Call for Participation: midd.data and Axinn Center for the Humanities Data Workshop Series

Workshop Series Description:
Do you have an idea for a data-driven humanities project, but you are not sure where to start? Do you have a humanities-centered research question that can only be answered with data analysis?  Consider participating in the Humanities Data Workshop Series, brought to you by midd.data and the Axinn Center for the Humanities with support from Middlebury’s data librarians Wendy Shook and Ryan Clement. In this beginners workshop you will learn how to collect, organize, structure, clean, and visualize your data. Depending on the needs of the participants, other topics may also be introduced.

This workshop series will meet 6 times over the course of the academic year for 90 minutes each. We anticipate meeting sometime during week 3 (Fri 10/1) and week 8 (Fri 11/6) ) in the fall semester and once during winter term (Fri 1/21/22).  Spring semester meetings are TBD. There will also be optional open lab time in between workshops. 

Please note: We ask that all participants attend all of the workshops.
Interested faculty should register for the workshop series HERE by September 10th. Please have the following information ready:

* What is your project about and/or what is your research question? Please provide a short description (2-3 sentences) of your project/research question. Please note: your project/research question does not need to be large-scale or fully conceptualized.


* What is your data and where will your data come from? Having an existing data set is not a requirement for participation (though it is welcome), but you should have a sense of what your data will be. If you are not sure where to find your data, describe it and maybe we can help you find it!

* What skills would best help you with your research?
       *Collecting, organizing, and structuring your data
       *Web scraping (allows you to retrieve data from the web)
       *Using APIs (allows you to interface with other computer systems and databases)
       *Cleaning and linking data (e.g. OpenRefine)
       *Data visualization (e.g. Tableau, R)
      *Text Mining (extracting information from unstructured written sources)
      *Network analysis software (e.g. Gephi, Cytoscape)
      *Coding skills (e.g. R, Python)
      *I have no idea what any of this means (and that’s okay!)

Are there any other tools or skills you are interested in learning? (We’ll try, but we may not be able to accommodate all requests)

Are you unsure if this program is for you? Have questions? Please contact Carrie Anderson (carriea@middlebury.edu) who can help you decipher any and all of this!