So you’ve got some of your graduate classes under your belt, and it's time to begin an original research project.  But how exactly are you going to go about surveying voters in Tanzania, interviewing public health officials in France, or running focus groups with seasonal farm workers in the Central Valley?  How will you decide whom to speak to, efficiently collect your data, and handle the challenges of working far from home (or even close to home)?  

The Research in Practice Working Group will cover the logistics and ethics of collecting both quantitative and qualitative data in a diverse range of settings.  We aim to support graduate students across many disciplines, including the social sciences, public policy, and public health.  We will provide a mixture of workshops on specific research tools (such as software for computer-assisted interviewing) and panel discussions on various aspects of the research process (such as hiring research assistants, doing archival research, and thinking through the ethics of doing research in low income countries).  We’ll also hold more informal meetings where students can come together and discuss their work.  

Upcoming Meeting on 28 April, 5 - 6pm:

Please join us for our final meeting of the semester this week!  Both qualitative and quantitative researchers often find it useful to work with research assistants.  We'll discuss finding talented RAs; training tips for both qual and quant approaches; and cross-checking the validity of their work.  

• When: Thursday, 28 April 2016, from 5 - 6 pm
• Where: D-Lab Convening Room (Barrows 356)
• Who: You!  And anyone else you'd like to invite -- all are welcome
• Why: Come for the useful RA tips, stay for the free wine

   Please RSVP to Rachel at rstrohm@berkeley.edu

Learn Python is a working group on the UC Berkeley campus, sponsored by the D-Lab. We hold informal weekly meetings teaching and learning about different topics in the Python programming language, especially for social science, data science, and visualization.

This is ideal for learners who are new to Python — you'll have a group of peers instead of being by yourself. If you're a little more advanced, you can try to teach something. You are welcome to attend any or all meetings throughout the semester.

You can check out or improve our learning resources. We also have a list of topics from past meetings. Please send an email or join us on Mondays from 5-6:30pm at D-Lab (356 Barrows Hall, UC Berkeley). The D-Lab also offers many other free computing resources for academics, including workshops and 1-on-1 consulting.

Upcoming Meeting: Python And Nytimes

Monday, April 11 from 5-6:30pm in the D-Lab Convening Room (356 Barrows).

Today, we will continue exploring the possibilities of Python on the web via APIs. Please see what we did last week (especially the lesson notes). We will try to ask some interesting questions about NYTimes articles, and hopefully produce a plot with some of the visualization tools we checked out earlier in the semester. (Things are starting to come together!)

Please do, at minimum, run through the beginner tutorial and try to follow the setup instructions. Also, we'd love if you can go through these exercises. If you get stuck, we can help: email me here or stop by the D-Lab in 356 Barrows.

The Berkeley Digital Humanities Working Group (BDHWG) brings together students, faculty, and staff to explore the exciting field of digital humanities. Digital humanities uses computing methods and tools to answer old questions and raise new ones. We welcome everyone regardless of discipline and technical background. We're a low-stakes, no-prep group excited to play with new ideas and learn from one another! Follow our blog for updates and resources about digital humanities, subscribe to our mailing list, see our upcoming events calendar, and join us on the twitterverse with #bdhwg.

BDHWG will be holding its first meeting of the semester on Friday, January 22 from 12 to 1 PM. We'll be gathering at the D-Lab Collaboratory in 356 Barrows.  We’ll be discussing meeting topics and plans for the semester, as well as planning for the not-so-distant DH Faire on April 13th. Help us schedule events by filling in this Doodle with your general availability on Fridays. Things in the works:

• a project workshopping day: we're looking for two volunteers who are interested in sharing their work and receiving feedback
• poster-wrangling session for DH Faire
• OCR 101
• mashup meeting with the New Media Working Group
• geospatial mashup meeting with the Urban History Working Group

This working group will convene Bitcoin experts and novices to discuss and work on new developments around Bitcoin and block chain infrastructure. For more information on the local Bitcoin community, go to bitcoin.berkeley.edu.

The Berkeley Digital Humanities Working Group (BDHWG) brings together students, faculty, and staff to explore the exciting field of digital humanities. Digital humanities uses computing methods and tools to answer old questions and raise new ones. We welcome everyone regardless of discipline and technical background. We're a low-stakes, no-prep group excited to play with new ideas and learn from one another! Follow our blog for updates and resources about digital humanities, subscribe to our mailing list, see our upcoming events calendar, and join us on the twitterverse with #bdhwg.

BDHWG will be holding its first meeting of the semester on Friday, January 22 from 12 to 1 PM. We'll be gathering at the D-Lab Collaboratory in 356 Barrows.  We’ll be discussing meeting topics and plans for the semester, as well as planning for the not-so-distant DH Faire on April 13th. Help us schedule events by filling in this Doodle with your general availability on Fridays. Things in the works:

• a project workshopping day: we're looking for two volunteers who are interested in sharing their work and receiving feedback
• poster-wrangling session for DH Faire
• OCR 101
• mashup meeting with the New Media Working Group
• geospatial mashup meeting with the Urban History Working Group

Hack the Mic will be a rotating set of speakers that might serve as a launching point for new projects and new directions in the D-Lab and beyond! If you have a guest speaker you'd like to invite, please get in touch with Dav Clark (davclark at berkeley.edu).

The next meeting will be 3/16, with a presentation from PubNub:

Live visualizations and analysis can create a better opportunities for insight, but processing, charting and mapping realtime data streams can be cumbersome.

This Wednesday, March 16, we'll describe how to make simplify these challenges with PubNub, a low-latency data delivery system. We'll cover PubNub's design goals, architecture, and basic APIs, including approaches to including data distribution within larger systems. From there, we'll demo our web-based platform for realtime, live updating animated visualizations – EON.

Archives and more information can be found at the "Topic List" link below!

Learn Python is a working group on the UC Berkeley campus, sponsored by the D-Lab. We hold informal weekly meetings teaching and learning about different topics in the Python programming language, especially for social science, data science, and visualization.

This is ideal for learners who are new to Python — you'll have a group of peers instead of being by yourself. If you're a little more advanced, you can try to teach something. You are welcome to attend any or all meetings throughout the semester.

You can check out or improve our learning resources. We also have a list of topics from past meetings. Please send an email or join us on Mondays from 5-6:30pm at D-Lab (356 Barrows Hall, UC Berkeley). The D-Lab also offers many other free computing resources for academics, including workshops and 1-on-1 consulting.

Upcoming Meeting: Python And Nytimes

Monday, April 11 from 5-6:30pm in the D-Lab Convening Room (356 Barrows).

Today, we will continue exploring the possibilities of Python on the web via APIs. Please see what we did last week (especially the lesson notes). We will try to ask some interesting questions about NYTimes articles, and hopefully produce a plot with some of the visualization tools we checked out earlier in the semester. (Things are starting to come together!)

Please do, at minimum, run through the beginner tutorial and try to follow the setup instructions. Also, we'd love if you can go through these exercises. If you get stuck, we can help: email me here or stop by the D-Lab in 356 Barrows.

The group coordinates talks and trainings focused on cloud computing services such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform; as well as emerging cloud platforms on national infrastructure like XSEDE. The specific activities and topics will depend on the interests and needs of the members, including virtual machines, docker containers, high performance computing, and related topics.

The group is open to people of all skill levels and the activities in subgroups will accommodate interests from Absolute Beginner to Seasoned Pro. Mentors and consultants who have experience with cloud computing will be available during the sessions to work with members of the group.

Sign up for the cloud working group

Upcoming Talks

Learn Python is a working group on the UC Berkeley campus, sponsored by the D-Lab. We hold informal weekly meetings teaching and learning about different topics in the Python programming language, especially for social science, data science, and visualization.

This is ideal for learners who are new to Python — you'll have a group of peers instead of being by yourself. If you're a little more advanced, you can try to teach something. You are welcome to attend any or all meetings throughout the semester.

You can check out or improve our learning resources. We also have a list of topics from past meetings. Please send an email or join us on Mondays from 5-6:30pm at D-Lab (356 Barrows Hall, UC Berkeley). The D-Lab also offers many other free computing resources for academics, including workshops and 1-on-1 consulting.

Upcoming Meeting: Python And Nytimes

Monday, April 11 from 5-6:30pm in the D-Lab Convening Room (356 Barrows).

Today, we will continue exploring the possibilities of Python on the web via APIs. Please see what we did last week (especially the lesson notes). We will try to ask some interesting questions about NYTimes articles, and hopefully produce a plot with some of the visualization tools we checked out earlier in the semester. (Things are starting to come together!)

Please do, at minimum, run through the beginner tutorial and try to follow the setup instructions. Also, we'd love if you can go through these exercises. If you get stuck, we can help: email me here or stop by the D-Lab in 356 Barrows.