Welcome back, Datascapers! I'm incredibly excited for this new year at CMU, and my official second semester here at CMU Libraries. I've already learned so much in my new role here, including that the Rohr Café in Gates is my favorite matcha spot on campus, cutting through Baker and Porter Hall when I need to get to Sorrells Library is a great way to avoid the cold, and the Craig Street area is a delightfully wonderful spot for lunch or finding Magic the Gathering cards. In the data realm, I've gotten the opportunity to work with a variety of students, staff, and faculty on engaging data projects and educational initiatives, and I hope to continue that momentum in 2020. Yay!
I'm devoting this first issue of Tartan Datascapes in 2020 to this semester's lineup of exciting workshops at CMU Libraries. Did you know that each semester we offer dozens of FREE educational workshops open to students, staff, and faculty across campus? Did you know that these workshops are taught by subject experts and overall really fantastic people? Any chance I get to brag on my coworkers, I take it! I work with some of the most talented people I've met thus far in my career, and I feel really grateful that I get to work and learn among these folks. I can 100% vouch that the workshops taught by the folks in CMU Libraries are high-quality, rigorously-developed with the most current and accurate information, and most importantly, fun!
What can you expect in a workshop created and hosted by CMU Libraries? Our workshops blend hands-on immersion into a particular tool, concept, or activity with useful information and background on the topic at hand. Our lineup for spring 2020 includes several fascinating data-themed workshops ranging from topics in media archaeology to text analysis, and even zine-making! Here's a list of some of the tools and concepts you can explore in our workshops this semester:
- Zotero, a free, open source tool for helping you collect, organize, cite and share your research sources (these count as data!)
- Tableau, an interactive data visualization platform
- R, a programming language and free software environment for statistical computing and graphics
- Jupyter Notebook, open-source web application for creating and share documents that contain live code, equations, visualizations and narrative text
- Media archaeology and fascinating forms of audiovisual data
- Data visualization
- Zines (also a source of data!)
- Gerrymandering and census data
- Writing a data management plan for a grant
- Twitter data
- + much more! See the complete list here: https://www.library.cmu.edu/about/publications/news/upcoming-workshops.
Do you have suggestions for workshops you'd like to see in the future? Want to attend a workshop but it overlaps with something already in your schedule? Please feel free to email me and let's come up with a plan. Our goal at CMU Libraries is to support you and all of your educational endeavours on our campus, and we're here to help!
What's in store for this next year of Tartan Datascapes? Lots of exciting research features from a variety of topics ranging from biomedical engineering, social justice, to Buggy (yes!), and highlights of the ways CMU Libraries can enhance your data experience while you are here on campus. I can also promise lots of helpful resources (such as workshops and event information) and exclamation points!
And of course, please email me at hgunderm@andrew.cmu.edu if you'd like some help on your journey as a researcher/scholar/awesome human being here at CMU. Remember, we all use data, regardless of our discipline. If you think something might be data, you are likely correct and I can help you develop good habits for managing it! If you'd like to have your research data featured on Tartan Datascapes, please fill out this Google Form to get in touch!