KIND network update
Week beginning Mon 10th June 2024
Dear colleagues,
Welcome to our regular KIND network update. Full details of our events and training can be found on our Teams channel. This is a comparatively quiet week for one-off training sessions, but I’m pleased to say that we’ll be re-running our pivot table introduction, and hope that we won’t have the same number of technical problems as the last time. I’m also excited to launch our new R beginner’s club. This is a space dedicated to supporting those new to R, and giving them space to develop their skills.
Hope to see you at something soon
Brendan
Training
There’s no need to register for these drop-in training sessions. You should be able to follow the link on the day - although please note you’ll need to join the KIND Teams channel to follow the chat, and to access sample data files etc.
| Session | Date | Level |
|---|---|---|
| Why bother with…Power BI? | 09:30-10:00 Thu 13th June 2024 | 🥬: a pre-beginner-level session aimed at those with no prior experience |
| Pivot tables and pivot charts | 13:00-14:30 Thu 13th June 2024 | 🌶🌶: an intermediate-level session aimed at those with prior experience of the topic |
Events
- 13.00-14.00 Tue 11th June 2024. SCODAS meeting. Anette Little (PHS) - ECOSS. The Scottish Community of Data Analysts is a community of practice for those working with data in territorial NHS Boards.
- 13.00-14.00 Wed Wed 12th June 2024. The KIND Community meetup theme this week is Digital inclusion and ‘I Feel Part Of Society’ . All welcome at our regular Wednesday get-together/webinar/tech demo. Full details and joining links via the community meetup channel
- 15.00-16:30 Thu 13th June 2024. The inaugural meeting of our new R Beginner’s Club. If you’re new to R, please consider yourself invited to come along for mutual support, troubleshooting, and tips for building your R skills and confidence.
Book of the week
Andrew Brown. 2004. In the beginning was the worm : finding the secrets of life in a tiny hermaphrodite. ISBN 9780743415989, Worldcat link. It’s now close to twenty years old, and deals with the research uses of a microscopic nematode worm, but this short and interesting book remains one of the most compelling introductions to health research out there. For analysts, the story here is one of wrangling. Not the usual wrangling and tidying data to permit analysis that we’re so used to, but a very similar process of wrangling the properties of an organism (C. elegans) to make it behave. Bonus points for the comments about the Worm Breeder’s Gazette which remains a favourite niche technical publication.
Resource of the week
We’re launching our first community standards document today. Written by the community, these describe sensible minimum standards for the projects and documents that KIND members typically work on. We have begun this process with (of course) a set of KIND Excel standards, and we will begin drafting a complementary description for R-based work next week. Please contribute if you can!