Love Data Week 2022

graphic representation of International Love Data Week

 

Love Data Week

UC celebrates International Love Data Week. Feb 14-18, 2022.

UC Libraries will celebrate Love Data Week by hosting several workshops and events around campus.

Love Data Week was started to promote data use in higher education by a collection of academic librarians. It has grown into an international movement where data resources, workshops and collections are showcased during Valentine’s Day week. Learn more about its history and other events at https://myumi.ch/ICPSRldw2022events. #LoveData22

The theme this year is “Data is for Everyone.”
Sponsored by the Research and Data Services Department at UC Libraries along with Office of Research -Research Technologies-Research Computing and Data and the Graduate School, there are events daily to support researchers in every aspect of the data lifecycle from Library, Research Computing, and graduate student team members.

Featuring classes on storage and sharing (GitHub), using GIS to tell a story in a user-friendly format (Intro to Story Maps), data analysis, Introduction to XSEDE Big Data and Machine learning, organizing information (for Grad Students), protecting your own data (Consumer Data Protection), and finding data through patents (Find Patents!), this week will have something for everyone! Continue reading

Man Qi joins RDS team as a student research consultant

Man QiMan Qi is joining UC Libraries’ Research and Data Services (RDS) team as a student research consultant where she will provide consultations in the Data & GIS Collab in the Geology-Mathematics-Physics Library.

Her expertise is GIS software, hydrological modeling, SWMM modeling, geographic data processing, spatial analysis, map design, Python and R.

Man Qi is a PhD candidate in Geography & GIS from UC’s College of Arts and Sciences. She is passionate about helping others with data visualization and spatial data analysis. Her main job is to provide support to our UC community in spatial data processing and analysis (e.g., location analysis, spatial interpolation), map design and making using GIS techniques and hydrological modeling using SWMM. In addition, she also works with UC RDS team to develop workshops according to the UC community’s needs in learning GIS techniques, such as ArcGIS StoryMaps workshop.

Welcome, Man!

UC’s Digital Scholarship Center presents “Digital Integrator and Transdisciplinary Research Partner”

This Association of College and Research Libraries’ (ACRL) Spring 2021 Digital Scholarship Section featured “Digital Integrator & Transdisciplinary Research Partner,” a virtual panel highlighting the University of Cincinnati’s Digital Scholarship Center’s (DSC) unique model and work with research teams focused on misinformation and missing information.

The DSC partnered with UC Libraries’ Research and Data Services Team and the Department of Journalism to research Twitter’s impact on misinformation, false information and conspiracy theories about coronavirus. Using machine learning and linguistic analysis, the team also partnered with Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center to understand the role of missing information in electronic health records as it relates to social determinants of health. During the presentation, the panel discussed the unique organization of the DSC and its partnerships on campus and how health information professionals and the DSC work together on research projects involving social media, social justice and social determinants of health. The recording and slides are available online.

cover slide for presentation Continue reading

Love Data Week, Feb 8-12, 2021.

Love Data Week 2021

Love Data Week 2021

Love Data Week takes place the week of Valentine’s Day. Created to raise awareness of research data management, sharing, reuse, and preservation of data, it has been promoted by library and data professionals since 2016 in both online and in-person events.  You can see some of the events taking place around the world at the International Love Data Week 2021 schedule.

One of the ways we at RDS/UCL celebrate is to participate in the Adopt a Dataset program that ICPSR hosts every year.  ICPSR choses to highlight interesting data sets from their collection for individuals to explore to learn more about data. Once a dataset is chosen, you may fill out the Dataset adoption form and have your name added to the wall of adopters.  Adopters are encouraged to delve into the data by reading about the research, look at the variables, try out the analysis tools online, and read related publications.

ICPSR is a member consortium that UC belongs to that provides access to datasets from over 15,000 studies, over 5.6 million variables, which have had over 95,000 publications that cited those studies. It also provides curated data repository services for researchers, including secure data enclaves, which fulfill finding requirements for data management plans. Although most studies are quantitative in the social and behavioral sciences, there are also themed collections in the arts, humanities, and some health sciences. Teaching resources, online analysis tools, and pre-made exercise modules also are available to members.

There are a wide variety of datasets to choose from this year, ranging from education, to social media, social justice, to health. I chose to adopt one on music, Study of Jazz Artists, 2001 (ICPSR 35593). I started out by looking at the description of the study and how it was conducted. I then jumped into browsing the variables, one of the tabs found on the data set page. One of the great features of ICPSR is that you can search by variable if you are looking for specific studies to replicate or want to see if your own survey questions fit what others have asked in the past.

One variable jumped out at me – Q32- Age Began Playing First Instrument. My own children play instruments and I always wonder if we’ve started them at the right age or not. Looking at the result for this variable, I can see the unweighted results, including summary statistics and a variables chart. The median age was 9, the mode was 10, the maximum was 35, and the minimum was 1! I guess there’s still hope if you’re in your 30s to pick up an instrument to become a professional jazz musician!   The sweet spot to start your child appears to be the 8-10 year old range.

If you have questions about Love Data Week,  ICPSR, Data, Data Management Plans, Cleaning, Storing, Finding, or Using Data, contact us at Research and Data Services here at UC Libraries. We would love to help you with your projects, offer a workshop to your department or class, or discuss your data needs.

3C GIS Day Nov. 18 to explore power of geospatial analysis and visualization to answer research questions and solve real-world problems

GIS graphicJoin us Wednesday, November 18, 9:00am – 4:00pm for GIS Day, an annual event for students, staff, faculty, and the broader community to learn more about Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and to celebrate the power of geospatial analysis and visualization in answering research questions and solving real-world problems.

The 2020 GIS Day program, called 3C GIS Day, is a collaboration between The Ohio State UniversityCase Western Reserve University, and the University of Cincinnati.

This exciting virtual program will include four tracks of lightning talks highlighting diverse applications of geospatial methods and technologies, an ArcGIS StoryMaps Showcase featuring contributions from the three sponsoring institutions, as well as provide opportunities for professional networking and development.

Registration is now open for the 3C GIS Day and the 3C StoryMaps Showcase

The event is free, online, and open to all.  Questions can be sent to ASKData@UC.Edu.

Dorcas Washington takes on new role of data analytics specialist on the Research and Data Services Team

dorcas washingtonDorcas Washington, formerly content analyst on the Content Services Team, has transitioned to the new role of data analytics specialist on the Research and Data Services (RDS) Team.

In her new role, Dorcas will provide leadership and expertise in the areas of quantitative and qualitative data analysis, as well as play a leading role in developing and executing a research reproducibility support program across disciplines. Dorcas holds a BA in mathematics, an MS in applied statistics with a concentration in bio-statistics and has recently been accepted into UC’s PhD program for environmental health: bio-statistics. In her new role, she will be able to utilize her knowledge and skill set to its fullest and to build upon her experiences gained as a member of the Content Services Team.

As data analytics specialist, Dorcas will be responsible for:

  • Leading library services related to the evaluation, manipulation and visualization of data and the use of statistical tools
  • Developing and delivering scalable research and data-related services and resources in collaboration with RDS, with the Digital Scholarship Center, and others as appropriate
  • Leading the development and implementation of consultation and instruction services for statistical and analytical methods
  • Promoting best practices for ethical and reproducible data production, analysis and dissemination
  • Developing and coding executable programs to automate processes to perform computational inquiries
  • Co-managing Informatics Lab operations within the Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library.

“I look forward to getting back to my roots of mathematics and statistics by utilizing those skills to help people further research at UC,” said Dorcas. “This position interested me because it’s doing work I enjoy with a diverse group of people (students, faculty, staff and more).”

Those interested in services, should contact RDS via e-mail askdata@uc.edu.