Working together to push science forward
Happy rOpenSci users can be found at
Are you new to version control and always running into trouble with Git? Or are you a seasoned user, haunted by the traumas of learning Git and reliving them whilst trying to teach it to others? Yeah, us too. Git is a version control tool designed for software development, and it is extraordinarily powerful. It didn’t actually dawn on me quite how amazing Git is until I spent a weekend in Melbourne with a group of Git whizzes using Git to write a package targeted toward Git beginners....
The second rOpenSci OzUnConf was held in Melbourne Australia a few weeks ago. A diverse range of scientists, developers and general good-eggs came together to make some R-magic happen and also learn a lot along the way. Before the conference began, a huge stack of projects were suggested on the unconf GitHub repo. For six data-visualisation enthusiasts, one issue in particular caught their eye, and the ochRe package was born....
Attendees at the May 2017 rOpenSci unconference. Photo credit: Nistara Randhawa In May 2017, I helped run a wildly successful “unconference” that had a huge positive impact on the community I serve. rOpenSci is a non-profit initiative enabling open and reproducible research by creating technical infrastructure in the form of staff- and community-contributed software tools in the R programming language that lower barriers to working with scientific data sources on the web, and creating social infrastructure through a welcoming and diverse community of software users and developers....
This year’s rOpenSci ozunconf was held in Melbourne, bringing together over 45 R enthusiasts from around the country and beyond. As is customary, ideas for projects were discussed in GitHub Issues (41 of them by the time the unconf rolled around!) and there was no shortage of enthusiasm, interesting concepts, and varied experience. I’ve been to a few unconfs now and I treasure the time I get to spend with new people, new ideas, new backgrounds, new approaches, and new insights....
Mara Averick, Data Nerd At Large Mara Averick is a non-profit data nerd, NBA stats junkie, and most recently, tidyverse developer advocate at RStudio. She is the voice behind two very popular Twitter accounts, @dataandme and @batpigandme. Mara and I discussed sports analytics, how attending a cool conference can change the approach to your career, and how she uses Twitter as a mechanism for self-imposed forced learning. KO: What is your name, job title, and how long have you been using R?...
Happy rOpenSci users can be found at