Virtual Explore NEON Workshop - University of Tennessee Chattanooga

Update: This workshop has been converted to an online 3-day 4-hr per day workshop from May 20-22, 2020 each day from 1-5pm EDT. There will be an optional 4-hour R Bootcamp offered the days before the workshop.  Pre-registration is required and preference will be given to those participants previously registered for the in-person workhop, however, additional workshop spaces are available. 

This workshop introduces participants to NEON, teaches them how to access and work with NEON data, and allows them to interact with NEON science staff to get assistance working on the specific data products they are interested in using. The workshop includes hands-on, interactive instruction on how to access and work with NEON data, both through the NEON data portal and programmatically. 

Optional R Bootcamp: A four-hour preparatory online R bootcamp will be offered by the University of Tennessee Chattanooga on May 18th and 19th for participants that need to learn basic R programming. Registration is required to participate.

This workshop is co-sponsored by NEON and a NSF Big Data Spoke award to University of Tennessee Chattanooga. 

Application

Faculty, graduate students, and researchers are welcome to apply. The workshop is limited to 40 participants. There is not cost to attend the workshop.  Participants must commit to participating in the entirety of the workshop. Participants are expected to attend all four hours each of the three days and not leave for other meetings or commitments.

Individuals from minority serving institutions, primarily undergraduate institutions, and community colleges are especially encouraged to apply. 

Participant selection has already occurred and the workshop is full. 

Required Prior Knowledge

All coding instruction will be conducted in R and participants will be able to complete the workshop best if they have at least an introduction to coding. Participants without past experience working in a programming environment are encouraged to complete a basic introduction to R to understand the basics -- training options can be found on the Resources for Learning R page. Participants using other programming languages are welcome to attend, however, instruction and assistance in the programming language of preference may not be available. The University of Tennessee Chattanooga is also offering a 1-day R bootcamp for participants prior to the workshop that individuals who do not frequently use R should plan on attending.

Workshop Schedule

Schedule subject to change.

Location: Online. Virtual meeting link will be sent to registered participants.

Times: As the workshop was originally planned to be held in Chattanooga, TN, all times listed are Eastern Daylight Time (UTC -4).

Pre-Workshop

All participants will be asked to complete self-paced online tutorials/videos before the workshop to have their laptops set up for the workshop and to learn some initial information about NEON. 

Monday 18 May and Tuesday 19 May (Optional)

R Bootcamp, taught by University of Tennessee Chattanooga faculty

Day 1: Wednesday 20 May: Accessing & Understanding NEON data

Day 2: Thursday 21 May: Using NEON Data, Part 1

Day 3: Friday 22 May: : Using NEON Data, Part 2

Workshop Host

• Hong Qin, Computer Science and Engineering and Biology, University of Tennessee Chattanooga

Workshop Instructors

• Megan A. Jones; Twitter: @meganahjones, Research Scientist, Science Education; NEON program, Battelle
• Donal O'Leary; Data Science Educator; NEON program, Battelle

Additional NEON scientists will participate in portions of the Explore NEON workshop.

Please get in touch with the instructors prior to the workshop with any questions.

Accessibility

If you have any questions regarding the accessibility of the workshop format, please contact Megan Jones.

Twitter?

Please tweet at @NEON_Sci and using the hashtag using #NEONData during this workshop!

Workshop Materials

These computer workshop instructions must be completed before starting the Exploring & Downloading NEON Data portion of the Pre-workshop Introductory Materials.

R & RStudio

To participant in this workshop, you will need a computer with the most current version of R, and preferably RStudio, loaded on your computer. Prior to the workshop you should have R and, preferably, RStudio installed on your computer.

Setting Up R & RStudio

Windows R/RStudio Setup

• Download R for Windows here
• Run the .exe file that was just downloaded
• Go to the RStudio Download page
• Under Installers select RStudio X.XX.XXX - Windows Vista/7/8/10
• Double click the file to install it

Once R and RStudio are installed, click to open RStudio. If you don't get any error messages you are set. If there is an error message, you will need to re-install the program.

Mac R/RStudio Setup

• Go to CRAN and click on Download R for (Mac) OS X
• Select the .pkg file for the version of OS X that you have and the file will download.
• Double click on the file that was downloaded and R will install
• Go to the RStudio Download page
• Under Installers select RStudio 0.98.1103 - Mac OS X XX.X (64-bit) to download it.
• Once it's downloaded, double click the file to install it

Once R and RStudio are installed, click to open RStudio. If you don't get any error messages you are set. If there is an error message, you will need to re-install the program.

Linux R/RStudio Setup

• R is available through most Linux package managers. You can download the binary files for your distribution from CRAN. Or you can use your package manager (e.g. for Debian/Ubuntu run sudo apt-get install r-base and for Fedora run sudo yum install R).
• To install RStudio, go to the RStudio Download page
• Under Installers select the version for your distribution.
• Once it's downloaded, double click the file to install it

Once R and RStudio are installed, click to open RStudio. If you don't get any error messages you are set. If there is an error message, you will need to re-install the program.

Install R Packages

Please have these packages installed and updated prior to the start of the workshop.

 install.packages("devtools")
 install.packages("neonUtilities")
 install.packages("raster")
 devtools::install_github("NEONScience/NEON-geolocation/geoNEON")
 install.packages("BiocManager")
 BiocManager::install("rhdf5")

Update R Packages

In RStudio, you can go to Tools --> Check for package updates to update previously installed packages on your computer. Or you can use update.packages() to update all packages that are installed in R automatically. More on Packages in R

Monitors

To allow for participants to view the workshop instructors (including screensharing) and to follow along with the activities on their own computer, we recommend participants have two screens to view the workshop. If you do not have access to dual monitors, alternatives include calling into the virtual meeting on a tablet or extra-large cell phone (smaller cell phone screens will make it challenging to see the presentation materials). In these are not options, the workshop can still be completed with a single monitor/screen.

Pre-workshop Materials

Please complete all materials prior to the start of the workshop. The workshop will start with time for asking questions based on these introductory materials. Please keep a list of questions or concepts you need clarified.

1. The Future of Science is Open ( Video (6 mins))
2. Introduction to NEON (Video (4 mins) )
3. Navigating the resources from NEON (Tutorial , Video (7 mins). The tutorial covers more material than the video includes).
4. Explore and Download NEON data (Tutorial, Video (6 mins). The video only includes exploring the data on the data portal, not the complete tutorial).
5. NEON Spatial Design & Geospatial Data ( Video (6 mins))