Methods Vault

Methods Vault

Your personal research workspace in Obsidian

A pre-configured note-taking environment that organizes your journals, literature notes, project files, and textbook chapters in one place — synced to GitHub for version control.

Download Methods Vault (.zip)

What’s Inside

The Methods Vault is an Obsidian workspace template designed specifically for this course. When you unzip it, you get a ready-to-use folder structure:

Methods_Vault/
├── 00_START_HERE.md         --- Your first stop: setup instructions
├── 00_Inbox/                --- Quick capture for unprocessed notes
├── 01_Journal/              --- Weekly reading reflections (pushed to GitHub)
├── 02_Literature/           --- Reading notes and Zotero annotations
├── 03_Project/              --- Your research project hub
│   ├── 01_Prospectus/       --- Research design (Week 6)
│   ├── 02_Codebook/         --- Data dictionary (Week 9)
│   ├── 03_Data/             --- Raw CSV files and analysis (Weeks 10--13)
│   └── 04_Drafts/           --- Report drafts and final portfolio (Weeks 15--17)
├── 04_Resources/            --- PDFs, images, and attachments
├── 05_Textbook/             --- All 22 chapters for offline reading
└── 99_Templates/            --- Reusable templates for journals and data dictionaries

Setup Guide

Step 1: Download and Unzip

Download the .zip file above and unzip it to a location you’ll remember (e.g., Documents/MC451/).

Step 2: Open in Obsidian

  1. Download Obsidian (free)
  2. Open Obsidian and click Open folder as vault
  3. Navigate to the unzipped Methods_Vault folder
  4. When prompted about community plugins, click Trust author and enable plugins

Step 3: Read the Start Guide

Open 00_START_HERE.md inside the vault. It walks you through the folder structure and settings.

Step 4: Connect to GitHub (Week 3)

In Week 3, you’ll initialize the vault as a Git repository using GitHub Desktop. From that point forward, you’ll commit and push your journal entries weekly.

TipWhy GitHub?

Pushing your vault to GitHub gives you a backup, a history of your work, and a way for Dr. Leith to see your journal entries. It also introduces version control — a skill you’ll use again in the final portfolio.

How It Connects to the Course

Tool Role Relationship to Vault
Methods Vault (Obsidian) Think, plan, reflect Your primary writing workspace
coursepackR (R package) Access assignments and data download_week() delivers templates you work on in RStudio, then reflect on in your vault journal
R Workbook Learn R skills Read the workbook chapters online or work through them in RStudio
Textbook Conceptual foundations All chapters are in 05_Textbook/ inside the vault for offline reading

Weekly Workflow

  1. Monday: Run download_week("mc451", N) in R to get the week’s assignment template
  2. During the week: Complete the assignment in RStudio, read the textbook chapter
  3. Before class: Write your journal entry in 01_Journal/ using the template
  4. After class: Commit and push your vault to GitHub via GitHub Desktop

Detailed Setup Guides

For step-by-step instructions with screenshots, see: