As part of community service, members of the E-science steering committee in the School of Mathematical and Natural Sciences at the University of Venda, have organised a three–day Data Carpentry Workshop which was targeting researches and postgraduate students across all disciplines.
Fourty (40) researchers and postgraduate students benefited from the workshop. The workshop took place from 13-15 November 2018 in ICT1 lab 016. The Organizers comprised of Dr Simiso Moyo (Mathematics), Mr Martin Mafunda (Mathematics) and Dr Alphonce Bere (Statistics). The workshop was facilitated by Lactatia Motsuku (National Cancer Registry -NHLS), Glenn Moncrieff (South African Environmental Observation Network – NRF), Martin Mafunda (Univen), Alphonce Bere (Univen) and Kudakwashe Madzima (Univen).
The Vice-Dean of the School of Mathematical and Natural Sciences, Dr Simiso Moyo welcomed the participants. He appreciated those who chose to attend the workshop and assured them that they would not regret. Dr Moyo said that it is crucial that people should learn how to operate a computer as technology is advancing every day. He encouraged the participants to stay for the entire duration of the workshop.
Researchers and postgraduate students were taught data analysis and data visualisation skills using free tools like R programming. The workshop was crucial as participants learned the fundamental data skills needed to conduct research. The workshop assisted researchers who have little to no prior computational experience, and its lessons were domain specific, building on learners’ existing knowledge to enable them to quickly apply skills learned to their own research. These implies that researchers would now be able to analyse and visualise data that they have collected instead of paying other people to analyse data for them.
The workshop is part of series of Digital Literacy workshops funded through the Rural Campuses Connection Project II (RCCPII) which is a DHET project administered via USAF and implemented by TENET.
L-R: Kudakwashe Madzima, Martin Mafunda, Lactatia Motsuku, Glenn Moncrieff, Alphonce Bere
Issued by:
Department of Communications and Marketing
University of Venda
Tel: 015 962 8525
Date: 16 November 2018
