This entry level course in Python is specifically tailored to humanities teachers, researchers, and students who want to learn the basics of this popular programming language. After the course, participants will be able to write simple programs using the most common structures. The course consists of four hands-on training days on Wednesdays, starting from 15 November 2023. This training will be provided by the scientific developers of the CDH Research Software Lab. 

With electronic computers being fast and widely available, it is highly empowering to be able to program them. This is especially true in academic research, where no two projects are the same and writing custom software enables us to tailor large-scale automated analysis to our specific needs.

This course will teach basic programming in the Python programming language, which is beginner-friendly and production-ready. We will also pay attention to elementary skills that help in avoiding double work, finding the causes of errors quickly and making future maintenance easier. The course is hands-on, with more than half of the time allocated to exercise. In week 3 & 4, you will try your hand at implementing your own analysis.

Course aims

After concluding this four-day course, participants can: 1) write data processing algorithms using the basic techniques provided in Python; 2) reorganize their code to improve future reusability and maintainability; 3) use a stepping debugger to find the cause of an error; 4) reuse code that already exists; 5) translate the analysis they want to perform into concrete Python code.

Workshop days

• 15 November – 10:00 – 17:00 hrs
• 22 November – 10:00 – 17:00 hrs
• 29 November – 10:00 – 17:00 hrs
• 6 December – 10:00 – 17:00 hrs

Level

This course aims to empower new people and is therefore intended for absolute beginners. No previous programming experience is needed.

Preparation

You will be asked to bring a laptop and to prepare a dataset as well as a research question that you would like to answer using this dataset. You will receive an email with instructions two weeks in advance. During this course, it is also possible to work with your own dataset. Please send an email to digitalhumanities@uu.nl to discuss the possibilities.

DCU compensation

If you are a teacher at the Faculty of Humanities, upon completion the CDH will automatically settle a DCU compensation of 36 hours with your department, which equals 1,64 DCUs.

Extra information

In order to ensure the viability of the training and allocate the necessary resources, we require a minimum of ten registrations for the course to proceed. We will inform all registered participants of the status at the latest two weeks in advance, confirming whether the course will definitively take place.

To secure your spot, we encourage you to register as soon as possible. Registrations will be processed on a first-come, first-served basis. In the event that you are unable to attend the workshop, we kindly request that you cancel your registration by sending an email to CDH@uu.nl. This will allow us to offer the vacant spot to another interested participant. Thank you for your cooperation.