Introduction to Programming: Workshop

BeginnersNewSpecial

• Do you use data in your research, or do you provide research support to those who do?
• Would you like to learn basic programming skills to program your own models and applications?

There is more to programming than simply writing lines of code. This free workshop will provide you with a basic set of skills to make the coding process more effective, less error prone and more maintainable.

This workshop is intended for those looking to obtain a basic understanding of the approach to be taken when designing a program as well as actually writing small programs to solve specific problems. It is designed for those with no prior experience of programming.

It is organised by the Office of Scholarly Communication and The Betty and Gordon Moore Library, and delivered by Peter Smyth (Research Associate) and Chris Park (Data Scientist) from the UK Data Service.

• Librarians
• Researchers
• Further details regarding eligibility criteria are available

• This course will be of interest to those with no formal training in programming.

• Basic computer skills will be assumed
• No prior knowledge of Python is necessary. If you can already program in Python, we recommend you investigate alternative courses offered by the University Information Services http://bit.ly/2flLeiA

• Specifying the problem to be solved
• Creating flowcharts and pseudo-code
• Documentation
• Testing and debugging
• Different coding environments
• Basic Python coding constructs
• Creating a complete program

• Workshop

The workshop will be a mixture of PowerPoint presentations and hands-on practical exercises using the Python programming language and social sciences datasets from the UK Data Service

• You will need to download instructions and install Python on your laptop in advance of the session as there is no time for this factored into the programme on the day. Find information and resources here: http://www.data.cam.ac.uk/introduction-programming-workshop

• Please bring your own fully-charged, wifi-enabled laptop to this session
• Lunch will be provided. Please let us know of any dietary requirements by completing the 'Special Requirements' section of your booking form
• When you book onto an OSC event, you will automatically be added to our mailing lists to receive the Open Data and OSC monthly newsletters. If you feel the information in the newsletter is not relevant to you, please unsubscribe from these mailing lists using the 'unsubscribe' option at the end of the email.

One session of 7.5 hours