Signpost to training resources

Posted by d.barclay on 20 June 2023 - 9:00am

By Aleksandra Nenadic, SSI Training Lead.

This blog post is part of the Research Software Camp: FAIR Software.

Here we list some of the free and open training resources in various languages available to researchers and Research Software Engineers to help them learn on various topics around software development, FAIR software and data, research data management and analysis, software project management, open and reproducible science, teaching and lesson development skills, and more.

This blog is an update of our previous posts - “Training resources for researchers that want to learn to code” and "Free training resources to upskill on research software topics". Note that this reference resource is not an exhaustive list - if you’d like a training resource mentioned here, please get in touch.

Note that some of these courses are being delivered at our Research Software Camp #5: FAIR Software, 19 - 30 June 2023. Check the Research Software Camp's programme for more information.

Jargon Busting Resources

If you are a beginner at developing code for your research or work, an excellent place to start is to familiarise yourself with the terminology used by the computational research communities. This is an important step as our learners come from different backgrounds, and may not be native English speakers – a term in one domain may mean something else entirely in another.

The Turing Way’s HandBook to reproducible, ethical and collaborative data science contains a very useful and comprehensive glossary of terms.

The Carpentries Glosario is another open-source and multilingual glossary of data science terms.

The Carpentries workshops often start with a jargon-busting session to make sure everyone understands the terminology used - one such example is Library Carpentry’s Jargon Busting.

Computational Skills Resources

Beginners

If you are a researcher who's begun writing code/software for research, who perhaps aspires to improve their skills and how to apply them, and perhaps needs help understanding some research software-related problems - try the following introductory resources on software development, data management and analysis and open and reproducible research.

Resource	Topic(s)	Domain(s)
Software Carpentry; Data Carpentry; Library Carpentry	R, Python, shell, Git, spreadsheets, OpenRefine, regular expressions, data analysis and visualisation, etc.	Various domains; general
The Carpentries Resources - Spanish Translations	Translations of The Carpentries R, Python, shell, etc. courses to Spanish	Various domains; general
Good enough scientific computing practices; Managing academic software development	Project management using GitHub	General
Getting started with data in R	R programming language	General
Getting started with R, RStudio, and R Markdown	R programming language	General
Mastering Shiny	Interactive web applications with R	General
Happy Git and GitHub for the useR	Git, GitHub for R users	General
Building websites with Jekyll and GitHub pages	Markdown, GitHub Pages websites, Jekyll	General
Programming Historian	Python, data management and visualisation, mapping, web scraping, network analysis, etc.	Humanities; information management
R, Open Research, and Reproducibility	R, open and reproducible research	Psychology; general
Open Intro to Python	Python, open and reproducible research	Psychology; general
Introductory Statistics for Public Health	R, statistics, data analysis, data science	Public health; biomedicine, biosciences
Data Science training programme for Health and Biosciences researchers	R, Python, statistics, data analysis, data science	Public health; biomedicine, biosciences
The Turing Way Handbook	Open research, reproducibility, research (software) project design and management, guides for communication, collaboration ethical research, Community Handbook	General
RDMkit	Data management/analysis skills, FAIR data	Biosciences
Library Carpentry: Fair Data and Software	FAIR data & software	Humanities; information management
Research Software Engineering with Python: Building software that makes research possible	shell, Git, testing	General
ARCHER2 introductory training courses	Foundational coding and data analysis skills, HPC	General
Basics of software engineering skills in R for scientists	Code modularity, documentation, and validation/testing	General

Beginner to Intermediate

For researcher developers and early career Research Software Engineers who have already attended some foundational training, the following beginner-intermediate resources may be of use to further their skills.

Resource	Topic(s)	Domain(s)
The Missing Semester of Your Computer Science Education	Shell Tools and Scripting Editors (Vim) Data Wrangling Command-line Environment Version Control (Git) Debugging and Profiling Metaprogramming Security and Cryptography Potpourri	General
Choosing an open source license	Software licencing	General
Python Data Science Handbook by Jake VanderPlas	Data science	General
Carpentries Incubator	An open repository for sharing community-developed lessons on various topics	Various domains; general
FAIR data cookbook	An online, open and live resource for the Life Sciences with recipes that help you to make and keep data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable; in one word FAIR.	General
Five recommendations for FAIR software	A collaboration between the Netherlands eScience Center and DANS.	General
Super Computing Wales training	HPC	General
Data Carpentry HPC lesson	HPC	Genomics
DiRAC Training	HPC	General
HPC Carpentry	HPC	General
Level Up Your Python course by Henry Schreiner	Python	General
DZone tutorials	Various topics	General
Introduction to BinderHub	Binder, BinderHub	General
Docker Introduction	Docker container, reproducible computational environments	General
Singularity Introduction	Singularity container, reproducible computational environments	General
Cloud computing intro for genomics	Cloud computing	Genomics
Byte-sized RSE	Short interactive tutorial sessions where you can learn key skills to improve how you write and manage your research software in just 1 hour on various topics (IDEs, testing, Git, Continuous Integration, etc.)	General
ELIXIR's TeSS training portal	Courses, events, videos, presentations, learning pathways, handbooks, etc.	Life Sciences
HDR UK training	Health data science training and learning	Bio/health sciences
The Good Research Code Handbook	Good and reproducible research practices	General
Imperial Research Computing and Data Science training programme	Various courses on computing fundamentals and intermediate topics	General

Intermediate

Check out the resources below for more experienced RSEs and researchers developers who started working on larger, more complex research software projects and are looking at the next steps to improve their skills further to overcome challenges in such projects, particularly around collaborating on research software development in teams.

Resource	Topic(s)	Domain(s)
Beuzen & Timbers: Python Packages	Python packaging	General
Intermediate Research Software skills	Software design and development in teams, Python	General
CodingWithJamesMurphy YouTube channel	Python	General
CodeRefinery	A collection of lessons on different topics; shell, Git, testing, collaborative code development, etc.	General
Archer2 intermediate & advanced training courses	Intermediate & advanced data science, HPC, MPI, OpenMP	General

Teaching and Training Development Skills

If you already have an RSE skills background, and have some experience with delivering teaching or training or some prior experience in building materials for knowledge transfer or training, and aspire to improve your teaching or lesson creation skills to train others (perhaps within local research domain groups or more widely as part of a project), the following training resources are for you.

Resource	Topic(s)	Domain(s)
Diàtaxis: A systematic framework for technical documentation authoring	Writing technical documentation, how-to guides and tutorials	General
Carpentries Lesson Development	Pedagogical skills on developing effective lessons collaboratively	General
Carpentries Instructor Training	Pedagogical skills on teaching tech to novices, instructor training	General
Carpentries Lesson development study groups	Pedagogical skills on developing effective lessons collaboratively	General
CodeRefinery’s Instructor Training	Pedagogical skills on teaching tech to novices, instructor training	General
ELIXIR's Train the Trainer	Pedagogical skills on teaching tech to novices, instructor training	General