From 12-16 April, the eResearch Office hosted UWC’s first Data Carpentry workshop of 2021. It was an online workshop held over five mornings, and was attended by over 20 researchers. The workshop was aimed at students and researchers who want to start learning how to work with their data, and was sponsored by SADiLaR.
The eResearch Office promotes and supports the use of advanced information technologies to enable better, faster and higher-impact research, and we hope to grow the Carpentries community at UWC.
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 are encouraged to help one another and to apply what they have learned to their own research problems.
Lessons included data organising and cleaning in spreadsheets and with OpenRefine, and data analysis and visualisation with R and RStudio.
Please contact eresearch-support@uwc.ac.za if you would like to be added to the UWC Carpentries mailing list.
On Wednesday 21 April, a webinar was hosted by the eResearch Office and UWC Library, titled RDM Tools available at UWC and Unpacking UWC’s RDM Policy.
Mark Snyders, Manager of Scholarly Communication at the Library, spoke in detail about UWCs new RDM Policy, and how it affects researchers at UWC. Sarah Schäfer, Research Data Specialist at the eResearch Office presented on the different RDM tools and resources that are available to the UWC research community.
The session was hosted by eResearch Office Director, Prof Mattia Vaccari and Deputy Director of UWC Library Services Alfred Nqotole. The presentations were followed by questions and a discussion.
Presenters: Mark Snyders – Manager Scholarly Communication, UWC Library msnyders@uwc.ac.za; Sarah Schäfer – Research Data Specialist, UWC eResearch Office, sschafer@uwc.ac.za
For the Q & A session, presenters will be joined by Mattia Vaccari (Director, UWC eResearch Office) and Alfred Nqotole (Deputy Director, UWC Library Services).
Audience: UWC Researchers – Staff and Postgraduate Students
Focus Research data is the core of any research project, and its value can extend well beyond the initial project. Research data can also vary from highly confidential health data to publicly available statistics. Sharing research data can have many benefits such as developing further research, increased opportunities for collaboration and research impact. Research data, therefore, has to be managed with care and should adhere to established and institutional guidelines to protect not only the data, but also the rights of research subjects, researchers, research institutions and owners of research data. This webinar will focus on the guidelines provided by the UWC Research Data Policy that guides the management of UWC research data.
In recent years there has been a global increasing focus on Research Data Management (RDM), and on the secure storage and open sharing of research data. Institutions and funders have made clear strides toward identifying where and how research data is stored and how access to it is managed. In line with UWC’s new Research Data Management Policy (section 13 of the Research Policy), all research data generated at the University are managed and curated to support the institution’s aspirations of a research–intensive university. In order to achieve this, the UWC research community can make use of various RDM tools.
The webinar will briefly introduce some of the various RDM tools that are available to all UWC students and staff and are relevant to ensuring that RDM needs are met:
Kikapu, UWC’s Institutional Research Data Repository. Kikapu provides a data storage facility where research data can be securely stored, shared and managed.
REDCap, a web-based research productivity tool, empowers researchers to take control of their data collection and other research workflows.
Data Management Plans (DMPs), written documents that describe and outline how data will be acquired, managed, described, analysed, stored, preserved and shared in the course of a research project. These documents should evolve with a research project, and develop as the project progresses. No two DMPs are the same, and elements vary from broad descriptions to very technical details.
SKIES (SKilled, Innovative and Entrepreneurial Scientists) is an EU-funded project launched at the beginning of March. It aims to provide PhD and young doctoral researchers in the field of astronomy with new transferable skills for academia and industry, integrating open science, social innovation and entrepreneurship topics.
Leiden University in the Netherlands is leading the project, and local PI Dr Lucia Marchetti (from UCT’s Astronomy department) is the lead for the South African involvement of the initiative. eResearch Director and Astroinformatics Research Professor Mattia Vaccari is involved in the project too, along with SARAO. The project will run for 18 months.
“While an advanced degree in STEM subjects has long been an excellent basis for a career e.g. in the tech industry, most graduates still have to pick up additional skills along the way. The SKIES project aims to bridge this gap by enabling Astronomy PhD students to build upon their strengths to develop into well-rounded scientists and professionals. This is particularly important for SA in the increasingly global talent search of the 4IR era”, says Prof Vaccari.
SKIES will be implemented in astronomy research organisations around the world, including South Africa, Germany, The Netherlands, Poland and Portugal, reaching 500 astronomy graduate students and young researchers. A Train-the-Trainer programme will build the capacity of the teaching staff in each partner country so that they have the knowledge and tools to continue the programme beyond the lifetime of the project.
“I am thrilled to be able to offer this opportunity to our PhD candidates. Their astronomy training already provides them many theoretical skills they can apply into a job outside academia, like programming and problem-solving. With this training, we will now show them how they can best exploit and translate their knowledge into a job beyond astronomy. In this way we will ensure that all our astronomy students are fully equipped for whichever path they decide to take after their PhD”, says local PI Dr Lucia Marchetti.
Madagascar Astronomy Python Workshop 2017. Credit: IAU Office of Astronomy for Development archive
“The South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) supports this exciting collaboration, which gives doctoral students the necessary skills for a smoother transition from academia to industry. It is expected that the SKIES project will lead to increased employability of doctoral students in industry or through entrepreneurship, who will be effectively working on high-impact areas to benefit broader society on the African continent. We look forward to implementing this training and development opportunity with our South African and European partners.”, says Dr Bonita de Swardt, SARAO Programme Manager: Strategic Partnerships for Human Capital Development.
IBM Research Africa invites applications for postdoctoral positions to be held at the IBM Research Lab in South Africa, seeking outstanding candidates who obtained their doctoral degrees within the last five years. Applicants who are currently finalising their doctoral dissertations for examination may apply, provided that they will submit by 31 July 2021. The positions are tenable for eight months between May and December 2021.
For international women’s day last week, H3ABioNet hosted a WiDS Africa regional event to engage the community of diverse women in Data Science.
WiDS Africa is an independent event that was organised by H3ABioNet (Pan African Bioinformatics Network for the Human Heredity and Health in Africa) in collaboration with MARI & dLabTz (Tanzanian Data Lab) as part of WiDS Worldwide conference organized by Stanford University. It features outstanding women doing outstanding work in the field of data science.
The recording includes the WiDS Stanford Livestream as well as featured Africa-specific lightning talks, panel discussions, Keynote speech, and ends with a networking event.
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.
The Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) has invited African scientists/scientists working on African research to consider joining the African Scientists Directory. The directory aims at connecting African scientists across the globe, and assists in identifying experts in selected fields – whether it is to invite as part of a meeting, panel, or conference, to conduct article peer-reviews, to invite as an external examiner, to co-author an article or collaborate as part of a project, or for any other professional reasons.
Once submitted, the profile will be reviewed and once all information has been verified, it will be published on the database. Selected information is open access, but also view the end-user policy and data privacy/security policy for this database.
Additionally, the African Open Science Platform pilot project was concluded in October 2019, and ASSAf recently received consent from the funder (NRF) to make the Landscape Report available through the ASSAf Research Repository. It can be accessed here.
On 25 February, Figshare hosted The State of Open Data 2020. The webinar’s focus was on the annual State of Open Data Report, and included presentations from three speakers. It gives an overview of the results of the study, and insight into what librarians, publishers and research data managers can do to help make data sharing an integral part of research.
Speakers included Dr Leslie McIntosh ( CEO of Ripeta); Dr Mark Hahnel (founder of Figshare), and Mariëtte van Selm (Information Specialist, University of Amsterdam).
The State of Open Data report includes survey results from 4500 participants and a collection of articles from global industry experts. It is the longest-running longitudinal study on the subject, which was created in 2016 to examine attitudes and experiences of researchers working with open data – sharing it, reusing it, and redistributing it.
