Building Data Science Skills Across SAMOS Partner Universities
Strengthening scientific skills: two workshops on the R programming language organised by the IRD at partner universities in South Africa
During a two-month mission to South Africa, Dr David Kaplan visited partner universities involved in the SAMOS project, located in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces, to lead workshops on the R programming language for students and academics. 
The first workshop took place in Hogsback, Eastern Cape, between 20-22 July 2026 and gathered 18 participants from the University of Fort Hare, iYunivesithi Walter Sisulu, and the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity, while the second one took place at the University of Zululand and welcome 29 participants.
During the workshops, participants were introduced to R and R studio environment, graphic presentation of data and use of R Markdown/Quarto before being exposed to data wrangling and the tidyverse package for data manipulation. Participants then explored geospatial work and results integration. These activities enabled them to gain practical experience in creating and saving scripts, importing and performing data cleaning as well as generating maps in R and creating scientific documents using Quarto.
Thank you to the National Research Foundation and the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity for facilitating the organisation of these workshops and to Dr David Kaplan for sharing his expertise with the participants.
