Software Carpentry FAQs

By Damien Irving.

I recently posted about the different types of requests we get for Software Carpentry bootcamps. Some are from students who have recognised that their colleages could use some assistance writing code, some are from lecturers who’d like to improve the computational literacy of their students, and others are from postgraduate student groups who’d like to provide a professional development opportunity for their members.

In planning a bootcamp for an interested student, lecturer, or postgraduate group, these are the questions we typically get asked:

1. What gets taught at a bootcamp?

(Note that Python is the programming language we use most frequently at bootcamps, however we are able to use R or Matlab instead depending on the audience.)

2. Who usually attends?

The participants are typically postgraduate students, post-docs and other researchers around Melbourne (i.e. we don’t restrict to just UniMelb people) who have a very basic familiarity with programming concepts like loops, conditionals, and arrays, but need help to translate this knowledge into practical tools to help them work more productively.

3. How long does it go for?

There’s two-days worth of material in a typical bootcamp, which we like to spread across four morning or afternoon sessions (e.g. Mon & Wed one week then Mon & Wed the next).

4. What’s the teaching format?

Participants bring their own laptops with the required software installed. The syllabus is then delivered via a series of short 10-15 minute demonstrations (i.e. live coding) interspersed with regular challenges that are worked on in pairs. During the challenges tutors circulate the room answering questions (at a ratio of about 1 helper for every 6 students).

5. What does the interested student/lecturer/group need to do?

In a nutshell, we provide the teaching (i.e. a lead instructor, team of tutors and all necessary equipment) and you provide the participants (i.e. advertise to your networks). We’re also happy to handle registrations.

6. How much does it cost?

It’s free!

7. When should the bootcamp be?

Anytime that suits you.

8. Where should be bootcamp be?

If you have access to a sufficiently large and laptop friendly teaching space that’s great, otherwise we typically deliver the bootcamps in one of the lecture theatres in the Alan Gilbert Building or a Collaborative Learning Space in Old Arts at UniMelb. In those venues we can accommodate up to about 45 participants.

If you’d like to know more, please get in touch either via email (research.bazaar@gmail.com) or by coming along to Hacky Hour to have a chat!