The Brock University Library is hosting a free two-day workshop that will equip graduate students and researchers in the social sciences with the foundational skills needed to work with data and code.

Data Carpentry for Social Scientists will take place in a hybrid format from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 23 and Friday, Feb. 24 during the University’s Reading Week. While the online component is at capacity, there is limited space available to attend in person in Thistle Complex TH 253. To secure a spot, register via Eventbrite.

The event is organized by the Library’s Digital Scholarship Lab (DSL) and follows curriculum developed by Data Carpentries, which is an international organization that teaches technical skills to novices.

“The workshops are structured in such a way that you don’t need any background knowledge or experience using data tools to participate,” says Digital Scholarship Librarian Tim Ribaric. “It provides a low barrier of entry to the world of computational research.”

The DSL typically offers two or three Carpentries workshops each year. While the Carpentries curriculum also offers software and library categories, next month’s workshop will focus on computational methods that can be used in social sciences research.

“We always try to pick a different thread so that we can engage a different group of researchers on campus,” says Ribaric. “The goal of this session is to introduce social scientists to what it is like working with tabular data. The data that will be examined will be familiar to social scientists.” 

Participants will learn how to create and clean data, and then analyze the data using the R programming language. Details of the lesson plan can be found on the Data Carpentry website.

To learn more about DSL and the digital scholarship services available through the Brock University Library, visit the DSL website.