So how did the workshop go? I thought it went a bit better than the first day, but, hey, I’m a bit biased. To get a better idea I sent the participants a similar questionnaire to the one I sent to the Software Carpentry workshop I organised before. Nearly all the participants (95%) agreed with the statement “I enjoyed the Software Carpentry workshop�? which is great, but I guess the aim is to help people change how they use computers to do research.

Asking “I now understand enough to try using the following tools/approaches�? gives a more nuanced view (see the graph on the left). Everyone seemed to understand shell scripting, but we can’t take all the credit as quite a few people would have known bash before.  In fact, all the different elements of the syllabus were well understood, which shows the course and materials were going a good job.

How about: “I intend using the tools and methods listed below to help my research�?. Now we start to see some differences. Most people intend using shell scripting and python, maybe fewer people will pick up testing and git with only about half the participants thinking they would use SQL. Still, a good result.

Back in October 2012 the first Software Carpentry workshop I organised here in Oxford was hugely popular. We had to turn people away. I wondered if the demand might have reduced in the intervening time as more and more workshops have been run. But 95% of people thought “more workshops like this should be run in Oxford�?. So we are some way off saturated the demand.

From some of the comments at the end of day 1 I was a bit concerned about the speed at which we were moving through the material, so I asked whether “the instructors went too fast�?? 24% agreed, 52% disagreed and the rest were indifferent. I read that as the speed was ok: any faster and we would have lost more people, any slower and it would have become too boring for the more advanced participants. It was pleasing to see that everyone agreed with the statement “I feel I learnt something useful from the workshop that will help my research.�?!

Thanks to who volunteered to be the second instructor at short notice. A personal lesson for me is instructing is exhausting and it would be very difficult (and your teaching would suffer) to do one on your own. Also thanks to the helpers:  and from  and  from the . Finally thanks to the who not only helped with the admin, but also have supported myself and Jane through their  this past year.

Today I’ve been instructing on a workshop at the in Oxford; it’s the first time I’ve been lead instructor on a bootcamp. Today and myself covered the shell and basic python; more python, then git and SQL tomorrow. So what went well? I was very pleased to find we had no installation issues, even though everyone had brought their own laptop and so we had a mixture of Macs, Windows and the odd Linux machine! I had four USB sticks with the Anaconda etc installers and we didn’t use a single one so the must be working.

As is customary, just before they left we asked everyone to write on their post-it notes one good point and one thing that could be improved. Pleasing to see a good collection of positive comments:

Really enjoyed working through the ipython notebooks and being able to see and change the code and add notes in a visually pleasing way.

Well paced and explained from the bottom up, enjoyed it

But of course, it is the comments about things people didn’t like that are the key to making it better.

If I didn’t have some background in the subject I think it would have been too much for me

Can’t see the green brackets on the screen [in ipython]

I was completely lost in python. If you don’t have any previous background it is too much.

It will always be a challenge to cater for a wide range of backgrounds and experiences in these two day intensive courses. That is not to say that we should give up. I hope it will get better as the number of bootcamps increases. That way it will be easier to run bootcamps for the varying levels of experience.

Finally, don’t do what we did and use green and yellow post-it notes. I couldn’t tell them apart standing at the front. Still everyone drew a sad face or a cross on the yellow one which was fun. Also swap instructors more often than you might think: over an hour is too long. Oh, and bring a whiteboard pen!