This week’s lab guides you through all the required steps for registering for your course accounts and getting your user environment properly set up for the rest of the semester. This lab is not really a true lab, instead it’s all the preliminary steps you’ll need to follow to get set up for the rest of the semester.

The main tasks you’ll be completing are as follows:

  1. Fill out and submit your FERPA Release Form

  2. Register for an API key from the US Census Bureau

  3. Accept the Slack workspace invitation by registering for your account

  4. Create a GitHub account and accept the invitation to join the GitHub course organization

  5. Set-up RStudio

FERPA Release Form for Email Addresses

According to recent changes in Virginia state law regarding the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), student email addresses are now classified as protected information. This change extends to the sending of third-party registration invitations to student emails for GitHub and Slack, two platforms that we will be using during the semester.

To give your formal consent for using your email address to send invitations to create accounts on the platforms used during CDS 101 and CDS 102, please sign the FERPA waiver and return it to your lab instructor.

Your email address will only be used for the purpose of sending these account invitations and the waiver is only valid for the time period and section of CDS 102 listed on the form.

The waiver will be posted on Blackboard. Please sign the waiver and submit it on Blackboard. You can either (1) print the form, sign it, and scan it, or (2) sign it digitally using a PDF signing tool (e.g. some PDF readers, or one of the many free online PDF signing services).

Get an API Key from the US Census Bureau

Register for an “API key” with the Census Bureau here: https://api.census.gov/data/key_signup.html

You should receive an email with your key - it will be a random string of characters. Do not share this with anyone, and do not commit it to GitHub. It can take a few days for them to send you the email.

You will need this key for one of the labs later in the semester.

Account registrations

Join the Slack workspace

After submitting your FERPA waiver, you will receive an email at your @gmu.edu email address inviting you to join the Slack workspace for the current semester of CDS 101 and CDS 102. Make sure to complete the registration as soon as possible, as Slack is the primary communication medium for this course and will completely replace email communications after the first week.

You must register for this Slack workspace with your @gmu.edu email (do not use a personal email).

Note: you will use the same Slack workspace for both CDS 101 and CDS 102 (so you will only receive a single invitation email - if you have already been invited by your 101 instructor, you will not be invited again).

The following YouTube video is an introduction to Slack and reviews the basics of how to use the application. Watch this video after you have completed your account registration.

Create a GitHub account

Step-by-step instructions on how to register for a GitHub account are available here: https://cdsbook.github.io/book/src/book/02_setup.html#step-1-create-a-github-account. Please follow these instructions to create an account using your GMU email.

If you already have a GitHub account, you will need to associate your GMU email with it (assuming it is not already). To do this on GitHub.com, sign in and go to your Email Settings (https://github.com/settings/emails), and add another email.

If you have already created a GitHub account for CDS 101 then you should use that same account in this course and proceed to the next step.

Setting up RStudio

In this course we will be using a programming language called R. We will write all our R code in a code editor called RStudio. You have two options for using RStudio - you can either:

Note that if you have already installed

The choice of which to use is up to you as they are functionally equivalent. You can also switch between them at any point. For example, you might decide to start with the online version since that is the easiest to get started with.

Option 1: Install RStudio on your own computer

RStudio is available for free, so this option will not cost you anything. However, you will also need to install several other pieces of software to run the course assignments. To do so, follow the instructions in section 2.4.1 of the supplementary notes: https://cdsbook.github.io/book/src/book/02_setup.html#sec-rstudio-desktop-installation

If you already have RStudio installed (e.g. from another class) then you are welcome to use that. However, make sure that you are using R vesion 4.2 or later, and have Git and Latex installed on your computer (see the link above for how to install them).

Option 2: Use the online RStudio

The company behind RStudio provide an online version of the software that you can access at https://posit.cloud.

This is free to use for up to 25 hours per month. After that you will need to upgrade to to the paid tier to continue using the software, which currently costs $5. You can always switch to the free desktop version if you hit this threshold and decide that you don’t want to pay.

To setup an account using the online version of RStudio, follow the instructions in section 2.4.2 of the supplementary course textbook - https://cdsbook.github.io/book/src/book/02_setup.html#option-2-create-an-account-at-posit-cloud

Connect GitHub and RStudio

Finally you will need to create a special password (called a token) so that RStudio can access the code that you have stored at GitHub.

To do that, follow the instructions here: https://cdsbook.github.io/book/src/book/02_setup.html#sec-rstudio-github-connection

If you run into problems, then please reach out to your instructor or post a message in the Slack #tech-support channel.

Credits

This lab is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Exercises and instructions written by James Glasbrenner and Dominic White for CDS 102.