Software Carpentry Workshop - R for Reproducible Scientific Analysis - Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO)

June 6-7, 2019

9:00 am - 5:00 pm

Instructors: Joaquín Morís, Maria Kotouza

Helpers: Laura Martínez, Kevin Troulé, Coral Fustero

Sponsors and supporters

This workshop is possible thanks to the sponsorship and collaboration of the following entities, which allow us to do this under our working schedule and contribute to the associated costs.

EXCELERATE elixir INB ISCIII cnio bsc

The Spanish National Bioinformatics Institute (INB) is the ISCIII Bioinformatics platform. Its Coordination Node is supported by grant PT17/0009/0001, of the Acción Estratégica en Salud 2013-2016 of the Programa Estatal de Investigación Orientada a los Retos de la Sociedad, funded by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) and European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

Registration

There are 20 seats available. Participants will be selected based on their professional and motivation statement given in the form. You can fill the form below.

Deadline for application is May 20, 2019.

Chosen participants will be notified by May 22, 2019

Space is limited and it will likely fill quickly. The course is free but a no-show-up fee will be charged to your institution if you do not show-up.

To enroll fill this form.

Content

Topics

The topics that will be covered include:

Learning outcomes

After attending this workshop you will be able to:

General Information

Software Carpentry aims to help researchers get their work done in less time and with less pain by teaching them basic research computing skills. This hands-on workshop will cover basic concepts and tools, including program design, version control, data management, and task automation. 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 "Best 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: Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) Melchor Fernández Almagro, 3. 28029 Madrid. Get directions with OpenStreetMap or Google Maps.

When: June 6-7, 2019. 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).

Code of Conduct: Everyone who participates in Carpentries activities is required to conform to the Code of Conduct. This document also outlines how to report an incident if needed.

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 inb.hub@bsc.es for more information.


Surveys

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

Pre-workshop Survey

Post-workshop Survey

Post-workshop ELIXIR Survey


Schedule

Day 1

Before Pre-workshop survey
08:30 Help for laptop setting up (only if needed)
09:00 Introduction and presentation
09:30 Automating tasks with the Unix shell
10:30 Coffee
10:45 Automating tasks with the Unix shell
12:30 Lunch break
13:30 Introduction to R and RStudio
15:00 Coffee
15:15 Data Structures
16:45 Wrap-up
17:00 END

Day 2

09:00 Exploring Data Frames
10:30 Coffee
10:45 Dataframe Manipulation with dplyr
12:30 Lunch break
13:30 Creating Publication-Quality Graphics with ggplot2
15:00 Coffee
15:15 Creating Publication-Quality Graphics with ggplot2
16:00 Version control with Git
16:45 Post-workshop Survey
16:50 Post-workshop ELIXIR Survey
17:00 END

We will use this collaborative document for chatting, taking notes, and sharing URLs and bits of code.


Syllabus

The Unix Shell

  • Files and Directories
  • History and Tab Completion
  • Pipes and Redirection
  • Looping Over Files
  • Creating and Running Shell Scripts
  • Finding Things
  • Reference...

R for Reproducible Scientific Analysis

  • Introduction to R and RStudio
  • Data Structures
  • Exploring Data Frames
  • Dataframe Manipulation with dplyr
  • Creating Publication-Quality Graphics with ggplot2
  • Reference...

Version Control with Git

  • Creating a Repository
  • Recording Changes to Files: add, commit, ...
  • Viewing Changes: status, diff, ...
  • Ignoring Files
  • Working on the Web: clone, pull, push, ...
  • Resolving Conflicts
  • Open Licenses
  • Where to Host Work, and Why
  • Reference...

Setup

To participate in a Software 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.

Video Tutorial
  1. Download the Git for Windows installer.
  2. Run the installer and follow the steps below:
    1. Click on "Next" four times (two times if you've previously installed Git). You don't need to change anything in the Information, location, components, and start menu screens.
    2. Select "Use the nano editor by default" and 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. Select "Use Windows' default console window" 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.

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.

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.

Git

Git is a version control system that lets you track who made changes to what when and has options for easily updating a shared or public version of your code on github.com. You will need a supported web browser.

You will need an account at github.com for parts of the Git lesson. Basic GitHub accounts are free. We encourage you to create a GitHub account if you don't have one already. Please consider what personal information you'd like to reveal. For example, you may want to review these instructions for keeping your email address private provided at GitHub.

Git should be installed on your computer as part of your Bash install (described above).

Video Tutorial

For OS X 10.9 and higher, install Git for Mac by downloading and running the most recent "mavericks" installer from this list. Because this installer is not signed by the developer, you may have to right click (control click) on the .pkg file, click Open, and click Open on the pop up window. After installing Git, there will not be anything in your /Applications folder, as Git is a command line program. For older versions of OS X (10.5-10.8) use the most recent available installer labelled "snow-leopard" available here.

If Git is not already available on your machine you can try to install it via your distro's package manager. For Debian/Ubuntu run sudo apt-get install git and for Fedora run sudo dnf install git.

R

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

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.

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.

Data

Some of the lessons are using example data. To follow along, please download and extract them to your machine before the course:
Programming in R
Download the file cancer_SEER_statistics and extract it to a folder of your choice. You should end up with a new folder called data.
The Unix Shell
Download the file data-shell.zip and extract it to your Desktop. You should end up with a new folder called data-shell on your Desktop.