Data Carpentry Workshop for Social Science and Humanities Research

General Information

Data Carpentry workshops are for any researcher who has data they want to analyze, and no prior computational experience is required.

This two-day event is aimed at researchers in the social sciences, humanities and other disciplines who want to learn how to use popular tools for data cleaning, management and visualisation in a hands-on, interactive workshop. The workshop assumes no prior experience, but participants will need to bring their own computers with working copies of the relevant software. Everything we are using can be freely downloaded and installed, and instructions will be provided to participants beforehand.

Our facilitators will be available in the venue 15 minutes before the session to help sort out any last-minute problems with software installation or you can contact Martin Callaghan for help if you are in Leeds.

The workshop will introduce researchers to:

Data cleaning with OpenRefine:

A powerful interactive data transformation tool which has a user-friendly interface allowing you to automatically remove duplicate records, separate multiple values contained in the same field, analyse the distribution of values through a dataset and group together different representations of the same reality.

Visualising data with Python:

A popular programming language in scientific computing which is also widely used by humanities scholars and social scientists working with data. By the end of the workshop learners should be able to more effectively manage and analyze data and be able to apply the tools and approaches directly to their ongoing research.

Introduction to SQL (Structured Query Language):

An introduction to relational database management systems using SQLite. SQL is used as the query language for many research data sources.

Participants should bring their laptops and plan to participate actively. By the end of the workshop learners should be able to more effectively manage and analyze data and be able to apply the tools and approaches directly to their ongoing research.

Who: The course is aimed at postgraduate students and other researchers.

Where: IT Services Building, Room 8.03b (IT Meeting Room 1). Get directions with OpenStreetMap or Google Maps.

Requirements: Participants must bring a laptop with a Mac, Linux, or Windows operating system (not a tablet, Chromebook, etc.) that you have administrative privileges on. You should have a few specific software packages installed (listed below). They are also required to abide by Data Carpentry's Code of Conduct.

Contact: Please mail h.ford@leeds.ac.uk for more information.

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Preliminary Schedule

Surveys

Please be sure to complete these surveys before and after the workshop.

Pre-workshop Survey

Post-workshop Survey

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Setup

To participate in a Data Carpentry workshop, you will need working copies of the described software. Please make sure to install everything (or at least to download the installers) before the start of your workshop. Participants should bring and use their own laptops to insure the proper setup of tools for an efficient workflow once you leave the workshop.

Please follow these Setup Instructions.

We maintain a list of common issues that occur during installation as a reference for instructors that may be useful on the Configuration Problems and Solutions wiki page.