Hi everyone,

The following video will be a short personal introduction and an overview of the lectures that I will be presenting.

My name is Bianca Peterson and I was born and raised in South Africa.

While I was completing my PhD, I attended the first CODATA-RDA School of Research Data Science in Trieste, Italy, in 2016, to learn Data Science skills to help me complete my studies.

In that same year I became a certified instructor for The Carpentries. Since then I have co-taught many Carpentries workshops.

I completed my PhD in Environmental Sciences, more specifically Molecular Biology, in 2017, at the North-West University in South Africa.

However, I realised that there was still a great need for tailored training programmes that teach foundational computational skills, and also provide consultation services after training, so I decided to start my own company in 2018 to do exactly that.

I tailor my training according to my clients' needs and teach at the pace they learn the best.

In January 2020, we hosted the first South African CODATA-RDA School of Research Data Science, after which I joined the CODATA-RDA Schools of Research Data Science Working Group as a co-chair. I also joined the Research Data Alliance Interest Group as a chair. Our vision is to grow a network of host institutions, instructors, assistants and helpers to increase Data Sciences skills capacity globally.

The next lectures will focus on Data Cleaning with OpenRefine. I strongly suggest that you first complete the Data organisation in spreadsheets lectures before continuing with the OpenRefine lectures. It's much easier to clean data if it's organised effectively in spreadsheets.

So if we look at this diagram that I compiled, any project starts with planning. Typical questions that you might ask are:
1. What is the main aim of my study?
2. What type of data do I need to collect?
3. How will I collect my data?
4. Where will I store my data?
5. Which programmes do I need to analyse and visualise my data?
6. And finally, how can I effectively present my data to my colleagues?

After you have captured the raw data, you usually end up with messy data. If your data is organised effectively, you can use OpenRefine to clean your data. You will learn how to clean your data in the first week's lectures. In the second and third week of this virtual school, I will teach you how to use R to transform, analyse and visualise your data. Finally, in week 10 of this virtual school, I will show you how you can present your findings by making use of R Markdown, which produces reproducible reports.