Welcome & Introduction

Starts at:

Friday, 09:30

Objectives

💡 You know what reproducibility is.
💡 You can argue why reproducibility is essential for research.
💡 You know what version control is.
💡 You can argue why version control is useful (for research).
💡 You can explain the difference between Git and GitHub.
💡 You understand the relevance of creating teaching materials in accordance with FAIR principles.
💡 You can develop reproducible teaching materials collaboratively using tools like Quarto and Git(Hub).

Tasks

In this session, you will work on the following tasks:

  1. Reading: Read the chapter(s) https://lennartwittkuhn.com/version-control-book/chapters/intro-version-control.html in the Version Control Book.
  2. Implementation: Try out the commands in the chapter.
  3. Exercises: Work on the exercises.

As always:

  1. Try out the commands of this session and play around with them.
  2. Check whether you have achieved the learning objectives.
  3. Ask questions!

Exercises

No exercises in this session.

Slides

To export the slides to PDF, do the following:

  1. Toggle into Print View using the E key (or using the Navigation Menu).
  2. Open the in-browser print dialog (CTRL/CMD+P).
  3. Change the Destination setting to Save as PDF.
  4. Change the Layout to Landscape.
  5. Change the Margins to None.
  6. Enable the Background graphics option.
  7. Click Save.

Note: This feature has been confirmed to work in Google Chrome, Chromium as well as in Firefox.

Here’s what the Chrome print dialog would look like with these settings enabled:

These instructions were copied from the Quarto documentation (MIT License) and slightly modified.

Resources

Email

Dear course participant,

You are receiving this email because you are registered for the full-day course “FAIR & Reproducible Teaching with Quarto & Git”, taking place on Friday, March 20th 2026, 9:30 to 16:30 at University of Hamburg (VPM5, Room 4047). We are excited that you will be attending this course and look forward to participation in this course!

In preparation for the course, we kindly ask you to complete three short assignments: (1) check if you have Git installed, (2) check if you have Quarto installed and (3) answer a survey. In total, this should take about 15 minutes (not much longer).

1. Check Git installation

Please check if you have Git installed. You can find detailed instructions in the online Git course book here: https://lennartwittkuhn.com/version-control-book/chapters/installation.html. Windows users: Please install Git for Windows (https://gitforwindows.org). macOS and Linux users: You likely have Git already installed. Open the Terminal / Command Line and enter the command git --version. If a version number is shown, Git is installed. For more details, see the link to the online course book above.

2. Check Quarto installation

Please check if you have Quarto installed. You can find installation instructions in the Quarto documentation: https://quarto.org/docs/get-started/. In case you are using RStudio already, RStudio comes with a version of Quarto preinstalled. However, this version can be outdated because Quarto is updated more frequently than RStudio. It is therefore recommended to install a recent version of Quarto after installing RStudio. To check which version of Quarto is installed, open a Terminal / Command Line and enter the command quarto --version. If a version number is shown, Quarto is installed.

If you have any questions about the installation process, don’t hesitate to contact us. And please don’t forget to bring your laptop, with Git and Quarto installed, to the course! As an alternative, please check if you have access to https://code.min.uni-hamburg.de/. This is a JupyterHub platform provided by the university, where all relevant software is already installed.

3. Complete Survey

To tailor the course to your prior experience and needs, we have prepared a survey with a few questions. Please complete the survey before the course. This will give us sufficient time to review your responses before our first session.

The survey can be accessed here: https://rdm-course.formr.org.

A few technical notes about the survey: The survey will ask you for two codewords: a personal codeword and a course codeword.

The personal codeword is used to associate your responses with a unique identifier. This allows us to identify and relate your responses across all surveys used in the course while ensuring anonymity. By providing a personal codeword, you enable us to draw more detailed insights from your responses that will help us improve the course for you. The survey will contain an explanation at the beginning on how to generate your personal codeword.

The course codeword is used to tag your responses as coming from a course participant at University of Hamburg.

The course codeword is: -------- (course password will be announced during the course).

Please note that you may be asked for the codewords repeatedly. This is not an error in the survey but the result of combining separate smaller surveys into a longer one. If this happens, please simply enter the personal and course codeword again. Also, please don’t be confused by any mention of a course on “Version Control”.

Further information about the course can be found on our course website at https://lennartwittkuhn.com/fair-teaching-course/.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact us directly via email.

We look forward to seeing you at the course!

Best regards,

Lennart Wittkuhn (Instructor) and the organizing team