TESA workshop on tools for transparent, traceable and transferable assessments

When: Tuesday 27th to Friday 30th November 2018 (note that these dates changed from the original announcement a while back).

Where: Coast Bastion Hotel, Nanaimo, BC.

Accommodation: The hotel has set aside 20 hotel rooms for 26th-30th November, at $117 each (Comfort Rooms). Phone group code CBI-GFC18589 or just use the link http://coa.st/yuk5.

Please book once you know your travel plans as they like to see some uptake of the rooms. In any case, any unbooked rooms will be released on 27th October.

Flights

Fly into Nanaimo airport (YCD). Air Canada Rouge now has direct flights from Toronto but not every day, so may be worth looking into.

Taxi is about $50 or there is a cheaper shuttle bus. Good idea to book either one ahead (there aren't always too many taxis at the airport). Taxi info here.

A workshop to foster a common understanding of modern methods and tools in DFO that enables an exchange of knowledge, data and methods for stock assessment. This should lead to a greater transparency and reproducibility in the assessment process in DFO.

Andrew Edwards (PBS) & Daniel Duplisea (IML)

We will introduce and demonstrate a number of tools that, when used together, give a very efficient workflow for working on large complex collaborative documents (and other projects).

A quick overview of some of the tools is:

Git and GitHub - a version control system for keeping track of changes to files and for collaborating with other users.

knitr - combines R code and write-up of results, such that reports can be automatically generated, and easily updated when, say, an assessment model is updated.

Rmarkdown - a simplified way to use knitr with very simple formatting commands

csasdown - an R package to format a Res Doc in the CSAS style

Note: The original idea for the workshop mentioned TMB (Template Model Builder) a fair bit as many people had taken the TESA TMB course in January 2018. However, we will focus more on building assessment documents based on the output of models, rather than running the models themselves. So whether the assessment model is run using TMB or something else is not so important for this workshop.

If anyone does have TMB code that they using operationally (we do have some but have not used it for real assessments yet) they can hopefully integrate it into the workshop. But knowledge of TMB is not necessary for everyone, and we may end up not mentioning it all unless someone has a working example.

Quick recap of Tuesday.

Simple knitr example and exercises using Rmarkdown, to show automatic (re)generation of figures and tables into a report (Edwards).

Minimal Working Example of building a Res Doc using csasdown; just use Sean's built-in example (Anderson?).

Guest speaker, 1:15pm Bruce Patten (PBS) - A data manager's perspective (10-15 mins)

Short talk Rob Kronlund (NCR) -- Defensible Science Advice

Overview of the day and plan for tomorrow |

Probably not needed now (since all covered in the csasdown example): Simplified version of Pacific Cod assessment, with some exercises for participants (Grandin). If the model changes and is re-run then the whole document is automatically updated, including figures, tables and values in the text. This is especially valuable for assessments conducted annually.

Maybe: further general tricks, tips and lessons learnt through our ongoing experiences with annual Pacific Hake, Pacific Herring and Pacific Cod assessments, and with the Groundfish synopsis report. We are gradually working out the best workflow for such projects.

Quick recap of Wednesday.

Thursday morning - Rpackages introduction (Anderson?). Originally we were not going to include this, but having everything in packages does make life easier. And it helps to understand how packages are structured (when you want to delve into them). A short intro will help participants be able to read Hadley Wickham's free Rpackages book.

Technical Report example, including ongoing building of Proceedings for this meeting (Grinnell).

Translation (the fourth T?) This is becoming more of an issue with people being asked to shorten their assessment documents to save on translation costs. And it is creating delays in getting Res Docs published (which is particularly problematic for annual assessments).

Guest speaker, 1:15pm. Ann Mariscak from our local CSAS office will talk about the translation rules and what is working for getting Res Docs (in particular) translated.

We could look at Rowan Haigh's linguaFranca() R function, line 1007 here. And maybe share code from participants from other regions.

Brainstorming regarding best way of creating figures in both languages.

Breakout groups? One to start a plotting package, or at least file of common translations of technical terms (that people can then use themselves). Another to work on Proceedings - will be good practice for collaborating on a common document.

To be determined by participants' desires. We should practice collaborating by making further examples. The best way to get the idea of these tools is by using them, and it helps to do this not during the busy process of actually doing an assessment. And in having a roomful of people to help you.

Short talk on experiences using GitLab enterprise (Ricard).

Form some working groups to, for example, generalise some code?

Wrap up (Duplisea and Edwards).

Other further ideas, keeping here for now

Participants to improve the existing code for documentation, producing figures and tables. They would extend code in a way that is generalisable, understandable and usable by others (e.g. R functions that are documented with options), while satisfying their local needs. Simpler surplus-production and delay-difference model examples could also be built. Participants can use their own existing code and make it generalisable to be used by others.

As an example, there are likely many versions of R code that people use to display results of stock status with respect to the DFO Precautionary-Approach diagram. We could agree on one standardised (but still customisable) version across DFO.

Original motivation The workshop is very timely as it builds on the recent TESA "Introduction to TMB workshop" that DFO participants attended and gave very favourable reviews. If DFO stock assessment scientists are going to convert their existing models into TMB then it makes sense to at least start from some common methdology. This will also make it easier to incorporate ecosystem effects into such models, since TMB code is relatively short, and common starting point will allow assessors in different regions to build upon each others' experiences. Current thinking TMB will not be a major part of the workshop, but if people do move towards TMB in the future then this workshop will help that, and if they don't plan on using TMB then the workshop is still completely appropriate for building assessment documents.

Note that the aim is not to have all assessors using the exact same models (or to build something like Stock Synthesis), but to start from a similar understanding, to share understanding in building stock assessment documents, and to generate efficiencies by easily sharing computer code.

We will have a group dinner for those interested -Thursday 6:30pm at the Firehouse Grill.

Very proficient in R: know how to write functions, construct and tailor figures.

Knowledge of LaTeX desirable but not essential, since Rmarkdown and pandoc will also be introduced.

Some TMB knowledge may be desirable - if you have a TMB model that you use then please share it (we do not have any operational models yet in Pacific Region).

We will need some R packages:

install.packages("dplyr",
                        "kableExtra",
                        "xtable",
                        "devtools")

and then to get csasdown:

devtools::install_github("pbs-assess/csasdown")

Proceedings (Can. Tech. Rep.), which can hopefully be collaboratively written during the workshop as an example of efficiently producing a document.

GitHub repositories to share code.

(From Susan's 23rd July spreadsheet, Andy updated Pacific participants, then continually updating as necessary).

If you cannot attend then please email me and your local TESA rep.

For email list: Add Philina and Robyn. Leave Brooke, Jackie and Marianne on emails even though they can't make it. First day - no Catarina, Michael.

[If we want breakout room, Dunsmuir is available Wed-Fri, $250 per day].