OpenRefine (originally Google Refine) is a free, open source tool with powerful features to help you clean and transform your data. Following Data Carpentry’s OpenRefine lesson this introduction to Open Refine will cover:

+ What OpenRefine is and why you should use it
+ OpenRefine’s major features
+ How to launch OpenRefine and create a project
+ How to facet, filter, and sort data

Attendees will need to bring their own laptop in order to fully participate. This is the first part of a two part series. Please arrive with OpenRefine already installed!

Installation guides and “office hours” for installation assistance will be provided after registration.

Date: Sept. 28, 2017
Location: Mugar Library Estin Room (302)
Time: 12:30-1:30

Register

Our second session on OpenRefine will continue with Data Carpentry’s OpenRefine lesson and will cover:

+ Examining numbers in OpenRefine
+ How to document data cleaning in OpenRefine
+ Applying scripts to our data sets
+ Exporting our work from OpenRefine

Join us in Mugar Library’s Estin Room (room 302) at 12:30. Space is limited. Attendees will need to bring their own laptop in order to fully participate and are highly encouraged to attend our first session (or have some familiarity with OpenRefine). Please arrive with OpenRefine already installed!

Date: Oct. 5, 2017
Location: Mugar Library Estin Room (302)
Time: 12:30-1:30

Register

Transform your writing using Pandoc and Markdown! In this workshop you’ll learn the basics of writing in Markdown - a simple and powerful markdown language - and how to convert your text to html, pdfs, and more using Pandoc. Using these two tools you’ll find a new freedom for writing by removing overhead software and working in simple plain text. In this lesson you’ll learn:

+ The working principles for this writing methodology
+ The basics of Markdown
+ How to use Pandoc
+ A few command line basics

Please arrive with Pandoc installed! Installation guides and “office hours” for assistance will be provided after registration.

Join us in Mugar Library’s Estin Room (room 302) at 11:00. Space is limited. Attendees will need to bring their own laptop in order to fully participate.

Date: Oct. 12, 2017
Location: Mugar Library Estin Room (302)
Time: 11:00-12:00

Register

Jupyter Notebooks are probably one of the coolest things ever developed - if you’re interested in research, coding, and sharing your work. With Jupyter Notebooks you can write code (both simple and complex), document as well as distribute your work, and post it online. In this lesson you’ll learn:

+ Jupyter Notebook’s features
+ How to launch a new notebook
+ How to execute code and write documentation
+ How to share your work with others

Please arrive with Jupyter already installed! Installation guides and “office hours” for assistance will be provided after registration.

Join us in Mugar Library’s Estin Room (room 302) at 12:30. Space is limited. Attendees will need to bring their own laptop in order to fully participate.

Date: Oct. 19, 2017
Location: Mugar Library Estin Room (302)
Time: 12:30-1:30

Register

We are partnering with Operation Code to host a workshop on using Docker! We’ll be covering the basics of Docker - a useful development tool for releasing your apps. During this workshop, you’ll learn the basics of Docker and Software Containers. We’ll cover:
+ Setting up Docker
+ Running your first container
+ Creating a basic web application with Python and Docker
+ Pushing the Docker Image to DockerHub.

RSVP

The shell, or command line, is likely the most powerful (and intimidating) tool on your computer. It is probably the most underutilized too. This workshop is designed to help you “get to know your” shell. We will be using the Software Carpentry lesson “The Unix Shell” to learn:

+ What the shell is and why it exists
+ How to navigate files and directories
+ Using pipes and filters
+ How to find things

**Note: If you’re comfortable manipulating files, using grep, and writing simple scripts, this session is unlikely to benefit you.

Installation guides and “office hours” for assistance will be provided after registration.

Join us in Mugar Library’s Estin Room (room 302) at 12:30. Space is limited. Attendees will need to bring their own laptop in order to fully participate.

Date: Oct. 26, 2017
Location: Mugar Library Estin Room (302)
Time: 12:30-1:30

Register

Downloading files from websites is a routine part of research today. However, too many researchers spend precious time clicking and downloading items one at a time. Wget is a command line tool researchers can use to automate downloading files from websites, archives, and other online sources. This session will use a mix of the Programming Historian lessons “Automated Downloading with Wget” and “Applied Archival Downloading with Wget” to help you learn:

+ What Wget is and its features
+ How to download files and folders
+ How to mirror a site
+ How to approach downloading archival materials

Installation guides and “office hours” for assistance will be provided after registration.

Join us in Mugar Library’s Estin Room (room 302) at 12:30. Space is limited. Attendees will need to bring their own laptop in order to fully participate.

Date: Nov. 2, 2017
Location: Mugar Library Estin Room (302)
Time: 12:30-1:30

Register

Working with large data sets in numerous files requires rethinking how you approach your initial analysis. Using the Programming Historian lesson “Counting and Mining Research Data with Unix” this session will give you a few tools to analyze your data sets in a way that simply cannot be done using a spreadsheet program like Libre Office or Excel. In this session you will learn:

+ How to generate counts across files
+ How to use grep to mine data
+ How to conduct basic data transformations
+ Why you should properly manage your data

Installation guides and “office hours” for assistance will be provided after registration.

Join us in Mugar Library’s Estin Room (room 302) at 12:30. Space is limited. Attendees will need to bring their own laptop in order to fully participate.

Date: Nov. 9, 2017
Location: Mugar Library Estin Room (302)
Time: 12:30-1:30

Register

If you are interested in setting up a free website that is easy to maintain and preservable you will want to attend this session. Using the Programming Historian’s lesson “Building a static website with Jekyll and GitHub Pages” this session will provide you with the basic tools needed to build your own website. Participants will learn:

+ The benefits of a static website
+ How to build a local website with Jekyll
+ How to use GitHub pages
+ Some basic git commands

Installation guides and “office hours” for assistance will be provided after registration.

Join us in Mugar Library’s Estin Room (room 302) at 12:30. Space is limited. Attendees will need to bring their own laptop in order to fully participate.

Date: Nov. 16, 2017
Location: Mugar Library Estin Room (302)
Time: 12:30-1:30

Register