Research Computing provides researchers with supercomputers, places to store your data, applications for data analysis and visualization, and user support. Researchers often start using the systems when their laptop or office workstation proves to be insufficient for their work. Researchers often need to acquire new skills before they can begin using the Research Computing systems. This page provides two learning tracks (a Python and an R track) and additional resources to help those in the humanities and social sciences get started with the clusters. The learning tracks are organized around our live workshops but there is one or more "Online Training" option at each stage. This makes it possible to learn the necessary skills at anytime. Importantly, each stage also includes options for getting help. Python Track The workshops below should be taken in sequence beginning at 1: Data Literacy Description: Learn the fundamentals of working with data such as creating, manipulating and visualizing a dataset. Live Workshop: Not scheduled Online Training: see Open Refine for Humanities on the Carpentries Incubator Get Help: Data and Statistical Services, Princeton Research Data Service, Research Computing Help Session Python for Poets (absolute beginner level) This workshop provides an introduction to Python programming for those with no programming experience. Online Material: Python for Poets Online Training: Choose a tutorial or book from the Learning Resources. Get Help: Research Computing Help Session Intro to Programming with Python (beginner/intermediate level) Description: Strengthen and extend your Python knowledge by learning about working with files, the list and dictionary data structures, strings, conditional expressions and more. Live Workshop: The next live workshop is on March 21-23, 2023 (register) Online Training: Choose a tutorial or book from the Learning Resources. Get Help: Research Computing Help Session (Optional) Introduction to Machine Learning Description: This 5-part mini-course provides a comprehensive introduction to machine learning. Live Workshop: The live next workshop series will be held during Wintersession 2024. Online Training: GitHub repo Get Help: Research Computing Help Session Options for Processing Big Data for the Social Sciences and Humanities Description: Learn how to use the supercomputers using only a web browser. After completing this workshop, researchers should be comfortable running Jupyter notebooks on the clusters. Live Workshop: This workshop will be offered on February 13, 2023 (register) Online Training: Watch a video recording of the live workshop on Media Central. Get Help: Research Computing Help Session Intro to the Linux Command Line Description: Given that our supercomputers run the Linux operating system, a proficiency with the Linux command line is essential for doing scientific computing at the intermediate or advanced levels. Live Workshop: February 14 and 16, 2023 (register) Online Training: Choose a tutorial or book from the Learning Resources. Get Help: Research Computing Help Session (Optional) Command-Line Power Tools Description: Learn powerful command line utilities for finding files, searching files, manipulating data, working with terminals and regular expressions. Live Workshop: February 20, 2023 (register) Online Training: See the Level Up Your Command Line GitHub repo. Get Help: Research Computing Help Session Getting Started with the Research Computing Clusters Using the Linux Command Line Description: This workshop shows participants how to use the clusters. It covers using the Slurm job scheduler, installing software, effective usage of the resources and parallel computing. Live Workshop: February 21, 2023 (register) Online Training: Work through this guide or watch the video recording of the live workshop. Get Help: Research Computing Help Session or Submit a Ticket (Optional) spaCy: A Python Library for Natural Language Processing Description: spaCy a is popular Python library for natural language processing. Live Workshop: April 4, 2023 (register) Online Training: See the spaCy 101 guide Get Help: Research Computing Help Session (Optional) Getting Started with Transformers for Language Modeling Description: This session will present a practical introduction to transformer models and their applications to modern natural language processing. Participants will be given an introduction to the inner workings of the transformer architecture. In addition, they will be shown examples of how to apply these models to their own datasets using PyTorch and the Hugging Face library. Live Workshop: TBA Online Training: See the GitHub repo from for the live workshop. Get Help: Research Computing Help Session Additional Python resources and training: See the machine learning graduate class for humanists and social scientists by Sarah-Jane Leslie of Philosophy. There are several other organizations on campus that are concerned with helping researchers in the humanities and social sciences: Center for Statistics and Machine Learning, Center for Digital Humanities, Data Driven Social Sciences, Stokes Viz Hub, Data and Statistical Services, and Economics Statistical Services, Princeton Research Data Service and the McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning. For additional Python training for all communities see our upcoming live workshops. Be aware of the Python on the Research Computing Clusters and the Jupyter on the Research Computing Clusters webpages. R Track The workshops below should be taken in sequence beginning at 1: Data Literacy Description: Learn the fundamentals of working with data such as creating, manipulating and visualizing a dataset. Live Workshop: Not scheduled Online Training: see Open Refine for Humanities on the Carpentries Incubator Get Help: Data and Statistical Services, Princeton Research Data Service, Research Computing Help Session Introduction to R (absolute beginner level) Description: This workshop provides an introduction to R for those with no experience. Live Workshop: This workshop is offered by Data and Statistical Services Online Material: Choose a tutorial or book from the Learning Resources. Get Help: Data and Statistical Services, Research Computing Help Session R Data Wrangling (intermediate level) Description: This workshop introduces two modern R packages, tidyr and dplyr, that provide intuitive tools for handling common data management tasks. Live Workshop: The next live workshop is on January 17 (register) Online Training: Choose a tutorial or book from the Learning Resources. Get Help: Data and Statistical Services, Research Computing Help Session (Optional) Intro to Data Analysis Using R (intermediate level) Description: Learn how to analyze data in R through hands-on exercises. Live Workshop: February 15, 2023 (register) Online Training: Choose a tutorial or book from the Learning Resources. Get Help: Data and Statistical Services, Research Computing Help Session Getting Started with the Research Computing Clusters Using Only a Web Browser Description: Learn how to use the supercomputers using only a web browser. After completing this workshop, researchers should be comfortable running RStudio on the clusters. Live Workshop: This workshop will be offered on February 13, 2023 (register) Online Training: Watch a video recording of the live workshop on Media Central. Get Help: Research Computing Help Session Intro to the Linux Command Line Description: Given that our supercomputers run the Linux operating system, a proficiency with the Linux command line is essential for doing scientific computing at the intermediate or advanced levels. Live Workshop: February 14 and 16, 2023 (register) Online Training: Choose a tutorial or book from the Learning Resources. Get Help: Research Computing Help Session (Optional) Command-Line Power Tools Description: Learn powerful command line utilities for finding files, searching files, manipulating data, working with terminals and regular expressions. Live Workshop: February 20, 2023 (register) Online Training: See the Level Up Your Command Line GitHub repo. Get Help: Research Computing Help Session Getting Started with the Research Computing Clusters Using the Linux Command Line Description: This workshop shows participants how to use the clusters. It covers using the Slurm job scheduler, installing software, effective usage of the resources and parallel computing. Live Workshop: February 21, 2023 (register) Online Training: Work through this guide or watch the video recording of the live workshop. Get Help: Research Computing Help Session or Submit a Ticket (Optional) Using R on High-Performance Computing Clusters Description: This workshop provides examples of writing parallel R scripts. Live Workshop: There are no plans to offer this workshop. Online Training: See the GitHub repo for the live workshop. Get Help: Data and Statistical Services, Research Computing Help Session Additional R resources and training: Exploring R at Princeton Using R on the Research Computing Clusters See the training schedule of the Stokes Viz Hub See the training materials and live workshops from Data and Statistical Services There are several other organizations on campus that are concerned with helping researchers in the humanities and social sciences: Center for Statistics and Machine Learning, Center for Digital Humanities, Data Driven Social Sciences, Stokes Viz Hub, Data and Statistical Services, and Economics Statistical Services, Princeton Research Data Service and the McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning.
