Introduction to research skills (for GC)
Summary
The course prepares students for carrying out research-based Master projects. It teaches basics of scientific writing and presenting as well as concepts and tools that are useful over the course of a research project.
Content
The course covers the following topics:
- Research: what it is and which rules apply (peer-review, copyrights and plagiarism, reproducibility and open science); project management of a research project.
- Scientific writing: Literature research, correct citations, plagiarism; Structuring of a Master thesis; Good scientific writing (vocabulary, coherence and cohesion, paraphrasing).
- Scientific presenting: Defining the target audience; Structuring a presentation; Slide design.
- Research data: Introduction of FAIR principles for data, good principles of research data management, metadata of research data.
- Data visualisation: Introduction to data visualisation / design of figures.
- Coding for research: Good coding practice, version control, reproducibility.
The course introduces tools for scientific writing, referencing, code and data management tools, in particular:
- LaTex (document preparation system),
- Zotero (reference manager),
- Zenodo (data repository),
- Python (programming language),
- Jupyter notebook and Jupyter Lab (interactive progamming environment),
- Github (code hosting and version control tool),
- Renku, Docker and Anaconda (progamming environment reproducibility tools),
- Python libraries for data visualization (e.g., matplolib, seaborn, Bokeh),
- ...
Keywords
Research skills, scientific writing, scientific presenting, research data management, coding
Learning Prerequisites
Required courses
A little programming experience would be helpful but is not mandatory.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course, the student must be able to:
- Plan a research project;
- Structure a research report and a presentation;
- Apply principles of effective scientific writing;
- Apply best practices in research data management, coding and data visualisation;;
- Apply best practices for using citations in scientific writing.
Teaching methods
The course is based on presentations, which are followed by in-class exercises and take-home assignments. Modules of the course will be given by invited lecturers from the EPFL language center, the EPFL library and ENAC IT4Research.
Expected student activities
Active participation in course and exercises.
Assessment methods
The assessment is based on quizzes, on deliverables produced in the exercise hour and on take-home assignments.
Supervision
| Office hours | Yes |
| Assistants | Yes |
Prerequisite for
"Le contenu de cette fiche de cours est susceptible d'être modifié en raison du covid-19"
Dans les plans d'études
- Semestre: Automne
- Forme de l'examen: Pendant le semestre (session d'hiver)
- Matière examinée: Introduction to research skills (for GC)
- Cours: 1 Heure(s) hebdo x 14 semaines
- Exercices: 1 Heure(s) hebdo x 14 semaines
- Semestre: Automne
- Forme de l'examen: Pendant le semestre (session d'hiver)
- Matière examinée: Introduction to research skills (for GC)
- Cours: 1 Heure(s) hebdo x 14 semaines
- Exercices: 1 Heure(s) hebdo x 14 semaines