As researchers and scholars we depend on software to get our work done. But often, we do not know enough about how our computers work. Nor are we encouraged to reflect on why they work the way they do, or given any basic grounding in such matters as part of our training. Instead we end up fending for ourselves and pick things up informally. Or, instead of getting on with the task at hand, course instructors are forced to spend time quickly bringing people up to speed about where that document went, or what a file is, or why “that didn’t work” just now. In the worst case, we never get a feel for this stuff at all and end up marinating in an admixture of magical thinking about and sour resentment towards the machines we sit in front of for hours each day, and will likely sit in front of for the rest of our careers.

All of that is bad. This course is meant to help.

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