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Open and Reproducible Science Resources
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Possible workshop or "unconference"? #2

Open mdscheuerell opened 5 years ago

mdscheuerell commented 5 years ago

One option for advancing our collective knowledge about open science tools and their applications would be to run a small workshop focused on hands-on learning and development. A possible model for this would ROpenSci's annual "Unconference". I was fortunate to join them for an evening during their 2018 event here in Seattle, and it was a really great experience.

The general idea is that the organizers would solicit ideas ahead of time via GitHub issues for small group projects that can be completed (more-or-less) during the workshop itself. At the beginning of the unconference, attendees hear short project pitches and each person then chooses their top-N projects, with the goal of finding enough projects to accommodate small groups of 3-6 people. Some people do hard-core R coding, some people write Markdown documentation, others work on outward communications (websites, blog posts), etc.

For example, I ran an internal grants program at the NWFSC wherein I had applicants submit their proposals and cover info via a Google Form. Those results were then written to a csv file, which I then read into R and fed into a Markdown template for a consistently formatted report across all applicants. I always thought it would be fun to turn that into an R package that could also be used for soliciting and organizing abstracts/info for confs, etc. That low-level project could be accomplished in a day by a small group without a lot of technical skills. Alternatively, we could all work simultaneously on one focused exercise like building an R package, or creating an easy HTML report.

hmcmonagle commented 5 years ago

Something like ROpenSci's "Unconference" would be great! Count me in, and please let me know if you need a hand organizing!

mdscheuerell commented 5 years ago

(An aside.) I wasn't sure if this was the best repo for this issue, but we could move it to a new repo called something like "workshops" or maybe less final like "planning".