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49 Tutorials
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1,417,615 Pageviews
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1,276,450 Hours of coding
About us
We are an enthusiastic group of ecology and environmental science students and researchers from the University of Edinburgh. We want to replace statistics anxiety and code fear with inspiration and motivation to learn. We believe that coding can be really fun and also understand the importance of quantitative skills for professional development.
Over the last four years we have been writing tutorials as well as organising in-person and online workshops. All of our materials are free for people to use and adapt - you can find more information on organising your own workshops or using Coding Club tutorials in your teaching here.
In autumn 2021, we are organising weekly in-person workshops in Edinburgh (subject to change depending on COVID-19 regulations) and also live online workshops over Zoom. Check out our most recent tweets for information on signing up for workshops!
Coding Club is for everyone, regardless of their career stage or current level of knowledge. Coding Club is a place that brings people together, regardless of their gender or background. We all have the right to learn, and we believe learning is more fun and efficient when we help each other along the way.
Our values and goals
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Quantitative skills We empower students and future professionals to answer research questions and harness the power of data
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Sustainable learning We support the future development of Coding Club through mentorship and training
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Collaboration in learning We establish links between organisations and institutions which develop quantitative skills
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Diversity Fostering a supportive and inclusive environment with diverse opportunities to learn
"Having people believe in me motivated me to keep developing my skills in programming and statistics, despite all the error messages. Now it's my turn to do the believing - I believe in Coding Club and all its members, and I know that together we can learn to code and use the right type of statistics!"
Gergana Daskalova
Coding Club leader
“Coding Club opened up a new exciting world of Data Science to me. Without the tutorials it would have never been that friendly or positive entrance into the world of coding that helped me to get this far. I am looking forward to all the opportunities and discoveries that can come from the skills I learnt.”
Dani Gargya, 4th year student
“Coding Club has completely shaped my academic and personal life. Before Coding Club, I never thought it would be possible for me to learn any technical computing skills, let alone enjoy it. From the welcoming environment, the clear instructions and applications, I was able to learn quickly and enjoy it! Becoming a tutor further solidified my newfound knowledge and brought me joy - it is great to see how quickly Coding Club can turn people from being completely uncomfortable by coding to confident.”
Izzy Rich, Coding Club first student then tutor
“I don't think I realised just how much Coding Club played an integral role in shaping my academic life until I graduated. Coding Club offers a unique learning environment in a transdisciplinary and non-hierarchical setting. This allowed me to develop skills which I have put to a surprising amount of good use, first in my job, and now in my postgraduate degree.”
Claudia Meca van den Berg, Coding Club first student then tutor
“Coding Club has given the quantitative and technical skills to pursue challenges that I always thought were beyond my scope of abilities and inspired me to continue to learn and share.”
Shawn Schneidereit, Coding Club first student then tutor
"The tutors are keen and engaging; their enthusiasm rubs off on all of us. The step-by-step tutorials are useful for going back over things once the session is over. The peer-led nature of the classes is a forgiving, non-threatening atmosphere to ask questions and make mistakes."
Joe Boyle
Honours Student
"Getting quite into R now... started to see how it's satisfying when you crack the code!"
Eleanor Walker
Honours Student
"Having people who’ve relatively recently learnt to code as tutors is great because they are good at explaining things from an approachable perspective."
Honours Student
“Thousands of thanks for your invaluable help; you have opened new horizons for me!”
Workshop participant
“My special gratitude to Coding Club for creating a space to learn and discuss R and for their positivity and support along the way.”
Honours student
“I am thankful for everyone in Coding Club for helping me with troubleshooting and making mixed effect models less daunting.”
Honours student
“Coding Club is expanding minds! I'm looking forward to going through all the tutorials!”
Workshop participant
Data Science for Ecologists and Environmental Scientists - a free online course
Data Science for Ecologists and Environmental Scientists is an online learning initiative for anyone wanting to gain data science skills in the programming language R, with additional content in Python and JavaScript. Our motivation is to overcome "code fear" and "statistics anxiety" in learners of all ages and from all walks of life. This course is developed for international audiences, but is also uniquely Scottish with real-world data to put quantitative skills into the context of key ecological questions.
The three course themes introduce learners to key elements of data science - ‘Stats from Scratch’, ‘Wiz of Data Vis’ and ‘Mastering Modelling’. The 16 individual tutorials that make up the course, in addition to the further 25 tutorials hosted by Coding Club, allow learners to create their own bespoke learning pathway to gaining key skill sets. Quizzes and challenges test knowledge, but also allow users to join a larger community of learners and gain confidence in their own skills. Join the hundreds of thousands of Coding Club users and develop your data science skills through this entirely free and engaging online learning initiative!
Data Science in Edinburgh (and now over Zoom anywhere!)
Building on Coding Club, we have also started a new 4th year Data Science in Ecology and Environmental Science honours-level undergraduate course at the University of Edinburgh - you can find out course website and curriculum here.
Contribute
Our mission is to support a diverse learning community where we help each other to attain fluency in statistics and programming. We are very keen to expand our team and anyone can join in! We are looking for people interested in contributing tutorials and/or hosting workshops. You can also check out our blog post on Dynamic Ecology for more about our teaching philosophy. Feel free to contact us with any questions or feedback: we would really appreciate your input!
Funding
Coding Club was jumpstarted with support from an Innovation Initiative Grant from the Edinburgh Fund at the University of Edinburgh. We organised our first joint workshop with the University of Aberdeen with the help of a GESA Innovation Initiative Grant. We took Coding Club further with the help of a Principal's Teaching Award Scheme grant. We are working together with the NERC E3 Doctoral Training Partnership which supports some of our team members. Our Data Science for Ecologists and Environmental Scientists course is funded by the Data Lab in Scotland.
