UCL Qatar

October 16-17, 2019

9:00 am - 1:30 pm

Instructors: Armin Straube, Amirah Al Sarraj, Somia Salim

Helpers:

Registration status: This event is now fully booked and registration is closed. Thank you for your interest. We will repeat the workshop, if the paprticipants find it useful. Announcements will be shared via the QLib mailinglist.

General Information

Library Carpentry is made by people working in library- and information-related roles to help you:

Library Carpentry introduces you to the fundamentals of computing and provides you with a platform for further self-directed learning. For more information on what we teach and why, please see our paper "Library Carpentry: software skills training for library professionals".

Who: The course is for people working in library- and information-related roles. You don't need to have any previous knowledge of the tools that will be presented at the workshop.

Where: Room 2B01, UCL Qatar Library, Humanitarium, Education City. Get directions with OpenStreetMap or Google Maps.

When: October 16-17, 2019. Add to your Google Calendar.

Requirements: Participants must bring a laptop with a Mac, Linux, or Windows operating system (not a tablet, Chromebook, etc.) that they have administrative privileges on. They should have a few specific software packages installed (listed below).

Code of Conduct: Everyone who participates in Carpentries activities is required to conform to the Code of Conduct. This document also outlines how to report an incident if needed.

Accessibility: We are committed to making this workshop accessible to everybody. The workshop organizers have checked that:

Materials will be provided in advance of the workshop and large-print handouts are available if needed by notifying the organizers in advance. If we can help making learning easier for you (e.g. sign-language interpreters, lactation facilities) please get in touch (using contact details below) and we will attempt to provide them.

Contact: Please email a.straube@ucl.ac.uk for more information on the course content or shortcourses.qatar@ucl.ac.uk for questions about logistics.

Surveys

Please be sure to complete these surveys before and after the workshop.

Pre-workshop Survey

Post-workshop Survey

Schedule

Day 1

09:00 Introduction to Library Carpentry
10:30 Morning break
11:00 Tidy Data
12:00 Short break
12:15 Regular Expressions I
13:30 END

Day 2

09:00 Regular Expressions II
10:30 Morning break
11:00 OpenRefine I
12:00 Short break
12:15 Open Refine II
13:30 END

Exercise Files

Download File Tidy Data 1
Download File Tidy Data 2
Download File Regex 1
Download File Regex 2
Download File OpenRefine

We will use this collaborative document for chatting, taking notes, and sharing URLs and bits of code.

Syllabus

Introduction to Data

  • Intro to Library Carpentry
  • The Computational Approach
  • Regular Expressions
  • Reference...

Tidy data in spreadsheats

  • Spreadsheets for Data Wrangling
  • Formatting Data in Spreadsheets
  • Dates as Data
  • Quality Control
  • Exporting Data

OpenRefine

  • Introduction to OpenRefine
  • Importing data
  • Basic functions
  • Advanced Functions
  • Reference...

Setup

To participate in a Library Carpentry workshop, you will need to bring a laptop with access to the software described below. In addition, you will need an up-to-date web browser and access to a spreadsheet programm (e.g. Excel, Open Office, Google Sheets)

We maintain a list of common issues that occur during installation as a reference for instructors that may be useful on the Configuration Problems and Solutions wiki page.

OpenRefine

For this lesson you will need OpenRefine and a web browser. Note: this is a Java program that runs on your machine (not in the cloud). It runs inside a web browser, but no web connection is needed.

Check that you have either the Firefox or the Chrome browser installed and set as your default browser. OpenRefine runs in your default browser. It will not run correctly in Internet Explorer.

Download software from http://openrefine.org/

Create a new directory called OpenRefine.

Unzip the downloaded file into the OpenRefine directory by right-clicking and selecting "Extract ...".

Go to your newly created OpenRefine directory.

Launch OpenRefine by clicking openrefine.exe (this will launch a command prompt window, but you can ignore that - just wait for OpenRefine to open in the browser).

If you are using a different browser, or if OpenRefine does not automatically open for you, point your browser at http://127.0.0.1:3333/ or http://localhost:3333 to use the program.

Check that you have either the Firefox or the Chrome browser installed and set as your default browser. OpenRefine runs in your default browser. It may not run correctly in Safari.

Download software from http://openrefine.org/.

Create a new directory called OpenRefine.

Unzip the downloaded file into the OpenRefine directory by double-clicking it.

Go to your newly created OpenRefine directory.

Launch OpenRefine by dragging the icon into the Applications folder.

Use Ctrl-click/Open ... to launch it.

If you are using a different browser, or if OpenRefine does not automatically open for you, point your browser at http://127.0.0.1:3333/ or http://localhost:3333 to use the program.

Check that you have either the Firefox or the Chrome browser installed and set as your default browser. OpenRefine runs in your default browser.

Download software from http://openrefine.org/.

Make a directory called OpenRefine.

Unzip the downloaded file into the OpenRefine directory.

Go to your newly created OpenRefine directory.

Launch OpenRefine by entering ./refine into the terminal within the OpenRefine directory.

If you are using a different browser, or if OpenRefine does not automatically open for you, point your browser at http://127.0.0.1:3333/ or http://localhost:3333 to use the program.