North-West University (NWU) is hosting a Carpentries Instructor Training online workshop on 17-21 May 2021. Interested applicants can apply through the website.
The Carpentries project comprises communities of Instructors, Trainers, Maintainers, helpers, and supporters from Software Carpentry, Data Carpentry and Library Carpentry who share a mission to teach foundational computational and data science skills.
The workshop aims to:
Introduce participants to evidence-based best-practices of teaching.
Teach participants how to create a positive environment for learners at workshops.
Provide opportunities to practice and build teaching skills.
Help participants become integrated into the Carpentries community.
Prepare participants to use the teaching skills in teaching Carpentries workshops.
The training is free, although, in order to avoid attendee space being wasted, a penalty will be imposed on applicants who commit to the workshop and miss it.
An online Data Carpentry workshop will take place from 12-16 April, and is aimed at students and researchers who want to start learning how to work with their data. The workshop will be hosted by UWC and sponsored by SADiLaR.
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.
Lessons will include data organising and cleaning with OpenRefine, and data analysis and visualisation with R. No previous knowledge of the tools that will be presented at the workshop is necessary.
Participation is free, and there is a registration link on the site.
It’s International Open Access Week (19-25 October), and UWC Library is celebrating with libraries around the world under the theme Open with a purpose: Taking action to build structural equity and inclusion.
During this week the library will host a number of webinars and presentations, and UWC has entered the international Figshare upload competition, where the individual researchers can win prizes for uploading their research data. For more information about the competition email us on rdm-support@uwc.ac.za.
Tuesday 20th October 2020 10:00 – 11:00
Welcome by Dr Shirlene Neerputh, UWC Library Director Data Intensive Research at UWC by Prof M Vaccari, Director eResearch at UWC The Carpentries in Africa by Dr Angelique van Rensburg, The Carpentries Facilitators: Sarah Schafer & Mattia Vaccari
Wednesday 21st October 2020 10:00 – 11:00
Introduction to Figshare by Megan Hardeman, Head of Engagement at Figshare
UWC RDM Services by Mark Snyders, Manager Scholarly Communications, UWC Library Services
Thursday 22nd October 2020 10:00 – 11:30
The value of open access publishing in the times of Covid-19 pandemic infected research environment by Alfred Nqotole, Deputy Director Research Support & Scholarly Communications, UWC Library Services Open Access Publishing: UWC Editor’s Perspectives by Prof M Dinbabo and Prof R Shambare
Facilitator: Alfred Nqotole
Register in advance for this webinar: https://uwc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_jIWs08KGS4CiDJRKzMGgUA
About the speakers:
Angelique van Rensburg, PhD (Educational Psychology), is the Regional Consultant for Southern Africa at The Carpentries and an Extraordinary Researcher at Optentia Research Focus Area, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus. Angelique aims at developing strategies and workflows to adapt The Carpentries’ membership and workshop programs to function optimally in Southern Africa. In addition, her role aims to assist and advise in developing a plan to create and support a strong team of volunteer instructors across Africa.
Megan Hardeman is head of engagement at Figshare. For the last four years, she has helped researchers make the most of storing, sharing, and collaborating using Figshare and has written case studies, delivered talks and training, leads the ambassador programme, and more. Previously, she was a Product Manager at Emerald Publishing.
Mattia Vaccari is Director of eResearch and AstroInformatics Research Professor at UWC, and he coordinates UWC’s Data Intensive Research emerging niche, which brings together researchers from different fields to foster multi-disciplinary collaboration in big data science. He has worked as a Research Scientist at Imperial College London, the University of Padova and UWC, working at the junction between astronomical instrumentation, big data processing technologies and extragalactic astrophysics.
Mulugeta Dinbabo is the Chief Editor of the African Human Mobility Review (AHMR), an accredited Journal by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET). AHMR is an interdisciplinary journal created to encourage and facilitate the study of all aspects (i.e. socio-economic, political, legislative and developmental) of human mobility in sub-Saharan Africa.
Richardson Shambare is an Associate Professor in the School of Business and Finance (SBF) at the University of the Western Cape. Prof Shambare has a keen interest in entrepreneurship and marketing in SMMEs. He has published several peer-reviewed articles, books, and book chapters and presented research at numerous international conferences. Prof. Shambare is the co-founding editor of the Journal of Entrepreneurial Innovations. The JEI specialises in publishing research and analyses pertaining to entrepreneurship trends and particularly innovations in the small, medium, and micro enterprises (SMMEs). The JEI is an Open Access, free to publish online journal.
In addition to the webinars and sessions available, UWC has entered the international Figshare upload competition, where the individual researchers can win prizes for uploading their research data. For more information about the competition email us on rdm-support@uwc.ac.za.
SADiLaR (The South African Centre for Digital Language Resources) will be hosting the last Data Carpentry Workshop during the first week of October. The workshop will be held online, and is free.
Researchers don’t need to have any previous knowledge of the tools that will be presented at the workshop. This course is aimed at postgraduate students in the Humanities and Social Sciences.
The South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR) will be hosting the following Online Data Carpentry Workshops (R for Social Science) in the coming weeks. The workshops will cover:
Please feel free to signup for any of these events or forward this email to your colleagues, students or fellow researchers. Mobile data assistance is possible for learners residing in South Africa. Further information about The Carpentries is available here.
