Education and open source tools go hand-in-hand, as demonstrated at the National Workshop on Data Science Education (NWDSE). The “Open Science and BIDS” panel illustrated the benefits of using open source tools in data science education, empowering instructors as well as students, and included demos to show the power of these tools.
NWDSE, hosted by the Data Science Undergraduate Studies department, brings together educators across the country to share learnings about teaching the discipline. Presenters on the first day discussed course delivery learnings from various introductory data science courses at UC Berkeley. The second day of the workshop featured talks and a panel focused on open science, sharing learnings in implementing open source tools in education.
Open Source Tools and Demos
Fernando Pérez, BIDS Faculty Director, began the series with an introduction to Jupyter AI, an open source, vendor-neutral tool that can help students explore data, even without much technical knowledge. Through demos, he illustrated how a Jupyter AI workflow can take a user from data exploration to producing academic level publications. For example, Jupyter tools integrated with CryoCloud enabled students to explore a dataset about marine protected areas, even without having any background knowledge about the data itself. Then, he demonstrated building a reproducible, collaborative Jupyter Notebook with code that answers questions about the marine protected area dataset - all using open source tools. Open source tools in education can help democratize access and reduce reliance on vendors that charge fees.
Photo: Pérez presenting different Jupyter tools supporting aspects of the research life cycle
In the next talk, Chris Holdgraf, Executive Director of 2i2c, and Silas Santini, Course Software & Infrastructure Engineer at Data Science Undergraduate Studies, illustrated the power of Jupyter Book and Binder in creating interactive, multi-document tools for learning. Not only do these tools allow students to explore concepts interactively, they also increase accessibility. Complex information, such as figures and graphs, are clearly labeled so tools like screen readers and machines can easily reference portions of the document correctly. In addition, Santini demonstrated the true power behind open source tools - the community! With the goal of increasing accessibility, they identified improvements that could be made to MyST, and collaborated with members to address those opportunities. Furthermore, they developed an audit tool that checks Jupyter Books against accessibility standards.
Data science is applicable across disciplines, as Maryam Hosseini, Assistant Professor of City & Regional Planning, demonstrated in her talk. Her classes feature a complementary mix of urban planning students with no data science background, and data science students with no urban planning background. Using tools such as GeoJupyter, an open source geospatial interactive computing tool, she emphasizes the importance of thinking programmatically and collaborating. The goal is to help students understand how to approach problem-solving and use tools to help them, not to do the work for them.
Finally, Kirstie Whitaker, BIDS Executive Director, wrapped up the talks with a retrospective of BIDS and the power of open source tools. With many open source tools in the BIDS ecosystem, such as GeoJupyter, JupyterHealth, JupyterHub, and others, the impact of the ecosystem is wide. Open source tools widen access, give people control over their own data, create community, and most importantly, bring out the joy of connecting with others.
Photo: Whitaker encouraging open source contributions to maximize joy
Reflections
During the Q&A, the panel expanded on the benefits of open source tools, especially when developing educational materials. Modular open source tools empower individual users, allowing them to explore and tailor these tools to their own needs on platforms that are designed to last. Furthermore, open source tools encourage user participation, as Holdgraf mentioned. Instead of solely providing feedback through often ambiguous communication channels, open source tools encourage users to actively participate in making improvements and leading change.
Photo: The panel during the Q&A
Lastly, community colleges and other educational institutions can leverage open source tools to provide material in an accessible, engaging, and affordable format. There’s a positive feedback loop, where engagement with these tools leads to more collaborations and improvements, which can bring more users to explore these tools, ultimately benefitting everyone.
For more resources and access to slides and recordings, visit the NWDSE website. To stay in touch with the BIDS community and join the conversation, please follow us on Bluesky & LinkedIn and subscribe to the BIDS newsletter