What is a Carpentries Workshop?

The Carpentries teaches workshops around the world on the foundational skills to work effectively and reproducibly with data and code. Our certified volunteer Instructors are trained in pedagogy and focus on creating a motivating and engaging environment for learners. Our workshops are inclusive and hands-on, empowering students to learn new skills and build confidence in using them in their work.

Because our workshops are taught around the world, we have a team of Regional Coordinators to help support the coordination of workshop activities. They are available to answer any questions or concerns you may have about our workshops or The Carpentries in general.

We encourage you to check out our upcoming and past workshops to see examples of how The Carpentries workshops are run.

Read our Workshops FAQ to learn more.


Carpentries by the numbers

4,216

instructors

93,875

learners

3,755

workshops

* Learners count is estimated based on average workshop attendance of 25.


Workshop Curriculum



Data Carpentry

Library Carpentry

Software Carpentry

Data Carpentry workshops are for people who work with data in their research and want to learn how to code and organise their projects to work more effectively and reproducibly with data.

Library Carpentry workshops are for people working in library- and information-related roles to build software and data skills. The workshops are domain-agnostic though datasets used will be familiar to library staff.

Software Carpentry workshops are for people who are learning to code to develop software or learn best-practices in software development. Lessons are domain-agnostic, and teach the Unix shell, coding in R or Python, and version control using Git.

There are many options for you to choose from! To help you decide which Lesson Program is best for your audience, please read the descriptions of our curricula.

Organising a Workshop


The Carpentries offers two types of workshops: Centrally-Organised and Self-Organised.

Requesting a Centrally-Organised Workshop


Centrally-Organised workshops come with the full support of The Carpentries Workshop Administration team! These workshops are organised for a fee. The Regional Coordinator for your region will locate and coordinate instructors for the workshop. We want to ensure your workshop is successful. Therefore we ask that you request Centrally-Organised workshops at least 2-3 months before your desired workshop date. To learn more about the process for organising a workshop please review the Workshop Checklist.

Please be advised that a workshop will not be scheduled until it has been confirmed by the host and The Carpentries Workshop Administrator. Our workshops are organised based on the order the Workshop Request Form is received and finalized. 

Registration of Self-Organised Workshops


The Carpentries welcomes you to organise and run your own workshop. This means you are already connected with our certified Instructors and will work with them on all aspects of workshop organisation. When planning a Self-Organised workshop we ask that you complete the Self-Organised workshop notification form to notify us of your planned workshop so that we can add your workshop to our website, provide support (in the form of survey result links and AMI instances for Genomics workshops), and get instructors and helpers credit for the workshops they teach. To learn more about the process for organising a workshop please review the Workshop Checklist. Since you will be taking care of all the logistics, there is no administrative fee due to The Carpentries for running a Self-Organised workshop.

Remember, we want to know about any workshops you teach that use The Carpentries material! If you teach a workshop that is shorter or longer format, or mixes and matches from Lesson Programs, we are piloting tracking these workshops. You can register a Self-Organised workshop and it will be listed on The Carpentries webpage.

What are the requirements for a Carpentries workshop?


A Carpentries workshop must meet the following requirements:

What are the Core curricula for a Carpentries Workshop?


Official Carpentries workshops meet the workshop requirements listed above, including teaching a lesson program's core curriculum. The core curriculum for each lesson program is listed below:

Data Carpentry

Library Carpentry

Software Carpentry

Data Carpentry workshops should contain the following:

  • A lesson on data organisation
  • Any three other lessons from in the same domain in the Data Carpentry curriculum

Library Carpentry workshops should contain the following:

  • Any three lessons from the Library Carpentry curriculum

Software Carpentry workshops should contain Software Carpentry lessons on:

  • The Unix Shell
  • Version Control with Git
  • A programming language (R or Python)


Workshop Cost


Our instructors are volunteers and are not paid for their time teaching. Therefore we ask the host to cover travel and accommodation costs for instructors assigned to teach at your institution.
  • The total cost of hosting a workshop includes both the Workshop Administration Fee and travel expenses for the instructors (for in-person workshops only).
  • The administration fee is used to support staff time with this partnership. You will be provided with exceptional customer service and timely support from our Workshop Administration Team and Regional Coordinators.

View workshop administration fees here for member and non-member organisations.

Workshop Administration Financial Support

Financial support may be available for workshops that reach new or under-served communities. If you are interested in hosting a Centrally-Organised workshop and would like to request assistance covering the fee, please complete the Workshop Request Form. If financial support is awarded, the host will still be responsible for the instructor travel expenses.

Travel Expenses for Instructors

The instructors selected to teach workshops are volunteers and are not paid for their service. To compensate for their time we require the Host to cover travel expenses (for in-person workshops only). We work to find local instructors, but suggest that you estimate about $2000 total ($1000 per Instructor) for the travel, food, and accommodation of the instructors. The details of how you will manage the instructors' travel are discussed once the instructors are confirmed and introduced to the host. The Carpentries is not involved in this process.

Contact Us

Someone in your region is waiting to speak to you about The Carpentries and/or to request a workshop! We invite you to contact your Regional Coordinator or request information about our workshops to start the conversation!


Upcoming workshops

Click on an individual event to learn more about that event, including contact information and registration instructions.
swc logo us globe image Michigan Technological University
Instructors: Pradeep Eranti, Christian Ayala
Mar 20 - Mar 24, 2023
cp logo au globe image Queensland Cyber Infrastructure Foundation (QCIF) **
Instructors: Pauline Lawrey, Jason Bell
Helpers: Angela Mina Vargas, Kasia Koziara, Joseph Clokey, Billy Kenzler, Joanna Salerno, Senn Conn
Mar 20 - Mar 23, 2023
cp logo gb Newcastle University **
Instructors: Jannetta Steyn, Robin Wardle
Helpers: Yash Borikar
Mar 22 - Mar 22, 2023
swc logo de University of Würzburg
Instructors: Raffael Klees, Florian Goth
Helpers: Tobias Hofmann, Adrien Reingruber, Daniel Gresta
Mar 22 - Mar 24, 2023
dc logo us globe image Winston-Salem State University
Instructors: R Uma, Ammar Alkhaldi, Jennifer Stubbs
Mar 25 - Mar 26, 2023
swc logo us globe image USDA-ARS (online)
Instructors: Kathy Yeater, Amisha Poret-Peterson, Heather Savoy, Chen Dong
Helpers: Perot Saelao
Mar 27 - Apr 4, 2023
cp logo de mainzed - Mainzer Zentrum für Digitalität in den Geistes- und Kulturwissenschaften **
Instructors: Michael Meinel, Stephan Druskat
Mar 27 - Mar 27, 2023
cp logo nl globe image Universiteit van Amsterdam, Radboud Universiteit,Universiteit Leiden, Vrije Universiteit, Tilburg University (online) **
Instructors: Alice Doek, Kristina Hettne, Peter Verhaar, Matthijs de Zwaan
Helpers: Puck Wildschut, Levi Damsma
Mar 27 - Apr 4, 2023
cp logo gb Newcastle University **
Instructors: Jannetta Steyn, Imre Draskovits
Helpers: Stuart Lewis, David Halliday
Mar 28 - Mar 28, 2023
swc logo de University of Stuttgart, Germany
Instructors: Matthias Braun, Björn Schembera, Jan Range
Helpers: Anett Seeland, Dorothea Iglezakis
Mar 28 - Mar 31, 2023
dc logo nl ASTRON Dwingeloo
Instructors: Johan Hidding, Hanno Spreeuw
Helpers: Laura Ootes, Ole Mussmann
Mar 29 - Mar 30, 2023
dc logo ar globe image RELIF Argentina (online)
Instructors: Macarena Sol Quiroga, Noelia Stetie
Apr 1 - Apr 1, 2023
swc logo de Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology
Instructors: Carsten Fortmann-Grote, Nikoleta Glynatsi
Helpers: Beate Gericke
Apr 4 - Apr 6, 2023
lc logo us Indiana University
Instructors: Kok Ben Toh, Ann James
Apr 6 - Apr 7, 2023
dc logo us Southeast New Mexico College
Instructors: Jon Wheeler, Karl Benedict
Apr 14 - Apr 15, 2023
cp logo ar Novotel Buenos Aires **
Instructors: Noelia Stetie, Sergio Garcia Mora, Macarena Sol Quiroga, ANDREA GOMEZ VARGAS, Irene Ramos
Helpers: Natalia Morandeira, Virginia Andrea García Alonso, Pamela Pairo
Apr 17 - Apr 17, 2023
dc logo nz globe image University of Auckland (online)
Instructors: Jens Brinkmann, Mike Laverick, Nidhi Gowdra, Nelis Drost
Helpers: Tom Saunders, Libby Li, Noel Zeng, Victor Gambarini
Apr 24 - Apr 27, 2023
cp logo fi University of Oslo **
Instructors: Espen Rosenquist
Helpers: Désirée Treichler, Elisa Pierfederici
May 3 - May 3, 2023
cp logo us University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center **
Instructors: Jon Wheeler, Harry Snow, Todd Quinn, Lori Sloane
May 15 - May 19, 2023
swc logo fi Skidaway Institute of Oceanography
Instructors: Lucy Quirk, Claire Zwiers Cook
Helpers: Mallory Mintz
May 19 - May 20, 2023
dc logo us University of Georgia - Driftmier Auditorium
Instructors: Jason Wallace
May 23 - May 25, 2023

** Workshops marked with asterisks are based on curriculum from The Carpentries lesson programs but may not follow our standard workshop format.

globe image Workshops with a globe icon are being held online. The corresponding flag notes the country where the host organisation is based.

Check out our past workshops here.

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