Hacky Hour

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Hacky Hour

Queensland currently has Hacky Hours at six universities.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, four of Queensland’s Hacky Hours are being held entirely online (UQ, QUT, CQU and USQ). Griffith and JCU are offering both an in-person and online service. See each institution’s Hacky Hour section below for more information.

Hacky Hour occurs regularly and its aim is to help researchers (staff and students) with research-related IT problems.

Hacky Hour is free, informal and all researchers are welcome to drop in for advice, or offer their IT expertise to help others.

Researchers attend Hacky Hour to ask or answer research-related IT questions. Popular topics for discussion include high performance computing (HPC), cloud computing, general programming, R, Python, data processing, data storage, and data management.

Check the relevant Hacky Hour’s Twitter feed, if there is one, for updates as occasionally a Hacky Hour is cancelled for a particular week when the regular IT experts are unavailable.

Please note: Most Hacky Hours end for the year in early to mid-December, and usually resume in late January or early February the following year. Check the relevant Hacky Hour’s Twitter feed (if there is one) or this webpage for updates.

Want to set up a Hacky Hour at your institution?

Amanda Miotto, QCIF’s eResearch Analyst at Griffith University, has created a Hacky Hour Handbook. Amanda co-founded Griffith’s Hacky Hour in August 2015.

Day: Tuesdays
Time: 3pm–4pm
Location: Café Nano, St Lucia campus
Twitter: @HackyHourStLuc
Website: hackyhourstluc.wordpress.com
Contact: Dr Nick Hamilton (n.hamilton@imb.uq.edu.au)
Special sessions (in addition to the usual research IT questions):

  • Bioinformatics Hacky Hour: First Tuesday of the month — come and ask bioinformatics analysis, software and pipeline questions.
  • BioLab Hacky Hour: Last Tuesday of the month — experts will answer your experimental design and technical sample processing questions to get you started in the lab.

Please note during the COVID-19 crisis: UQ’s Hacky Hour will be held online via Zoom on Tuesdays, 3pm–4pm. Please email the UQ Hacky Hour team for the Zoom ID: hackyhouruq@gmail.com. The ID is the same for each session, so once you have it, you can use it again to join in.

Day: Wednesdays
Time: 12pm–1pm
Location: Join online
Twitter: @hackyhourUSQ
Contact: hackyhour@usq.edu.au

Day: Fridays
Time: 10:30am–11:30am
Location: Cafe Rossa’s, Nathan, or Cafe Rossa’s, Gold Coast. Griffith’s Hacky Hour alternates weekly between the Nathan and Gold Coast campuses — check the Hacky Hour Griffith calendar. Online consults by appointment, email: hackyhour@griffith.edu.au.
Twitter: @hackyhourGU
Website: griffith.edu.au/hackyhour
Contact: hackyhour@griffith.edu.au

Day: Thursdays
Time: 2pm–3pm
Location: Alternating weekly between The Pantry cafe, Gardens Point campus, and Beadles cafe, Kelvin Grove campus.
Twitter: @QUTHackyHour
Contact: hackyhour@qut.edu.au

Please note during the COVID-19 crisis: QUT’s Hacky Hour will be held online via Zoom on Thursdays, 2pm–3pm. Please email hackyhour@qut.edu.au for the Zoom link.

Day: 2nd and 4th Wednesday of each month
Time: 2pm–3pm
Location: Online via Zoom.
Contact: Contact Jason Bell, QCIF’s CQU-based eResearch Analyst, for the Zoom links for each session: j.bell@cqu.edu.au.

Day: Every other Thursday (check the calendar)
Time: 1pm–2pm
Location:The Science Place Fish Tank, Townsville Bebegu Yumba campus
Twitter: @JCUHackyHour
Website: jcu.edu.au/eresearch/services
CodeR-TSV Website: codertsv.github.io
Contact: eresearch@jcu.edu.au 

Please note: JCU’s Hacky Hour is also running a Slack workspace, which will run in parallel to CodeR-TSV, a thriving student-driven initiative put together by diehard, code-writing scientists who use R (and other languages) to solve a diverse set of problems in their respective fields.

All JCU researchers and HDR students are invited to come along to Hacky Hour (if they can) and join both Slack workspaces. Whether it is face-to-face or on Slack, the diverse team of experts will provide answers to all research computing and coding questions.

“The walk-in Hacky Hour and Slack workspaces are designed to complement one another, by providing our users with options that suit their personal preference,” said QCIF’s JCU-based eResearch Analyst, Dr Stefano Montanari.

Both Slack workspaces will also feature information about upcoming training, workshops and events.