DataLab launches first micro-credential pathway on research computing

To help our research community discover and grow their data science skills and gain a competitive edge in today’s data-driven workplace, DataLab has launched a Research Computing pathway as part of the UC Davis GradPathways Institute’s new micro-credential initiative. This program allows UC Davis graduate students and postdoctoral scholars to track and showcase skills learned outside the traditional curriculum by earning digital badges that document and certify their learning journey.

As the first of several new data science pathways developed by DataLab, the Research Computing pathway focuses on core programming technologies and skills including command line, SQL, R and Python. Badges are earned by participating in workshops and completing associated assessment activities.

Future DataLab supported pathways under development include:

• Reproducible Research (from tidy data practices and metadata creation to version control, leveraging cloud project management systems, and data justice);
• Text Mining and Natural Language Processing (from tokenizing, text classification, topic modeling and part-of-speech tagging to vector space and transformer models);
• Geospatial Data (from coordinate reference systems to cartographic data visualization and spatial analysis);
• and Data Visualization (from perception and design principles to creating reproducible static, dynamic, and immersive research viz).

Learn more about the GradPathways micro-credential program, sign up for the Research Computing pathway, and discover additional pathways here.

For questions about the DataLab supported pathways, contact us at datalab-training@ucdavis.edu.