By Melinda Fricke One of the most exciting parts about working for D-Lab is that in many ways, it’s an organization for researchers, by researchers. Many of us on the D-Lab start-up team are graduate students in the social sciences, and we’re working to improve access to data-related resources on campus for all social science graduate students. As researchers ourselves, we can put together a wish list of what resources we’d like to have access to. And as D-Lab team members, we can find a way to implement changes to help all social science researchers here at Berkeley.

By Cathryn Carson How do you build an organization that will change as fast as the field itself does? It was a year ago that the D-Lab design team started its work. Already the technology solutions on our radar screen are being revised. What Berkeley researchers are doing with data – what methods they want to learn, what datasets they’re drawing on – is constantly up for grabs. We think of D-Lab as a start-up. When we say that to ourselves, we own the fact that we’re getting off the ground. But we mean more than that.

By Leo Bialis-White Are you a current or recent social science graduate student? We need your input! We want D-Lab to be a hub for social science researchers—a place to learn, collaborate, build, and explore. We envision a place where grad students can get help at any stage in the research process. To make this happen, we’re building an array of services and content for Spring 2013 and beyond. We need to know what tools, courses, talks, and software will move your research forward. We’re looking for input from all social science grad students and recent grads.

By Hector Fernando Burga Typical D-Lab meetings happen on Wednesdays: The official day for the D-Lab meet-athon. During our first weeks, we quickly came up with a system that formalized our meetings process: Setting up an agenda, designating a note-taker and facilitator and keeping to schedule. It may sound simple but this took a bit of time to formalize because we had to inhabit the practice and learn by doing. The notion of coming up with formal practices that emphasize determined outcomes as well as flexible adaptation has been a hallmark of our work.