The Center for Social Science Computation and Research

October 16, 2020

CSSCR Newsletter, Autumn 2020

From the Director

As our website has indicated CSSCR is operating primarily on an online basis for Autumn Quarter. 

 Our key “drop-in” consulting services are online and accessed by sending a request to CSSCR@uw.edu with a brief description on your problem/help needed.  We will then route your request to the appropriate consultant on duty and they will be in touch with you for either a continued email discussion or a Zoom meeting.  This service is available M-Th 8AM to 9PM and Friday 8AM to 5PM; closed weekends and all University holidays. This service has been working well over the past Spring and Summer and  I expect our high quality service will be maintained as we continue dealing with Covid-19 in-person restrictions.  Again access is simply sending a note to CSSCR@uw.edu.

We will be offering a few online workshops on a variety of topics (see list below).  These will be synchronous and asynchronous offerings as indicated in the workshop format.  Each has a link to sign up for the workshop.

Our data services are available via online requests and our secure data room is accessible by appointment basis; safety protocols are in place for the use of this room and only one person per appointment is allowed.  Simply send a note to CSSCR@uw.edu.

Closed are our main office, drop-in computer labs, and our classroom laboratories.

If you have questions direct them to me at CSSCR@uw.edu.  We are here to provide services to support your research and your classroom instruction to the degree possible in the given online format.  So please send us a query and we can see if we can help.

In the meantime… please stay healthy… appropriately distant and masked-up…

Best regards,

Jerry Herting

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CSSCR Short Workshop Offerings (Autumn 2020)

(listed in order of scheduled appearance)

Note:  Asynchronous workshops will provide a link to video presentation 2 to 3 days in advance of the date shown and on the scheduled time there will be a Q&A with the instructor over the content and other questions brought up in the workshop.  

Introduction to Python

Description:   This workshop will provide you the basics in getting started with Python for both data gathering from public sources and providing analyses.  No prior experience necessary.   

  • Instructor:  Mike Babb, CSSCR Consultant
  • Date:  Monday, October 26, 2020
  • TIme:  3:30pm – 5:30pm (2 hour workshop)
  • Format:  synchronous
  • Register here.

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Introduction to SPSS

Description:   This workshop introduces the SPSS statistical package including reading in datafiles, as well as basic data management and introductory statistical procedures. Additional topics include computing and recoding variables and selecting and filtering cases. 

  • Instructor:  Amelia Patrice, CSSCR Consultant
  • Date:  Thursday, October 29, 2020
  • TIme:  9:30am – 10:30am
  • Format:  synchronous
  • Register here.

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Introduction to R using R Studio

Description:   This workshop will teach you how to get started with R using the free integrated development environment called Rstudio. The workshop 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:  Anwesha Pan, CSSCR Consultant
  • Date:  Thursday, October 29, 2020
  • TIme:  3:00pm – 4:00pm
  • Format:  synchronous
  • Register here.

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Data Wrangling in R

Description:   This workshop will cover some of R’s useful tools for data management and exploration. Most of class will be devoted to learning Hadley Wickham’s excellent “tidyr” and “dplyr” packages. Attendees are assumed to have basic familiarity with R/Rstudio.

  • Instructor:  Riddhi Mehta-Neugebauer, CSSCR Consultant
  • Date:  Tuesday, November 3, 2020
  • TIme:  10:30am – 11:30am
  • Format:  synchronous
  • Register here.

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Introduction to Stata

Description:   This workshop is designed to introduce you to the basic Stata statistical package including reading in STATA datasets, basic data manipulation in Stata, and common statistical procedures.

  • Instructor:  Zhe Liu, CSSCR Consultant
  • Date:  Tuesday, November 3, 2020
  • TIme:  3:30pm – 4:30pm
  • Format:  synchronous
  • Register here.

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Introduction to GIS/ArcGIS

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:  Aya Masilela, CSSCR Consultant
  • Date:  Thursday, November 5, 2020
  • TIme:  11:00am – 12:00pm(noon)
  • Format:  asynchronous – video distributed prior and Q&A at scheduled time
  • Register here.

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Basic Graphics in R

Description:   This CSCCR workshop introduces students to ways of producing effect graphs in R.  Topics covered will include basic plotting functions (e.g. histograms, scatter plots), production of multi-panel graphs, and various means of exporting graphs to other presentation packages.

  • Instructor:  Yuan Hsiao, CSSCR Consultant
  • Date:  Tuesday, November 10, 2020
  • TIme:  2:30pm – 3:30pm
  • Format:  synchronous
  • Register here.

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Introduction to Qualitative Analysis using ATLAS.ti

Description:   This workshop provides a brief, practical introduction to working in ATLAS.ti, covering basic terminology and functionality of the program. This will include importing text documents, coding and annotating documents, and exploring relationships through analysis and query tools. The course assumes no familiarity with Atlas.ti

  • Instructor:  Baishakhi Basu, CSSCR Consultant
  • Date:  Tuesday, November 17, 2020
  • TIme:  1:30pm – 2:30pm
  • Format:  asynchronous – video distributed prior and Q&A at scheduled time
  • Register here.

Again to register for any of the above workshops follow this link.

Recent and New Data at CSSCR 

  • Recent  DATA:  
  • 2018 ACS 1-year Summary File estimates for Washington State
  • 2018 ACS 1-year Summary File estimates for US
  • 2018 ACS 1-year Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) files for Washington State
  • 2018 ACS 1-year Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) files for US
  • NEW DATA:  
  • 2018 ACS 5-year Summary File estimates for Washington State
  • 2018 ACS 5-year Summary File estimates for US
  • 2018 ACS 5-year Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) files for Washington State
  • 2018 ACS 5-year Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) files for US

     Note:  2019 ACS data are not yet fully available; should be available in Winter Quarter.

ICPSR access at CSSCR 

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.

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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/Online Access

Note: CSSCR is primarily operating online this quarter
Autumn Quarter 

Online Consulting

Monday-Thursday 8AM-9PM
Friday 8AM-5PM
Send requests to CSSCR@uw.edu

Main Office and other services

Monday-Friday 8AM-5PM
Staffing is primarily online; some services are available by appointment.  Please send queries to CSSCR@uw.edu.

We are closed weekends and for all University holidays.

Contact Us:

Center for Social Science Computation & Research
University of Washington
110 Savery Hall
Box 353345
Seattle, Washington 98195 U.S.A.
(206) 543-8110    csscr@u.washington.edu   http://csscr.washington.edu

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 requesting academic Accommodations, please present the letter to Jerald Herting at CSSCR so we may discuss the necessary classroom accommodations.

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