Software Writing Skills for Your Research
Develop, Publish, Cite, and Get Credit for Scientific Code

Objectives: The workshop addresses the passing of software writing skills to young scientists, the next generation of researchers in the Earth, planetary and space sciences. The writing of code in science following minimal but vital software engineering rules, best practices and processes shall be imparted as fundamental skills. So the workshops addresses young scientist with no or little experience in writing software for their research work. The lessons will cover:

  • The Unix Shell - Get used to the Bash and learn how to automate repetitive tasks
  • Distributed revision / version control - Get used to Git and GitHub and learn how to track and share work efficiently
  • Programming with Python - Get used to Python with first hands-on experiences
  • Looking beyond the basics - Using databases, automation and Make
  • Open Access, Open Data, and Open Science - Why bother in research
  • Publishing scientific software - Release code as Open Source in the context of Open Science

    Registration: Registration closes one month before the workshop takes place and thus is open until August 23, 2015. For registration please use the form at http://goo.gl/forms/KnQ7nRGTb1. It is expected that participants register with shortly describing their research and specifically their need of writing software in their own work and how the workshop will help them to perform future tasks.

    Seats: 24 workplaces with computer plus 12 additional workplaces for participants with own laptop

    Prerequisites: None but the need of programming and developing software in your own work

    Instructors:

  • Olav Vahtras: Olav received a MS degree in engineering physics and PhD in quantum chemistry, both at Uppsala University. His work at the Minnesota Supercomputer Institute as a post-doc, and at Linköping University as a research associate has included research on molecular properties and electronic structure theory. Then he worked at PDC, the Center for High Performance Computing at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, as an application specialist in the field of computational chemistry. Now he is a professor of theoretical chemistry at the KTH. His research involves development of quantum chemical methods for prediction of molecular properties and he teaches Python in a national program for computational sciences.
  • Malvika Sharan: Malvika is a PhD student in the University of Würzburg, Germany, where she is carrying out projects that deal with characterization of RNA-binding proteins by means of bio-computational techniques and high-throughput sequence analysis. As a part of Doctoral Researchers' council of her graduate school, she tries to promote the usage of bioinformatics tools and programming skills among the experimental scientists in order to increase the efficient exchange of data. She has recently completed software-carpentry (SWC) instructor's course.

    Speakers:

  • Krzysztof Siewicz: Dr Krzysztof Siewicz is a Polish legal counsel specialising in legal issues of information processing with a particular focus on copyright and other rights in intangibles in the context of Open Science. Krzysztof is a member of the Open Science Platform at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modelling at the University of Warsaw.
  • ...

    Organizers:
  • The GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ, http://www.gfz-potsdam.de/en/) is Germany’s premier institute for the geosciences, with strong links to leading institutes across Europe. Its research ranges across the full breadth of the Earth Sciences from the dynamics of Earth’s deep interior to remote observation of its active surface. GFZ combines all solid earth sciences encompassing the fields of geodesy, geophysics, geology, mineralogy, geochemistry, geochronology, geomorphology, physics, mathematics, biology and engineering in a multidisciplinary scientific and technical environment. GFZ is part of the Helmholtz association of German Research Centres, the official mission of which is to solve the grand challenges of science, society and industry. The GFZ organizes, hosts and accompanies the workshop run by SWC instructors and FOSTER speakers.
  • The Software Carpentry (SWC, https://software-carpentry.org/) is a volunteer organization whose goal is to make scientists more productive, and their work more reliable, by teaching them basic computing skills. Founded in 1998, it runs short, intensive workshops that cover program design, version control, testing, and task automation. In October 2014, the Software Carpentry Foundation (SCF) was announced to act as the governing body. The SCF is a non-profit membership organization devoted to improving basic computing skills among researchers in science, engineering, medicine, and other disciplines. SCF’s long-term goal is to ensure that every researcher learns the skills that Software Carpentry teaches early in their career. Activities in UK are led by the Software Sustainability Institute (SSI) which will help sufficiently to run the intended series of workshops. The SWC supports this workshop with trained volunteering instructors and successfully tested teaching materials.
  • Contact information

    Martin Hammitzsch : martin.hammitzsch@gfz-potsdam.de

    Agenda

    Software writing skills for your research ( Workshop for Novices)
    Software Writing Skills for Your Research (workshop for proficient programmers)
    Software Writing Skills for Your Research (intermediate)

    Where

    Helmholtz Centre Potsdam - GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Telegrafenberg, 14473 Potsdam, Germany

    Full details

    Organisers: GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences
    Language: English

    Audience

    Latest Tweets ( #fosterscience)