CSSCR Winter 2017, Number II
From the Director
For many years, CSSCR has offered short courses on computer skills, statistical software, data analyis, and many other topics. As trends in social science computing have changed, CSSCR has responded. For example, the R statistical programming language has become the language of choice for social scientists doing statistical analyses. Several years ago, we greatly increased the number and types of R offerings. These are some of our most popular short courses, particularly at the beginning of each quarter when students enrolled in certain courses through CSSS, Sociology, and Political Science learn that they will be using R. Of course, we still offer courses in other software like Stata, SAS, and SPSS.
Another trend in the social sciences is the increased use of analytical software for qualitative analysis. CSSCR has regularly offered short courses and consulting to help people get started in Atlas.ti. We have also hosted workshops and training in these methods offered by the Qualitative Multi-Method Research Initiative.
This quarter, we are expeimenting with a new workshop format: a discussion group. Colin Beam will host a discussion group on the Qualtrics survey software. The workshop is for people interested in learning more about Qualtrics to do online survey research. See the description below.
Do you know about other trends in social science computing that you think we should cover with courses or consulting? Stop by and tell us about it or send us an email at csscr@u.washington.edu.
The CSSCR labs are filling up for Spring quarter, but there are still some slots available. In fact, now is a good time to make summer reservations for the the labs. You can see the lab reservations on our online calendar. Give us a call (206-543-8110) or drop us an email at csscr@u.washington.edu. The labs can be reserved by faculty in our member departments. Students and student groups are welcomed to reserve the labs for workshops, experiments, group projects, etc.
Our second round of short courses for this Winter is now available. Our courses are free and open to anyone in the UW community. Please share this newsletter with your colleagues, staff, and students. Individuals can subscribe here, and our newsletter archive is here.
-- Darryl Holman
Introduction to R with RStudio
Description:
This class will teach you how to get started with R using the
free integrated development environment called Rstudio. The course will cover the basic
organization of R and RStudio, where to find good help
references, and how to begin a basic analysis. This class is
ideal for users who have little or no experience with R.
Instructor: Yunkang Yang, CSSCR Consultant
Date: Wednesday, 15 Feb 2017
Time: 11:00am - 11:50am
Place: Savery 121
Register here.
Introduction to R with RStudio
Description:
This class will teach you how to get started with R using the
free integrated development environment called RStudio. The course will cover the basic
organization of R and Rstudio, where to find good help
references, and how to begin a basic analysis. This class is
ideal for users who have little or no experience with R.
Instructor: Nathan Abe, CSSCR Consultant
Date: Thursday, 16 Feb 2017
Time: 1:30pm - 2:20pm
Place: Savery 121
Register here.
Introduction to GIS
Description:
This course will provide students with a broad overview of what geographic information systems (GISs) are
and how social scientists can benefit from using them in their research. Students will explore basic GIS concepts
through hands-on exercises using ArcGIS, a widely used GIS software package, as well as freely available data sets.
Instructor: Will Brown, CSSCR Consultant
Date: Friday, 17 Feb 2017
Time: 9:00am-9:50am
Place: Savery 121
Register here.
Introduction to SAS
Description:
This introductory class will cover basic features and some data cleaning and recoding of variables in SAS. The topics include: an overview of the SAS system; how to read/enter data, modify, explore and manage data; and some basic data recoding and variable creation.
Instructor: Nikki Gurley, CSSCR Consultant
Date: Friday, 17 Feb, 2017
Time: 12:30pm - 1:20pm
Place: Savery 121
Register here.
Handling Datasets in SPSS
Description:
This courses introduces techniques for reading, navigating, merging, and manipulating datasets in SPSS. Additional topics include computing and recoding variables, selecting and filtering cases, and reshaping data.
Instructor: Gabby Gorsky, CSSCR Consultant
Date: Tuesday, 21 Feb 2017
Time: 11:00am - 11:50am
Place: Savery 121
Register here.
Data Wrangling in Stata
Description:
This course will introduce you to data manipulation in Stata, including merging, reshaping, and recoding your data. It will also teach you how to generate and/or replace variables by group.
Instructor: Laine Rutledge, CSSCR Consultant
Date: Tuesday, 21 Feb 2017
Time: 1:30pm - 2:20pm
Place: Savery 121
Register here.
Using the American Community Survey (ACS) Estimates
Description:
The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) is a great source for detailed population and household characteristics, giving estimates and margins of error (MOE) for many aspects of the American population. However, sometimes users must blend ACS results in order to arrive at the exact measure needed. In this class we will explore some Excel-based templates containing several “calculators” that let users enter the published ACS estimates and MOEs to assess the precision of individual estimates, to compare pairs of estimates for their statistical differences and to calculate the MOEs and Standard Errors (SEs) for summing/subtracting, proportion and ratios of estimates. A variety of means for accessing ACS data will be also introduced.
Instructor: Tina Tian, CSSCR Data Specialist
Date: Wed 22 Feb 2017
Time: 10:30am - 11:20am
Place: Savery 121
Register here.
Introduction to Interactive Graphics in R
Description:
R and RStudio offer increasing opportunities to develop useful interactive graphics tools for data exploration and analysis. Interactive graphics can help communicate interesting patterns in data to a general audience, or even simply facilitate efficient preliminary exploration of data prior to starting structured causal analysis or hypothesis testing. This course will provide a brief introduction to two of the most popular packages for developing interactive graphics in R: plotly and shiny. Basic familiarity with R and R graphics (particularly ggplot) recommended.
Instructor: Carolina Johnson, CSSCR Consultant
Date: Thursday, 23 Feb 2017
Time: 3:00pm - 3:50pm
Place: Savery 117
Register here.
Discussion: Online data collection with Qualtrics
Description:
Qualtrics a powerful tool for creating web-based surveys. This workshop will cover quick creation and distribution of a basic survey in Qualtrics. It will also cover features that allow for custom randomization designs and question construction. No prior experience is assumed for attendees. However, experienced Qualtrics users are also encouraged to attend with questions that we can discuss together.
Instructor: Colin Beam, CSSCR Consultant
Date: Thursday, 23 Feb 2017
Time: 4:00pm - 5:30pm
Place: Savery 110
Register here.
To register for the above classes, follow this link.
New Data at CSSCR
- Dave Leip's 2016 President General Election Results Data: state & county level
- 2015 1-year ACS Summary File estimates for Washington State
- 2015 1-year ACS Summary File estimates for US
- 2015 1-year ACS Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) files for Washington State
- 2015 1-year ACS Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) files for US
CSSCR maintains the UW membership in the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). All members of the UW community have direct access to ICPSR's data archive of over 9,900 studies. Please contact us if you have questions or need more information about using this resource for accessing data or adding your data to the ICPSR repository. ICPSR new data releases and other news can be found here.
The Center for Social Science Computation and Research (CSSCR)
is an interdepartmental computer center in the College of Arts and
Sciences at the University of Washington. CSSCR provides facilities and
consulting support for computing activity related to teaching and
research at the University.
Hours of Operation
Winter Quarter
Consulting and Computers are available Monday to Thursday: 8:00am to 9:00pm, Friday: 8:00am to 5:00pm
During spring break, consulting and computers will be open Monday to Friday from 9:00am to 5:00pm
Office: Monday to Friday: 8:00am to 12:00pm, 1:00pm to 5:00pm
We are closed weekends and for university holidays
Contact Us
If
you would like to request academic accommodations due to a disability,
please contact Disabled Student Services, 448 Schmitz, 543-8924 (V/TDD).
If you have a letter from Disabled Student Services indicating you have
a disability that requires academic accommodations, please present the
letter to Darryl Holman at CSSCR so we may discuss the accommodations
you might need for class.