During the workshop, participants will learn how to efficiently handle problems of data management with Stata and how to avoid repetition by automating (and programming) tasks. The workshop is not an introduction to Stata, but will feature “best practice” of Stata usage in order to modify existing do-files (or create new ones) to be reproducible, maintainable, and efficient. The tips and tricks will refer mainly to data preparation and management, but they can also be used to automate workflows in data analysis. After presenting the main techniques and commands relevant for such automation tasks, the workshop will switch focus to interactive work, where participants will learn to produce efficient Stata syntax by themselves.

Advanced Stata users who are already familiar with the software and have a fundamental interest in programming in Stata.

Participants will learn how to apply advanced programming techniques to create stand-alone Stata programs that can be re-used and/or distributed.

Participants should have at least moderate experience in using Stata; i.e. they should know about data manipulation commands like reshape and merge and be capable to regularly use them. They are supposed to prepare a short verbal presentation featuring a typical Data Management or Data Analysis task (or a combination of both) they perform on a regular basis for the first session. During the course, this task may serve as an example case of automating procedures with Stata.