This is a workshop template intended to serve as a starting point for organizing week-long workshops that help students and researchers improve the computing skills they need for their studies and research. The idea builds on the Software Carpentries format, and indeed, we suggest that the first days are dedicated to a Software Carpentry workshop. The rest of the week are dedicated to more mathematical topics.
Depending on the details of the programme, it can also make sense to make it a Sage Days event.
Disclaimer. This repository started out as post-workshop notes and is far from complete.
Workshops:
- (Hopefully upcoming: Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2025)
- Koper, Slovenia, September 2018
- Morelia, Mexico, January 2018
Software Carpentry lessons are free to use, and the format is well thought out - we recommend following it. The Carpentries Handbook is a helpful resource, especially the host checklist, whether you run an official workshop or not (in which case some items can be dropped). It is also worthwhile (but not necessary) having an experienced Software Carpentry instructor.
Software Carpentry workshops can be run completely independently of SC, by just using their materials, as an official self-organised workshop, or as a centrally-organised workshop. While the latter is possible, SC charges a fee, and it might not combine as well with the second part of the workshop.
The Software Carpentry workshops in Morelia and Koper covered
- the basics of the Unix shell,
- version control with Git and
- programming with Python
The second half of the workshop is dedicated to minicourses (for commonly used tools), contributed talks and a problem session.
So far, we had the following minicourses:
- GAP (Morelia, Koper),
- LaTeX: BibTeX and TikZ (Koper),
- Pari/GP (Morelia)
- SageMath with CoCalc and Jupyter (Morelia, Koper).
A non-zero registration fee is recommended, to reduce the no-show rate.
The Carpentries can collect the fee via Eventbrite, though we haven't tested it yet with a self-organised workshop.
Software Carpentry normally charges a fee, which they are sometimes willing to waive.
The hosts are expected to cover the travel expenses and accommodation for the Software Carpentry instructors.
The participants are expected to bring their own laptop for two reasons. First, the organizers do not have to produce 30-40 machines. Second, more importantly, it is usually the case with computer workshops that skills learned on a different machine tend not to get used as much after the workshop. While participants using their own laptops requires a greater effort on the organizers’ side (installation and setting up), it is effort the participants do not have to invest in using the tools on their computers. In the past workshops, we dedicated time to help participants set their laptops up for the workshop and it paid off.
A well set up lecture room makes a big difference. A local mirror for software installers can decrease the internet load. Even so, everybody uses internet fairly heavily (especially those who use CoCalc in the cloud), making a good connection (wifi and/or ethernet) vital to the smooth running of the workshop. There should also be nearly one electricity outlet per participant.
Coppelia Cerda is the author of the original graphics resources for the Software Tools for Mathematics workshop series.
- Primary colour:
#6e6fb4(purple). - Secondary colour:
#f05f40(orange).
For complements and more colour codes see colour-scheme.html (preview).
- Handwritten font: DK Lemon Yellow Sun (download basic font for free)