The Embarker Track

Learn new skills to enhance your digital scholarship and start applying it to your own work

What will you learn?

The Embarker track currently offers two programming workshops for complete novices. The interactive workshops are offered online over four 90-minute sessions. The following facilitated courses are available through our Moodle platform:

  • First steps to R for Humanities and Social Sciences
  • First steps to Python for Humanities and Social Sciences

This courses aim to provide a starting point for students and researchers from the Humanities and Social Sciences interested in learning either R or Python. After completing the four modules, we encourage participants to continue their learning by participating in other open online courses, joining a Carpentries workshop, working through available open educational resources, or joining virtual learning communities.

Instructors work through software installation and the very first steps of using R or Python with open and free training resources. This is a hands-on code-along course, meaning candidates will work on their computers and follow along with the instructor as they work through the material.

At the end of this course, you will be able to:

  • Recognise terminology used in programming
  • Open the programming environment on your computer
  • Run some basic code
  • Load and inspect tabular data
  • Know where to find help to continue on the journey
  • Identify next steps to help you hone your coding skills

Is this track for you?

Researchers and students who have attended any ESCALATOR event may apply for this track.

The pace is slow and we accept only a handful of participants to provide a high-quality learning environment.

Participants must commit to attending all four sessions.

What will you need?

  • A computer or laptop that can run R and RStudio or Python and Jupyter Notebooks as well as Slack and Zoom (tablets and phones are not sufficient to join the course due to the hands-on format)
  • Internet connectivity and data that can support 4 x 1.5 hour online sessions with video/screensharing enabled (at least for the instructor)

When will the courses run?

Courses are scheduled for Wednesdays at 10:30 - 12:00. They run on four consecutive Wednesdays each month.

  • First steps to R: TBC

  • First steps to Python: TBC

How do you apply?

Watch our social media and Slack workspace for updates on the next cohort intake!