Trainers

• Alan O'Cais (University of Barcelona)
• Lisanna Paladin (EMBL - Heidelberg)
• Sabry Razick (University of Oslo)
• Rabea Müller (ZB MED - Information Centre for Life Sciences)

BioNT - BIO Network for Training - is an international consortium of academic entities and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). BioNT is dedicated to providing a comprehensive training program and fostering a community for digital skills relevant to the biotechnology industry and biomedical sector. With a curriculum tailored for both beginners and advanced professionals, BioNT aims to equip individuals with the necessary expertise in handling, processing, and visualising biological data, as well as utilising computational biology tools. Leveraging the consortium's strong background in digital literacy training and extensive network of collaborations, BioNT is poised to professionalise life sciences data management, processing, and analysis skills.

This intensive three-day workshop focuses on collaborative and FAIR software development practices critical for data scientists. Participants will engage in hands-on learning across three key domains:

• Day 1 is dedicated to collaborative distributed version control, providing practical training on collaborative technologies. Participants will explore collaboration concepts, repository management, code review practices, and software licensing.
• Day 2 begins a practical exploration of the concepts introduced for the case of a Python project. It covers the tools we can use to implement FAIR principles, how to create a reproducible environment, tips to make code readable, and how to structure your application.
• Day 3 concentrates on software testing, automated testing strategies, how to document code, how to facilitate code citation, and collaborating with others.

The workshop offers a comprehensive, hands-on approach to developing professional software engineering skills tailored to data science research.

Join this workshop if you are:

• Interested in advancing your collaborative software development skills
• Working on computational projects that require version control
• Seeking to improve your code review and contribution techniques
• Wanting to learn professional software licensing practices
• Interested in implementing robust software testing methodologies
• Committed to creating reproducible research environments
• Looking to systematically manage computational projects
• Eager to learn best practices in dependency and environment management
• A student, researcher, or professional in data science
• Aiming to enhance your software engineering capabilities

Learning Outcomes: 

By the end of this workshop, you will be able to:

1. Implement collaborative distributed version control techniques
2. Understand and practice collaborative workflows
3. Conduct effective code reviews
4. Contribute to repositories owned by others
5. Navigate software licensing considerations
6. Design and implement local software testing
7. Create automated testing strategies
8. Develop reproducible research environments
9. Manage software project lifecycles
10. Systematically organize computational projects
11. Record and manage computational dependencies and environments

Programme

Recommendations:

• To follow the workshop more efficiently, we recommend having a two-screen setup
• To actively communicate during the workshop, please familiarise yourself with Markdown formatting by reviewing the HedgeDoc features document

Interaction between participants, trainers and helpers

The workshop will be delivered in a Zoom webinar format, with participants’ visibility disabled to preserve their privacy. You, as a participant, will be able to see and learn from the trainers but a direct interaction (e.g. chat or voice) will not be possible during the sessions. Instead, a collaborative document, previously setup by the trainers, will be shared with you before the session. You will be expected to engage and interact anonymously with other participants as well as with the workshop helpers and trainers directly in this document.

Trainer Hubs

All BioNT workshops are offered at no cost, but there are a limited number of seats available. To make workshops more accessible for members of the same company we highly recommend organising what we refer to as "Training Hubs." In this arrangement, one person is formally registered for the workshop, but the knowledge sharing can be expanded to numerous colleagues within their company or SME through live-streaming the session.

How to register

The workshop is free of charge. To participate, please follow these steps:

To participate, please follow these steps:

1. Click on the window “Participate” at the top of this page
2. You will be redirected to the members.cecam.org page. If you already have an account on our platform, please proceed to step 5
3. On the top-right corner click "Register" and complete the provided form. As indicated, completing this form does not register you to the workshop. Within 72 hours you will receive an email confirming your account has been activated. Due to this processing time, we advise you to register a few days before the registration deadline
4. After receiving the account activation confirmation, visit the workshop page again and follow instructions starting from step 1
5. You should now have an active account. After login in with your login details, you should be redirected to the workshop registration page
6. In order to start your registration please follow the instructions of the linked pre-workshop survey until you will get  your unique identifier
7.  To finalise your registration please use the unique identifier in the CECAM platform in the corresponding section and press “Send mail” 
8. Your application is now submitted for evaluation. If selected, you will be contacted later to confirm your attendance and provide instructions for installing the required software and participating in the online workshop.