Now the semester is halfway done, I think it is a good time to review our progress of this code teaching program. The R open lab’s performance has improved compared to the last one. We are having a consistent population of attendee, and we have already covered more topics than last semester. I am confident to say that our program is heading towards the right direction.

The people attending the open labs have diverse backgrounds: SIPA, SPS, GSAS, etc. I’m glad to see many people actively showing up to learn how to apply coding techniques to their customized scenarios. Another surprise is that we are having a decent number of the attendee in each open lab so far. Also, people are showing up consistently. One of the biggest problems in the past is that we are not having enough attendee, and people don’t attend continuously. That causes the issue that attendee’ coding levels have huge gaps; there could be complete beginners, and there could be people who’re already familiar with R. Now, the attendee will have the same level of R proficiency after a few workshops. That allows us to move further to new topics.

Also, using Github seems like a good idea. In the past, sharing my codes and data sets in open labs was troublesome and inconvenient. Now, students can always go to my Github repository to look at past materials without asking for access from me.

I am happy to see that our program is developing, and we are able to help more fellow students step in a new field. I invite all to our open labs regardless of your level; we welcome you to take a journey to explore the facts behind data.