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IRB Training

IRB stands for Institutional Review Board. It is the group on campus that oversees human subject research. You should complete the training. Directions are included on their webpage. You should complete the Group 2 – Social and Behavioral Research Investigators and Key Personnel modules.

In general, this training takes about an hour. Note that you can go back and fix your mistakes when you do the CITI training. They will want you to upload a CITI completion certificate onto your epirate profile.

Slack workspace

I use Slack to communicate with my research team. This is a fully cross platform (and free) tool. I recommend downloading the app on your phone as well as your computer. One of the benefits of Slack is that it is code-aware. One of the things that I work on with my research students is to develop their coding skills. I want you to try your ideas out, but struggling unproductively isn’t good for anyone. My suggestion when you run into a problem: Post a snippet (portion) of your code on Slack and message it to me. (There is a specific tool for this. Snippets are mentioned in item #18 of this listicle.) Reach out to me, and I’ll help you get connected.

Install some software

If you have a computer, and want to use it for this research, great! (If not, I have some research laptops that you can borrow.) Everything that I recommend is free (or provided by the university license). Note for Linux users: most repositories like apt and yum have all of this software available. Consult your documentation.

The statistical programming language R

You can download this for free at www.r-project.org. This provides the basic environment for running R. I also recommend RStudio an IDE (Interactive Development Environment)

This is also free, and has versions that can be installed on any computer. Follow the instructions on rstudio.com. RStudio sells support with their IDE, I have never used it, nor do I feel the need to recommend it.

Note, there are many resources for learning R that exist for free on the internet. I don’t have a set that I require, as I feel the best path is to learn as you go, and support you as you solve problems with code. Some that I have found are in the #learningr channel on the Slack.

Install Anaconda Python

Anaconda provides some additional functionality with python (which I don’t use much personally), but it also allows you to create Jupyter notebooks (see jupyter.org for some examples of what they look like).

Install LaTeX

I don’t use Microsoft Word to write anything. Also, most physics journals prefer LaTeX submissions (and Dr. Sprague requires it in advanced lab). Let’s get started now! Get TeX Live. (Mac users will get redirected to the MacTeX distro). Get a cup of coffee (or other beverage of choice) while this installs.

Install Inkscape

Sometimes it is useful to make graphics by hand…well, digitally. I often ask students to use this to make posters as well, when we present our research at conferences. Download it from inkscape.org

Start playing with data

Seriously, start using these tools. Try things out. Fail. Try again. Ask for help. And have fun!