Welcome to another packed week at GC Digital Initiatives! I want to begin this week’s post by highlighting our upcoming workshop Mapping Your Way Into Mapping: An Intro to GIS Concepts, taking place this Wednesday 11/16. We will also be hosting the Python and GIS user-group meetings this week. Moreover, you won’t want to miss GC Digital Fellow Rebecca Kreisel’s latest blog post which covers her experiences at the GC Digital Research Institute.
You can find out more on our website (http://cuny.is/gcdi), which includes weekly posts about ongoing events, and through social media. Follow us on Twitter (@cunygcdi and @digital_fellows) and now on Instagram (@digital_fellows).
Table of Contents
- Calls for Applications: Applications are now open for GC Digital Research Institute.
- Workshops: Workshops are structured, hands-on learning opportunities that are free and open to all GC-affiliated students, faculty, and staff. Registration using the links below is required to receive a Zoom link.
- User Group Meetings: User Group meetings are informal, interdisciplinary, free, and CUNY-wide communities of researchers and pedagogues who use similar digital tools. These meetings offer a welcoming space for beginners through advanced researchers to discuss potential projects, current challenges, or specific problems. Instructions on how to join each group can be found below.
- Python Series: If you’ve always wanted to learn how to use Python to improve your research, now is your opportunity to join a short workshop series that GC Digital Fellow Rebecca Krisel and Postdoctoral Fellow Chelsea Lane are leading this month. The series includes 5 workshops that take participants from the basics through ingesting data using APIs. Don’t forget to register for each workshop!
Calls for Applications
GC Digital Research Institute, January 18 – 24, 2023, Apply by Monday, November 28 @11:59pm ET
The GC Digital Research Institute (DRI) is an introduction to core digital research skills that can be applied widely to different kinds of projects. This institute is catered towards building foundational skills and will be paced accordingly to ensure those who are new will leave feeling more confident in their skills. DRI is designed for beginning learners—those who have little or no prior experience working with a programming language. Participation is free, and open to graduate students, faculty, and staff at the Graduate Center; however, applications are required. The GC Digital Research Institute provides an introduction to computational thinking, vocabularies, and foundational concepts so that participants can develop the necessary skills to become an autonomous learner.
Learn more and apply: GC Digital Research Institute website.
Workshops
NOTE: All workshops will take place on Zoom. Registration is free but required in order to receive the Zoom link.
Mapping Your Way Into Mapping: An Intro to GIS Concepts, Wednesday, November 16, 4:30-6pm
This one-hour workshop is aimed at introducing you to the basic concepts of Geographic Information System (GIS). We will understand the main types of spatial formats in which we can describe our data, the characteristics of each format and how to combine them to efficiently convey information in a map format. The features available to display spatial data will be exemplified using the software QGIS (https://qgis.org/en/site/). By the end of the workshop, you will know how to 1) load spatial information into QGIS; 2) combine different sources of data to efficiently communicate your objectives/results; 3) customize your final map to your preferences.
Learn more and register here: Mapping Your Way Into Mapping: An Intro to GIS Concepts
User Group Meetings
Python User Group Meeting, Friday Nov 18th, 3:00 – 4:00 PM
Python User’ Group (or PUG for short) is an open and informal collaborative space for experimentation and exploration with the Python programming language. This week in PUG we will review some of the key concepts learned during the Web Scraping in Python workshop held online on 11/11. Come prepared with questions!
See here for more details and join our PUG commons group to receive the Zoom link!
GIS User Group Meeting, Thursday Nov 17th, 4:00 – 5:00 PM
Mapping working group is a network of CUNY students, faculty and staff who are interested in sharing methods and techniques, and finding support from others about ways GIS can be used to further research and teaching. This week we will discuss on softwares used for mapping and continue learning from the projects of the members of the group.
Sign up for the meeting here.
Python Series
Fall Python Series: An Exploration of Research Tools for Beginners, biweekly Fridays from 2-4pm, continuing Friday, October 14th.
The Fall Python Series comprises 5 total workshops that take students from never having used Python before through skills such as text analysis and data cleaning to web scraping and using APIs. Participants are expected to sign up for all workshops in the series (listed below) and maintain regular participation. If you missed our Introduction to Python workshop on 9/30, you are welcome to catch up using our online curriculum and join us for the remaining workshops. Core skills will continue to be explained and reinforced as we work on projects over the course of the semester and in Python User Group (PUG) meetings that meet alternative weeks on Fridays from 3-4:00PM.
Please register for the following workshops to take part in the Fall Python Series:
- Text Analysis with NLTK, Friday, October 14th, 2-4:00 PM
- Tables and Pandas and Python! Oh my!, Friday, October 28th, 2-4:00PM
- Web Scraping with Beautiful Soup, November 11th, 2-4:00PM
- Plugging into APIs, Friday, December 2nd, 2-4:00PM
New on our Blog: Digital Fellow Rebecca Krisel says: “attending the DRI is like getting a sample spoonful of ice cream before you go all in on that flavor.” If you are ready for that spoonful of Python or R, check out this week’s blog post and visit the GC Digital Research Institute website to apply.
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