Call for Nominations: UK Autumn School - Software Carpentry for Audio and Music Researchers

The aim of this one-week Autumn School (London, UK, 1-5 November 2010) is to train PhD students and researchers in the software development skills required to build reliable research software quickly and with a minimum of effort, and so maximize the impact of their research.

The Autumn School is presented by Dr. Greg Wilson in collaboration with SoundSoftware.ac.uk: Sustainable Software for Audio and Music Research.

For the selected early career researchers, travel and subsistence costs for attending the Autumn School will be covered by the EPSRC-funded project “SoundSoftware.ac.uk”.

Further Information

Software development is a fundamental part of much audio and music research, yet PhD students and young researchers are typically not taught how to build the software they need for their research in an efficient, systematic way. Instead, they have to learn for themselves how to build, validate, maintain, and share complex programs, which can lead to big problems later, when others try to build on their research.

The Autumn School is based on Greg Wilson’s highly regarded “Software Carpentry” course, tailored for researchers in the audio and music research field. Since 1997, Software Carpentry has taught scientists the concepts and skills they need to use computers more effectively in their research. This training has consistently had an immediate impact on participants’ productivity by making their current work less onerous, and new kinds of work feasible.

Course content includes:

  • Program design
  • Version control
  • Task automation
  • Agile development
  • Provenance and reproducibility
  • Maintenance and integration
  • User interface construction
  • Testing and validation

For more information on Software Carpentry, visit http://software-carpentry.org.

Online support will be available, to handle questions or problems that arise after the Autumn School. The course is also planned to be available in future for distance learning.

This Autumn School is organized by “SoundSoftware.ac.uk”, an EPSRC-funded project promoting sustainable software for audio and music research.

Nomination process

We are seeking nominations for a small number (up to 15) of UK-based PhD students or early career researchers to attend the Autumn School. The SoundSoftware.ac.uk project will pay for reasonable travel and accommodation costs for attendees.

Due to the level of interest we anticipate in this initial Autumn School, and to obtain a balance of attendees from several UK research groups, we are asking Research Groups to nominate potential attendees. If you are a PhD student or researcher in a UK research group, please contact your PhD supervisor, line manager, or Head of Group to ask them to nominate you.

Instructions for Nominators

We would like UP TO TWO nominees from each research group. Please coordinate with others PhD supervisors and managers in your group, to select the 2 early career researchers most likely to benefit from attending the course, and help other researchers in your group on their return.

For each nominated person, please supply the following information:

Nominee:
Name
 
Postal address
 
E-mail address
 
Does the nominee have a PhD?          Y / N         
If Yes, when was the PhD awarded?  
PhD Topic / Title of PhD Thesis
 
Research Interests and Motivation for attending the Autumn School
(max 500 words):
 
 
 
Nominated by:
Name
 
Department / Research group
 
University / Research organisation
 
Research Councils funded project (if any)
 

Nominations should be sent to nominations@soundsoftware.ac.uk.

Deadline for nominations: 16:00 BST on Friday 3 September 2010.