The Coffee and Code Workshop Platform, an Integrated System for Analytic Tool Training Workshops and Tool Use
Abstract
Training and skill development in core data management concepts, methods, and technologies range from short single-session group workshops, to self-paced online learning objects, to multi-day and longer-form training and education programs. These training sessions often require the installation and use of specific software on participants computers, and the sharing of instructional materials. This common need to deliver a complex combination of training materials, sample code, and a software environment within which students can work poses a challenge to training providers and often results in valuable instruction time being spent on training-specific logistics instead of the intended training content. To meet the joint requirements of providing instructional materials in a useful form, providing functional examples, and enabling the streamlined installation and use of the tools covered, UNM's Research Data Services (RDS) program has developed an instruction platform that allows workshop participants to experiment with the tools being presented, and provides them with the ability to continue to run the platform on their own computer for continued experimentation and learning. The use of Docker containers combined with configuration scripts automates the process of retrieving workshop materials into a cloud-based instruction platform, and allows students to run the learning environment on their own workstations if they wish. This has vastly simplified the continuous development and delivery of workshop content as part of the "Coffee & Code" workshop series presented by RDS. This approach allows students to choose to work entirely within the web-based cloud hosted "sandbox", or to run a local instance of the platform on their own computer, providing them with a functional learning and experimentation environment that can be reused long after the end of the workshop. This presentation will describe the technical and architectural model used in developing the platform, demonstrate the ease with which new content can be integrated into the teaching and learning environment, and highlight the options for local execution of the workshop environment on students' workstations - ultimately lowering the barriers to continued use and adoption of the tools presented in the workshops.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFMIN41E0881B
- Keywords:
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- 1904 Community standards;
- INFORMATICSDE: 1912 Data management;
- preservation;
- rescue;
- INFORMATICSDE: 1934 International collaboration;
- INFORMATICS