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A collection of tools, tips and training resources recommended by members of the ARC team to help with digital research.

Introduction

This page focuses on technological aspects: tools and resources to enable effective digital research in various ways. It has been produced from the experiences of ARC听staff and their contacts, listing things we are aware have been used effectively. We will extend or adapt this list as we find out more!

Many of the tools mentioned here are free to use (up to a point) but researchers should be wary of becoming over reliant on free services provided by third parties and ensure that any important data is copied and safely backed up elsewhere.

Your work environment

Remote working

• The freedom trap: How to manage remote working.
• .
• 骋颈迟濒补产'蝉听听is extremely comprehensive, being from a company that has no central office so all staff work remotely. The getting started section is a useful jumping off point however.
• Questions and answers about remote working听.
• 听collaborative notes about听.
• 叠辞辞办:听.

Wellbeing

• 听is a simple web-based timer that can help you to apply time management techniques, e.g. the听.
• Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) England听.
• 听is a small application that will tell you to have breaks and some exercises to prevent听.

Managing your desktop

Collaborative working

Note taking

OneNote in Teams

If you鈥檙e using Teams, a new OneNote notebook is automatically created when a new Teams site is set up which you can access by clicking on the Staff Notebook or Notes tab at the top of whichever channel you鈥檙e in. You can also听听by adding a new tab.

Google Docs

奥颈迟丑听听you can collaborate simultaneously on documents, spreadsheets, slides and forms via your web browser. The permissions model allows you to share documents with specific people (google account required) or anyone with the link (no google account required) and you can give people permission to either view, comment, or edit shared documents. You can use your UCL email to set up a Google account, making it easier for colleagues to find you.

Other options

听- a simple, plain text, no account needed text editor. There are听.

听- like etherpad but using markdown syntax for simple formatting.

听- another markdown-based collaborative editor.

听online whiteboard.

Version Control

git

COURSES

• try.github.com

TOOLS

Pair programming

These tools facilitate programming together with another person on the same piece of code; both the听听as well as more informal programming assistance.

• 听brings real-time collaborative editing to many different integrated development environments (IDEs) and text editors.
• 听works well if you鈥檙e using Visual Studio or VS Code for development.
• 听is primarily a collaborative text editor, but can be used for program source code.

High performance computing

Remote access (SSH) and the command line

High performance computing platforms like UCL鈥檚 Myriad and Kathleen clusters require users to interact with them via the command line. This means users must first be able to login from their own computer using a SSH client, and they must also know how to interact with the system using a command line interpreter such as Bash.听

SSH

• See the how-to guide 鈥�What is SSH and how do I use it?鈥� on the ISD website
• See 鈥溾�� on the UCL research computing docs for an overview of using SSH on Windows, Mac and Linux
• See this lesson on "" for a more advanced look at SSH

Bash

• The RITS course 鈥溾�� covers navigating and working with files and directories through to writing basic scripts.
• Software Carpentry has a听module introducing听听to novice users.
• 鈥溾�� is a more advanced course on LinkedIn Learning, which introduces features such as loops, functions, reading and writing files etc.

Programming for scheduled systems

Most academic HPC systems operate a job scheduler, which requires users to write and submit job scripts to a queue. For this to work the job scripts have to be able to run the job from start to finish without any user interaction. In order to automate your programs so that they can run as non-interactive jobs on a HPC system, you may need to add functionality such as the ability to read the contents of a directory, read and write files, and respond to arguments provided when the program is called; e.g. the name of an input file (this can be useful when you want to submit an array of jobs, each with different input).

Python

• See the听听from our Introduction to Research Programming with Python course
• The Python听听lesson from Software Carpentry demonstrates how to use arguments to control behaviour, work with input files, and read from standard input.
• The Argparse module is the recommended command-line parsing module in Python (see the听)

R

• For R scripts, try the听听package which is written purely in R and has no external dependencies
• The R听听lesson from Software Carpentry demonstrates how to use arguments to control behaviour, work with input files, and read from standard input.

Estimating resource requirements

Another important requirement for using HPC systems is to be able to estimate the resources (run time, processor cores, memory etc.) you will need to request for your jobs: too little and your jobs won鈥檛 finish in time before they are cut off; too much and you鈥檙e jobs will spend time waiting in the queue unnecessarily waiting for the resources you鈥檝e requested to become available.

• See 鈥溾�� on the UCL research computing docs for a simple solution

Research Data

Research data management

• UCL Library Services听provide RDM guidance and advice for researchers
• Online training from the University of Edinburgh:听
• 听- data awareness training from the working group for听听

Digital resources and repositories

A non-exhaustive list of potentially useful digital resources to explore.

SAGE Research Methods

This site brings together a huge collection of SAGE publications to provide researchers with any easy way to find guidance on research methods, statistics and project design.

Re3Data

The registry of research data repositories is good place to start when searching for existing data to re-use.

Box of Broadcast

National is an off-air TV and radio resource for UK higher and further education institutions to which UCL subscribes. You can view or listen to programmes, make clips, playlists and share with other BoB (Box of Broadcasts) subscribers.

Grey literature

Content from non-commercial private or public entities in the form of reports, pamphlets, bulletins, newsletters, trial data, working/technical papers, posters, guidelines, policy documents etc.

See 鈥溾�� from the IOE LibGuides听

UK Data Archive

Home to the largest collection of digital social, economic and population data in the UK.