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.

Update: The Autumn School 2010 is now over; read a report here and watch video footage here!

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

Location

The workshop will be held in the Brunei Gallery.

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.

Watch this space!