You can lead a horse to water …

Changing the data science culture for veterinary scientists

Jill MacKay | Senior Lecturer (Veterinary Science Education), University of Edinburgh

This talk is about:

Environment management

environment <- culture

• How do we make the vet school environment compatible with the Posit::Conf environment?

Posit::Conf Environment

session_position <- function(affirmation = "Aye!") {
  paste0("Should everyone be on board with good data science practice? ", 
         affirmation)
}

Edinburgh::Vet Environment

vet_environ <- list("Roslin" = c("Dolly the Sheep", 
                                 "Covid Experts", 
                                 "Bioinformatics"),
                     "R(D)SVS" = c("Day 1 Competent Vets", 
                                   "One World Health"),
                     "Edinburgh" = c("International Impact", 
                                     "Local Impact"))

By the end of this talk

I will describe our three approaches:

• Changing formal data science teaching
• Changing workplace culture
• Changing operational practice

You tell me what I’m missing

Formal Data Science Teaching

Our Teaching

R(D)SVS Educational Programmes (* Exit degree, ** Residential Programme).

Public Engagement	Undergraduate	Postgraduate Taught	Postgraduate Research
Open Educational Resources (MOOCs)	Bachelors of Veterinary Medicine and Surgery, Bachelors of Science (Agriculture) , Bachelors of Science (Veterinary Science)*	Applied Animal Behaviour and Animal Welfare (On Campus) , Animal Biosciences (On Campus) , Planetary Health (Blended) , Sustainable Lands and Cities (Blended) , Advanced Clinical Practice (Online) , Advanced Veterinary Practice (Online) , Applied Conservation Genetics with Wildlife Forensics (Online), Applied Poultry Science (Online) , Clinical Animal Behaviour (Online) , Conservation Medicine (Online) , Equine Science (Online) , Food Safety (Online) , Global Food Security and Nutrition (Online) , International Animal Welfare, Ethics and Law (Online) , One Health (Online) , Veterinary Anaesthesia and Analgesia (Online) , Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine (Resident)**	Masters by Research , Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Undergraduate

• Vets
  • Curriculum overload
  • Optional R teaching in research projects
• Ag BScs
  • All stats teaching in R from 1st year

Postgraduate

• Taught programmes
  • New role created: “Stats Guru”
• New courses within each programme
  • Stats teaching in R
• Campus support for R Teaching
  • R @ R(D)SVS

And we taught R forever more . . .

renv::dependencies()

                Source            Package 
1               Campus/VetSchool  skilledPeople
2               Campus/VetSchool  staffTime
3               Campus/VetSchool  studentSatisfaction

Workplace culture

Data Methods Club

skilledPeople::IanHandel("Data Methods Club")

DMC Aims

We want it to be as easy to ask for help with analysis, as it is to ask for extra reagent in a lab

DMC Approaches

• Book club
• PARTYs (Protected Analysis in R Time (Yay!))
• Occasional sessions
• Email help

Adopted Recurse Center Social Rules

And we supported R forever more …

renv::dependencies()

                Source            Package 
1               Global/           globalPandemic
2               Campus/VetSchool  staffTime


skilledPeople::IanHandel()

> Warning message:
> `IanHandel()` is deprecated as of skilledPeople v2019
> There are a range of other people instead (suggest JillyMacKay())

Operational Practice

Quality Assurance

As a vet school, we have a LOT of quality assurance

R(D)SVS’ new Director of Quality Assurance and Enhancement …

Sharing practice

• Teaching data often managed by Teaching Organisations and highly confidential.

• Quality Assurance of Teaching Data Project Page - https://jillymackay.com/project/quality-assurance-of-teaching-data/

• Sharing analyses with other institutions - https://jillymackay.com/talk/veted-2023/

The Veterinary Data Science Culture

Where is veterinary science at?

!remindme(10 years)

But what are my key learnings . . . ?

require(skilledPeople)
require(staffTime)

is:issue skilledPeople in:title

1 Open
skilledPeople updates too often #1 opened on Jun 24 by jillymackay

1 Closed
skilledPeople updates too often Won’t update: this is a feature, not a bug. #1 closed on Sep 19 by jillymackay

Suggest utilise extensive documentation

See:

• Glasgow has PsyTeachR

• Our QA work Project page

is:issue R Is Hard in:title

1 Open
R is really complicated and time consuming #2 opened on Aug 16 by jillymackay

1 Closed
R is really complicated and time consuming Make use of the many tools available #2 closed on Sep 19 by jillymackay

Prescribe tidyverse and an IDE. Ensure using right tool for job.

See:

• Global Academy of Agriculture and Food security short courses

is:issue politics in:title

1 Open
Not sure this is possible in neoliberal Higher Ed #3 opened on Sep 13 by jillymackay

1 Closed
Not sure this is possible in neoliberal Higher Ed This is a replication of the capitalism issue. #3 closed on Sep 19 by jillymackay

Acknowledge and provide time for these skills

See:

• ?

Questions?

Edinburgh’s free consult time.

http://pos.it/slido-B