2025-NRSE.md

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CodeRefinery: Where Research Software Engineers can begin and grow

Samantha Wittke, CSC - IT Center for Science, Finland

Nordic-RSE conference, May 2025

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Content for today

• The CodeRefinery project

• CodeRefinery workshops

• How to engage with, contribute to, and benefit from the resources

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The problem - Research code challenges

• Many researchers write code but lack formal training beyond programming

• Collaboration on code can be frustrating and inefficient

• Research code is often poorly documented and non-reproducible

• Good coding practices are often not part of standard academic training

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Enter, CodeRefinery

Our mission since 2016:

• A community-driven, publicly funded project
• Hands-on training in practical coding tools for research
• Focus on “good enough” software practices to improve efficiency
• Support for Open Science and FAIR software development

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Similar efforts: INTERSECT, SURESOFT, DIGITAL RESEARCH ACADEMY, The Carpentries FAIR RS and probably many more ...

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Our workshops - interactive & hands-on

• Format: Online, streamed and reverse hybrid through local classrooms
• Hands-on exercises – Not just lectures, but real tool experience
• Collaborative learning – Learn alongside peers with expert guidance
• Beginner-friendly – No prior experience with the tools we teach required!

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Available lesson material - All CC-BY

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• Introduction to version control

• Collaborative version control

• Reproducible research

• Social coding and open software

]

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• Documentation

• Reusable and reproducible Jupyter notebooks

• Automated testing

• Modular code development ]

Developed over 10 online and 29 in-person workshops

• We reach over 500 persons/year
• Over 30 instructors/speakers

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Beyond the workshop - community

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• Networking – Connect with peers and experts
• Collaborative projects – Work with others on teaching and outreach
• Specialized workshops – Covering High-Performance Computing (HPC) and more
• Open learning materials – Use, modify, and contribute!

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How you can benefit

✅ Join a workshop as a learner or observer

✅ Bring your team and learn together

✅ Host a local classroom for others to learn together

✅ Use CodeRefinery materials for your own training

How you can contribute

🙌 Teach with us – Become a co-instructor

📝 Contribute to lesson materials – Improve and expand lesson content

💡 Provide feedback – Help us refine teaching and materials

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Relation to Research Software Engineering

• We teach topics which are .emph[helpful for researchers] and .emph[essential for RSEs]

• Visiting a CodeRefinery workshop can spark interest in RSEng

• Connecting made easy: CodeRefinery community chat also hosts the Nordic-RSE community!

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Get involved!

• Visit coderefinery.org

• Follow newsletter

• Check out our blog

• Register for an upcoming workshop

• Become an ambassador

• Join our community discussions in Zulip

• Follow us on social media (BlueSky, Mastodon, LinkedIn) & stay connected

• Contact us if you have any questions, support e-mail

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These slides: 10.5281/zenodo.15470651

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Credits and license

Text

• All text: CodeRefinery project, CC-BY 4.0

Images

• Slide 1: Logos, (c) respective organizations
• Slide 1: Nordic-RSE logo, (c) Nordic-RSE
• All other images: CodeRefinery project, CC-BY 4.0

These slides

• CodeRefinery project, CC-BY 4.0