University of Puerto Rico

Feb 12 & Feb 19, 2021

9:00 AM - 4:30 PM

Instructors: Humberto Ortiz-Zuazaga, Sofía Meléndez Cartagena, Diego A. Rosado Tristani

Helpers: Carlos Morales, David Quispe Parra, Carlos Ortiz Alvarado, Airined Montes Mercado, Angelo A. Ruggieri

General Information

Data Carpentry develops and teaches workshops on the fundamental data skills needed to conduct research. Its target audience is researchers who have little to no prior computational experience, and its lessons are domain specific, building on learners' existing knowledge to enable them to quickly apply skills learned to their own research. Participants will be encouraged to help one another and to apply what they have learned to their own research problems.

For more information on what we teach and why, please see our paper "Good Enough Practices for Scientific Computing".

Who: The course is aimed at graduate students and other researchers. You don't need to have any previous knowledge of the tools that will be presented at the workshop.

Where: online. Get directions with OpenStreetMap or Google Maps.

When: Feb 12 & Feb 19, 2021. Add to your Google Calendar.

Requirements: Participants must bring a laptop with a Mac, Linux, or Windows operating system (not a tablet, Chromebook, etc.) that they have administrative privileges on. They should have a few specific software packages installed (listed below), and have a working github account. They are also required to abide by Data Carpentry's Code of Conduct.

Accessibility: We are committed to making this workshop accessible to everybody. The workshop organizers have checked that:

Materials will be provided in advance of the workshop and large-print handouts are available if needed by notifying the organizers in advance. If we can help making learning easier for you (e.g. sign-language interpreters, lactation facilities) please get in touch (using contact details below) and we will attempt to provide them.

Contact: Please email sofia.melendez@upr.edu or humberto.ortiz@upr.edu for more information.

Surveys

Please be sure to complete these surveys before and after the workshop.

Pre-workshop Survey

Post-workshop Survey

Schedule

Friday, February 12, 2021

Before starting Pre-workshop survey
MorningWorkshop overview
Project organization and management
AfternoonIntroduction to the command line
Evening END

Friday, February 19, 2021

Morning Data wrangling and processing
AfternoonIntroduction to cloud computing for genomics
Evening Post-workshop survey
END

Syllabus

Genomics Project Organization

  • Data tidiness
  • Planning NGS Projects
  • Examining Data on NCBI SRA database

The Unix Shell

  • Files and directories
  • Pipes and redirection
  • Creating and running shell scripts
  • Organizing bioinformatics projects

Wrangling Genomics Data

  • Assessing Read Quality
  • Trimming and Filtering Reads
  • Variant Calling
  • Automation

Cloud computing

  • What is the cloud
  • Logging into the cloud
  • Setting up your environment
  • Moving data and results to and from the cloud

Setup

To participate in a Data Carpentry workshop, you will need access to the software described below. In addition, you will need an up-to-date web browser.

We maintain a list of common issues that occur during installation as a reference for instructors that may be useful on the Configuration Problems and Solutions wiki page.

The Bash Shell

Bash is a commonly-used shell that gives you the power to do simple tasks more quickly.

Windows

Video Tutorial
  1. Download the Git for Windows installer.
  2. Run the installer and follow the steps bellow:
    1. Click on "Next".
    2. Click on "Next".
    3. Keep "Use Git from the Windows Command Prompt" selected and click on "Next". If you forgot to do this programs that you need for the workshop will not work properly. If this happens rerun the installer and select the appropriate option.
    4. Click on "Next".
    5. Keep "Checkout Windows-style, commit Unix-style line endings" selected and click on "Next".
    6. Keep "Use Windows' default console window" selected and click on "Next".
    7. Click on "Install".
    8. Click on "Finish".
  3. If your "HOME" environment variable is not set (or you don't know what this is):
    1. Open command prompt (Open Start Menu then type cmd and press [Enter])
    2. Type the following line into the command prompt window exactly as shown:

      setx HOME "%USERPROFILE%"

    3. Press [Enter], you should see SUCCESS: Specified value was saved.
    4. Quit command prompt by typing exit then pressing [Enter]

This will provide you with both Git and Bash in the Git Bash program.

macOS

The default shell in all versions of macOS is Bash, so no need to install anything. You access Bash from the Terminal (found in /Applications/Utilities). See the Git installation video tutorial for an example on how to open the Terminal. You may want to keep Terminal in your dock for this workshop.

Linux

The default shell is usually Bash, but if your machine is set up differently you can run it by opening a terminal and typing bash. There is no need to install anything.

R

OPTIONAL: R is a programming language that is especially powerful for data exploration, visualization, and statistical analysis. To interact with R, we use RStudio.

Windows

Video Tutorial

Install R by downloading and running this .exe file from CRAN. Also, please install the RStudio IDE. Note that if you have separate user and admin accounts, you should run the installers as administrator (right-click on .exe file and select "Run as administrator" instead of double-clicking). Otherwise problems may occur later, for example when installing R packages.

macOS

Video Tutorial

Install R by downloading and running this .pkg file from CRAN. Also, please install the RStudio IDE.

Linux

You can download the binary files for your distribution from CRAN. Or you can use your package manager (e.g. for Debian/Ubuntu run sudo apt-get install r-base and for Fedora run sudo dnf install R). Also, please install the RStudio IDE.