Hi,

Some of you may be interested in a POLMETH-sponsored APSA short course  
I am giving:

Tools for Middle-Sized Data Projects
http://www.apsanet.org/media/Short%20Course%207.pdf

The full description is included below.  But in short: If you were  
intrigued by Stephen Haptonstahl's Political Methodologist 15:2 piece  
on web-based data collection, this course will show you how to that  
sort of thing.  Only more so.

Sign-up details are in the document linked above.  Please circulate to  
any colleagues and students you think might be interested.

Regards,

Will


------------------------------

Tools for Middle-Sized Data Projects

Huge data projects such as Minorities at Risk (MAR) or the European  
Election Survey (EES)
require multiple coders, serious infrastructure, and multiple large  
grants.  Tiny data projects can
be managed by two co-authors emailing each other a spreadsheet.  But  
most projects --
middle- sized data projects -- lie in between.  Middle-sized projects  
collect data that are less
heterogeneous and intricately connected than those of the MAR or EES  
but have more structure
than can be comfortably folded into a single rectangular data matrix.   
They have coders, but not
so many as to require complex management structure.   Most  
importantly, they have little or no
external funding and attract no support from university central  
services.  This short course is
about building the infrastructure for middle-sized data projects  
efficiently and by yourself.

The course describes how to think about structuring middle-sized  
political science data sensibly
without having to deal with relational databases directly; how to  
create a website where your coders can
enter data without writing any web pages; how to guarantee that the  
data is valid; how to make
your data searchable by others; and how to disseminate it.

Intended Audience

The course will be of relevance to faculty members or graduate  
students who are planning a
middle-sized data project or who find themselves in the middle of one  
that seemed like a good
idea at the time but which is quickly turning into a larger commitment  
than they would prefer.

Course Structure

This is a full day course.  We start with a discussion of general data  
issues, emphasizing the
utility of relational structure for properly reflecting a research  
domain.  The remaining sections
of the course show how to use the open-source web application  
framework Django to support
middle-sized data projects.  This part is divided into an introduction  
to the Python language and
the structure of web applications, examples of Django applications in  
real data projects in
politics and international relations, and a discussion of the  
practical issues deploying Django
applications in academic settings.

Prerequisites

The course is designed so that the participants can implement the  
examples on their own
machines during the presentations or follow up the practical elements  
later.  The course will not
teach programming (or web design or database operation) but equally  
will not make use of
programming concepts more complex than loops, functions, and the  
distinction between classes
and objects.   Some programming experience is required, but this need  
not be substantial.  Casual
users of Stata on the command line or R should find their knowledge  
sufficient.

------------------------------

Dr. Will Lowe
Methods and Data Institute
School of Politics and International Relations
University of Nottingham

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/~ldzwl/



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