Organizing and Using Government Data

Date & Local Time:
Location: Michigan State University | Digital Scholarship Lab (Main Library 2W) 42.730871 -84.4832076
Website: https://bookings.lib.msu.edu/event/3905342

Federal, state, and local governments are increasingly sharing datasets to improve transparency and allow scholars, businesses, and citizens to leverage data and conduct research to improve their cities. However, this data is often segmented into multiple separate streams, malformed, or shared in inconvenient formats. If we wish to preserve and mirror copies of this data, or to use it for research, policy development, government accountability, organizing, reformatting, and documenting the data is a crucial component.

In this workshop, we will talk about best practices for ‘Tidy Data’ and use OpenRefine to work through several issues common to open data. You will leave the workshop with hands on experience organizing and formatting data, as well as some resources to help you work on your own data-driven projects.

This introductory workshop is open to anyone – students, faculty, staff, the public – from any disciplinary background.

Contact: Brandon Locke