Data & Donuts

This workshop will cover the essentials of cartographic design and teach you how to design a custom map using QGIS software and openly available data that you can download online. Laptops preloaded with QGIS software will be available for attendees to use in the interactive portion of this work, but you are welcome to bring your own laptop if you would like so that you can work on your personal computer.

ArcGIS Online is a cloud GIS platform which supports data hosting and provides an easy to use web interface for designing interactive web maps without having to write any code. This workshop will cover the process of uploading geospatial data to ArcGIS Online, publishing it as a web service that can call be called by web applications, and creating a customized Story Map web application that presents the data in a narrated fashion through an interactive map interface.

This workshop will provide an introduction into the use of R and the RStudio integrated development environment for geoprocessing and geospatial analysis. Importing, manipulating, and visualizing geospatial data in R will be discussed in addition to demonstrations of common cases where geospatial analysis in R might be beneficial. Laptops with RStudio will be available so that you can follow along. No previous R experience is required.

This workshop will cover the essentials of working with geospatial data along with a review of data management best practices so that you can learn how to avoid the pitfalls that often ensnare researchers who are new to working with geospatial information.

This workshop will provide instruction on browsing for geospatial data, cover how to search for specific datasets to download, and will discuss how to process downloaded data using GIS software to enhance its usability.

This workshop will provide an explanation of key geospatial terms and concepts and an introduction to geographic information system (GIS) software for visualizing, analyzing, storing, processing, and managing geospatial data. By the end of this session you should have the core knowledge required to start working effectively with geospatial datasets.

The importance of metadata is often misunderstood or underestimated. Metadata helps people find resources and determine their value. Learning basic concepts and understanding the purpose of standards can help you streamline your research and data management methods. If you've ever had difficulty finding relevant and reliable resources, or sifting through your own research data, you'll appreciate this session.

Learn how to use Qualtrics, a powerful survey tool available to UT faculty, staff, and students, to administer surveys. This workshop will touch on the basics of survey design while teaching you how to use Qualtrics to administer online surveys ranging in complexity. We will discuss question types and their ideal uses, how to avoid common survey pitfalls, and how to design survey flow. By the end of the workshop, you should be able to design, send, and perform basic analysis on a survey using Qualtrics.

Spreadsheets can be a powerful tool for entering, analyzing, and managing data, but it’s crucial to ensure that they are well-formatted from the outset, before you even start entering data. This 1.5 hour hands-on* workshop will teach you how to think about data organization to increase your efficiency and help ensure that your data are reusable. We will discuss good data entry practices, how to avoid common formatting mistakes, basic quality control, data manipulation, and exporting.

There’s more than one way to skin a cat make a map. This new take on an old adage speaks to the recent proliferation of software tools and online platforms for visualizing data spatially. This workshop will provide a broad overview of commonly used tools, from powerful open source GIS software like QGIS to new online web mapping platforms like ArcGIS Online. If you have ever wondered how to make a map from a table of geospatial coordinates or a list of addresses – this session is for you. Live demonstrations will showcase the diverse array of mapping tools that are available to UT faculty, staff, and students for creating engaging visualizations from a variety of geospatial datasets.

Qualitative data is no longer exempt from data sharing policies, although the sensitive nature of these data can pose special challenges to achieving real transparency. This workshop addresses several critical concerns and offers a few practical solutions that may make it easier to avoid unintended consequences. We will touch on basic issues of consent and IRB, secure storage, de-identification, data use agreements, and how to share and publish while adhering to ethical standards.