This page lists my workshops with links to the newest version of materials. Upcoming fall/spring workshops that I teach can be found on this event page.
The Unix command line is a powerful tool that allows you to control operation systems (OSs) directly with text commands, which allows more flexibility and efficiency beyond what the Graphic User Interfaces (GUIs) offer. In addition, complex calculations and data analyses are often run on High-performance computing (HPC) clusters; and HPC clusters are often operated in Unix systems.
This workshop explains the most basics of Unix commands and you will learn to navigate through folders and view files. No prior knowledge is required.
Git is a version control system: it tracks and manages changes to your files over time and allows you to include explanations for each change. This enables you to investigate changes and correct problems without losing code or data. Git works best with plain text data (such as txt, csv, tsv files) and most code files.
This workshop introduces you to Git–how it works, its benefits, and how to get started—by learning and practicing the basics. This workshop is for anyone that works with plain text data and code but requires no prior knowledge of Git.
In preparation for data analysis or training a machine learning model, do you ever find yourself spending endless hours fixing typos and inconsistent formats in your dataset? Are you frustrated with repeating the same cleaning steps on multiple similar datasets? Faster than Excel, easier than Python, OpenRefine is a free and powerful software to explore, transform, and clean your data and document your cleaning process so you can apply the same steps to similar data.
This workshop will showcase the basics of OpenRefine through through explanation and hands-on exercise. Bring your own messy data to tailor to your needs after a guided introduction. This is a beginner level workshop, and no prior experience is needed.
Do you feel overwhelmed by the tasks and deadlines in your research project? Do you wish for a more flexible research planner? If so, bullet journaling could be the answer for you. Bullet journaling is a popular organization and productivity system that can be customized to fit your specific needs.
This workshop will teach you the basics of setting up your own research planner. You will learn and practice rapid log notation, which allows you to organize information and tasks in a concise and structured manner. No prior experience or fancy supplies required - all you need is a pen.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, especially when it comes to your valuable files. We've all heard of the horror stories of someone losing their important files or the panic of data leaks. There are 5 key practices that can mitigate these risks.
In the first 30 minutes of this workshop, we'll review 5 data management practices: backups, naming & organization, documentation, security, and future proofing. The second half is optional time for you to stay around for discussion and questions. This workshop is for anyone who wants to improve their data management. Feel free to bring your own files to get help on.
This brief workshop is based on the more extensive "Quick & Dirty Data Management" workshop materials provided by MIT.
Besides mine, the University Library also provides other research data themed workshops, for example:
Check out library event page for upcoming workshops.
The library's collections and services are available to all ISU students, faculty, and staff and Parks Library is open to the public.
