools for genomics data analysis for students/researchers with limited prior exposure to research computing. The workshop was run on Amazon EC2 cloud instances. | 26 - 29 September 2016 | North-West University, Data Carpentry, Jason Williams (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories DNA Learning Centre, USA) | |
Teaching basic skills in better use of Excel for research, OpenRefine for cleaning data, and a brief introduction to reproducible research with Python to postgraduate students and researchers from North-West University. | 29 August - 2 September 2016 | North-West University, Data Carpentry, Cameron Macdonell (MacEwan University, Canada) | |
A modern data skills workshop mostly for librarians and archivists. We also ran a half-day lesson sprint to explore the possibility of using lesson templates from Software Carpentry and GitHub to collaboratively develop lessons to be taught by librarians. | 25 & 26 August 2016 | NeDICC, North-West University, Library Carpentry, Cameron Macdonell (MacEwan University, Canada) | |
Teaching Software Carpentry Python, git/GitHub, and automation on the command line lessons to researchers/postgraduate students. | 22 & 23 August 2016 | University of Namibia, North-West University, Software Carpentry Foundation, Bertie Seyffert (NWU, South Africa), Jessica Upani (University of Namibia, Namibia), Gabriel Nhinda (University of Namibia, Namibia) | |
2-week foundational training course for postgraduate students and researchers specifically from Low and Middle Income Countries to learn about Open Science, Research Data Management, and Data Science skills. The workshop was run at ICTP in Trieste, Italy. | 1 - 12 August 2016 | CODATA, RDA, ICTP, others (please visit website for a full list of funders/collaborators) | |
1.5 day workshop for researchers, IT staff, librarians, and staff from the research support office at NWU to talk about a roadmap for NWU Research Data Management. | 23 & 24 June 2016 | North-West University, NeDICC | |
Enhancing Digital Skills for Historians, Humanities, and Beyond | A 3-day workshop ran before the Historical Association of South Africa's annual conference teaching mainly historians, but also other humanities researchers skills to support digital research (Python, Omeka, XML, Google Fusion Tables, text mining) | 20 - 22 June 2016 | North-West University, Adam Crymble (Programming Historian, UK), History Association of South Africa. Co-funded by NRF KIC grant |
2-day sprint to work on various projects related to open science, open data, and open educational resources. A write-up of the outcomes from one of the projects ran during this workshop is available here. | 2 & 3 June 2016 | North-West University, Mozilla Science Lab, CSIR, University of Pretoria, Library Carpentry | |
First Software & Data Carpentry Instructor Training in Africa | 2.5-day train-the-trainer event to build computational instructor capacity in Africa. | 17 - 20 April 2016 | North-West University, University of Cape Town, Software Carpentry Foundation, Data Carpentry, Mozilla Science Lab, Aleksandra Pawlik (Software Sustainability Institute, UK) |
Training the Next Generation of Researchers and Research Support Staff | A virtual event with participation from >20 institutions in South Africa and speakers from the US, UK, and France talking about research software and data skills, and research data science training for researchers, IT staff, and librarians. An output of the workshop was a guide for runnning large virtual events in SA using Vidyo supported by TENET. | 11 April 2016 | North-West University, TENET, Jonah Duckles (Software Carpentry Foundation, USA), Tracy Teal (Data Carpentry, USA), James Baker (Library Carpentry, UK), Simon Hodson (CODATA, France), Hugh Shanahan (Royal Holloway, UK), Andrew Harris (University of Essex, UK) [CODATA-RDA School for Research Data Science Working Group] |
Two parallel workshops (respectively focusing on R and Python) teaching researchers and postgraduate students basic computational skills. | 5 & 6 November 2015 | North-West University, Software Carpentry Foundation, Maia Lesosky (UCT, South Africa), Peter van Heusden (UWC/SANBI, South Africa), Bertie Seyffert (NWU, South Africa) | |
Teaching Software Carpentry Python, git/GitHub, and automation on the command line lessons to researchers/postgraduate students. | 3 & 4 October 2015 | PyConZA, Software Carpentry Foundation, Adrianna Pinska (UCT, South Africa) | |
Teaching the Software Carpentry lessons on R, command line, and version control to participants of the Indibano. | 6 & 7 September 2015 | SAEON, Software Carpentry Foundation, Bertie Seyffert (NWU, South Africa) | |
Two parallel workshops (respectively focusing on R and Python) teaching researchers and postgraduate students basic computational skills. | 16 & 17 July 2015 | UCT eResearch, Software Carpentry Foundation, Peter van Heusden (UWC/SANBI, South Africa), Maia Lesosky (UCT, South Africa), Adrianna Pinska (UCT, South Africa), Matthew Aiello‐Lammens (University of Connecticut, USA) | |
An online instructor training event organised by Software Carpentry with participation at two other sites in the UK and US. | 8 & 9 June 2015 | Software Carpentry Foundation, University of Cape Town | |
Teaching the Software Carpentry lessons on R and version control to researchers and postgraduate students from SU Departments of Genetics, Microbiology, and other Life Sciences. Our lead instructor was from Cambridge University and participated virtually via Google Hangouts over the two days. | 14 & 15 May 2015 | Stellenbosch University, Software Carpentry Foundation, Laurent Gatto (Cambridge University, UK) | |
A meetup to discuss innovative ideas for science communication, education, and visualisation. | 16 March 2015 | UCT, Seamonster |
