How good at programming do I need to be?

We don’t expect students to be software pro’s to join in. We expect the groups to use either Python or R, but you don’t need to seen used those languages before. Rather, we’re looking to build teams of people with a range quantitative skills.

Having said that, we do want to be able to hit the ground running. You won’t find it much fun, if you need to spend two days learning to code before you can tackle the project. So we’re hoping that you’ve seen either a Jupyter Notebook or RStudio before (so that the interface isn’t foreign). We will be providing some examples scripts, which you can walk through as a tutorial and then use as cut-&-paste fodder for your own hacking.

I’m not currently in the UK. Can I still participate?

The hackathon is open to all UCL students and staff, wherever they’re currently working. We don’t want the time difference to deter any potential applicants from overseas, so will endeavour to ensure that support is available throughout the day (UK time) so that everyone has an opportunity to access it at a reasonable hour. We encourage all participants to attend the closing session in person if possible, but where teams are based in very different time zones, the final presentations may be pre-recorded and submitted in advance.

Do I have to be part of a team to sign up?

Not at all. Part of the first day will be spent choosing projects and assigning teams.

What do we mean by an Early Career Researcher (ECR)?

We include PhDs and Postdocs in this definition, however we don’t want to specify people a fixed number of years into their career, because that wouldn’t be fair on people that work part-time, have taken time off or years in industry. If you feel you meet the definition of an ECR, then that’s good enough for us!

How do I access the UCL Jupyter Hub?

Visit (jupyter.data-science.rc.ucl.ac.uk) and log in with your UCL credentials.