Training Workshop on Data Science and AI Tools for Beginners

Held on 30 September 2026 · Bayes Business School, City St George's, University of London, 106 Bunhill Row, London EC1Y 8TZ

What Participants Say

Extremely well set up and helpful, would have liked more time on the day or spread over a day and a half

"It is a great opportunity to systematically get to know the basics of git, codespace, and AI-assisted coding 😃"

"The broad introduction to different coding platforms was very useful for beginners."

"I found the workshop very useful, especially as someone with no formal background in data science or AI. I appreciate the time and effort that went into making the workshop accessible for beginners."

"The workshkop made me realise that coding, NLP and web crawling are not as difficult or inaccessible as they may initially seem. ...

With the support of AI, and Dr Yim’s introduction to a range of useful tools and platforms, I felt as though I was “standing on the shoulders of giants” rather than starting from scratch. Most importantly, the workshop showed me that learning these skills is really about practice. I came away feeling much more confident that, with continued practice, I can learn to use these methods effectively in my own research."

"I would definitely recommend joining the workshop, ...

especially if you are a PhD student who is curious about data science, AI, or coding but has not had formal training in these areas. The workshop is beginner-friendly and gives you a chance to try the tools yourself rather than just learning about them in theory. It gave me the confidence to continue exploring them after the workshop. You do not need to be a computer scientist or have previous coding experience. Come with an open mind and think about one or two ways these tools might be useful for your own PhD."

A Taste of What's Inside

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Why These Tools Matter

This workshop introduces a connected toolkit for modern research. Here's what you'll explore and how each piece fits together:

Together, these tools form a pipeline: write and edit code (VS Code, marimo/Jupyter) → get AI assistance (GitHub Copilot, LLM APIs) → run it in the cloud (Codespaces, Lightning.ai, Posit Cloud) → collect data (web scraping/crawling, PDF extraction) → analyse it (NLP, n-grams, lemmatization) → manage and share it all (GitHub, Python/R).

Training Workshop on Data Science and AI Tools for Beginners

30 September 2026

Curious about Python, R, GitHub Copilot, web scraping, natural language processing (NLP) or related tools/techniques — but haven't had a chance to try them out yet? Maybe you've also heard of tools/platforms like Jupyter, marimo, VS Code, Codespaces, GitHub, Lightning.ai, or techniques and concepts like web crawling, n-grams, lemmatization but they still feel a bit out of reach?

Then this beginner-friendly, hands-on workshop is for you! In just one day, you'll get to explore some of these tools and techniques that can facilitate your research. No prior experience with Python or R is required — but participants must complete the self-learning preliminaries before the workshop (see Advance preparation below).

Rather than teaching a programming language from the ground up, the workshop uses a learn-by-doing approach: we'll guide you through ready-made demo code that you can modify and experiment with, and show you how AI coding assistants (like GitHub Copilot) can act as your learning and research partner. By the end of the day, you'll have taken your first steps into using these tools to support your research.

Workshop Arrangement

This one-day workshop is organised and delivered by Dr Andrew Yim, Bayes Business School, City St George's, University of London and supported by the Pathway and Thematic training funding from the SeNSS/SENSS Student Cohort Development Fund (SCDF). The workshop will be held in the Bayes Business School Building at 106 Bunhill Row, London EC1Y 8TZ. The nearest Underground stations are Old Street, Moorgate, and Barbican.

Attendees will have hands-on experience in using various data science and AI tools through cloud computing environments. They are required to:

Advance preparation

Accounts. Sign up for free-tier accounts on the following platforms (at least a week before the workshop):

Preliminary self-learning materials. Registered participants will receive an email with the materials, which must be completed prior to the Workshop. The materials include:

Target Audience

This is a training workshop for beginners, with minimal to no prior experience, who see the relevance and importance of using data science tools for their research and using AI tools to self-learn/assist coding for research. Participants are expected to complete the preliminary self-learning materials beforehand, so that the Workshop can focus on applications. This workshop is not suitable for those who have already used most of the mentioned tools and techniques on a regular basis.

Priority will be given to SENSS/SeNSS students who can benefit most from the workshop. Unfilled places will be offered to unfunded students from SENSS/SeNSS institutions and other ESRC funded Doctoral Training Partnerships (DTPs).

Further Details

Application

Please email a CV and a brief description about the below to Dr Andrew Yim (a.yim@citystgeorges.ac.uk) by the extended deadline on 17 September 2026:

Acceptance notification will be sent by 18 September 2026. Online registration must be submitted by 21 September 2026.