Data Sharing, Distribution and Updating Using Social Coding Community Github and LaTeX Packages in Graduate Research

Abstract

The paper concerns aspects of data sharing, distribution and updating using social coding community github and LaTeX packages in graduate research. The existing code-based program implemented in GitHub portal provides a great tool for scientists and students for data sharing and notification of the co-workers, tutors and supervisors involved in research about actual updates. It enables to connect collaborators to share around current results, release datasets and updates and many more. Using standard command-line interface GitHub allows registered users to push repositories on the site. The availability of both public and private repositories enables to share current data updates with target audience: e.g., unpublished research work only for co-authors or supervisors, or, vice versa, successfully defended. Therefore, there is a need in academic centers and universities to strongly popularize and increase the use of GitHub for student works. The case study is given on the graduate study: an MSc work successfully written and maintained using open source GitHub service at the University of Twente, Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (Netherlands) entitled “Seagrass monitoring and mapping along the coasts of Greece, Crete”. Current paper reports my own experience of management and organization of MSc thesis project. In spite of traditional and highly ineffective tool of MS Word, I used the effective combination of LaTeX tools with GitHub for data thesis is open for public. However, despite the evident usefulness and perspectives of GitHub, the existing users of GitHub mostly include the programmer communities and IT specialists.