Getting Started

Introduction

If you're a scientst who is working on a project in the IEP Work Plan, you might consider creating a GitHub repository to share your progress and products. Here, we try to share some resources to help you get started. Of course, you're welcome to use any tools that make sense for you, your research group, and/or your agency. These are just some of the open source tools that IEP researchers are using.

Tasks Before You Get Started:

1. If you don't already have one, set up your GitHub Account: https://help.github.com/articles/signing-up-for-a-new-github-account/
   • It is good practice to use a professional string for your user name that your colleagues will be able to use to easily idenfity you.
2. Request to join the IEP Organization. Send an email to Vanessa Tobias with your user name and how you're affiliated with IEP.
   • After you join, consider setting your visibility to "public" so other collaborators can see you. Go to the Interagency Ecological Program's people page (https://github.com/orgs/InteragencyEcologicalProgram/people). You should see the public/private setting next to your name and picture.
3. You may also want to check your agency/organization/school's policies on data sharing rights and requirements.

Open Data - Publishing Data on EDI

The IEP Data Utilization Workgroup (DUWG) has a GitHub repository (https://github.com/InteragencyEcologicalProgram/IEP-to-EDI-Publishing) with instructions and templates to help you publish your data with the Environmental Data Initiative (EDI).

Resources

Open science isn't just one thing. It's up to each team to decide how open they want their process to be and what's practical for their project. Teams may decide to start with proprietary tools and move towards more open tools in the future. Below are a few resources on open tools. We may update these from time to time as we find new and useful tools or resources.

1. Open Source Tools:

   1. Data processing, manipulation and visualization; statistics:
      1. R or RStudio
      2. python
   2. Mapping: QGIS
   3. Version Control: Git
   4. Graphical User Interface for GitHub: GitHub Desktop

2. Tutorials:

   1. GitHub (in general): https://guides.github.com/
      1. Understanding the GitHub Flow: https://guides.github.com/introduction/flow/
      2. Forking Projects: https://guides.github.com/activities/forking/
      3. Git and GitHub as Collaborative Tools: https://nceas.github.io/oss-lessons/version-control/2-git-remote-collaboration.html
      4. GitHub Desktop: https://help.github.com/desktop/
   2. Version Control
      1. Version Control Basics: https://nceas.github.io/oss-lessons/version-control/1-git-basics.html
      2. Using Git with RStudio: https://nceas.github.io/oss-lessons/version-control/4-getting-started-with-git-in-RStudio.html
      3. Advanced Git: https://nceas.github.io/oss-lessons/version-control/3-git-advanced.html
   3. QGIS: http://docs.qgis.org/2.14/en/docs/training_manual/map_composer/index.html
      1. Section 2: The Interface
      2. Section 3 (just the basics, not the SVG fill section): Creating a Basic Map
      3. Section 6 (through 6.2.2): Creating Vector Data
   4. Markdown Cheatsheet: https://github.com/adam-p/markdown-here/wiki/Markdown-Cheatsheet

Getting Help

Don't hesitate to ask questions as you're getting started or at any point in the process.

Some resources in this document were modified from https://github.com/UCDavisLibrary/ava/blob/master/GettingStarted.md Mentions of products are not endorsements.