The Center for Social Science Computation and Research

December 20, 2024

CSSCR Newsletter Winter 2025

Happy 2025 and welcome back from the holiday break. CSSCR is operating on our normal schedule for both in-person and online consulting services and for other services including accessing data, reserving classroom lab time, and drop-in computer access. CSSCR facilities are open daily from 8AM to 6PM, except on Friday we close at 5PM.

Drop-in consulting services are available online and in-person (Savery 119) during these hours; access online help by sending a note to CSSCR@uw.edu during our daytime hours. Evening online hours M-Th start at 6PM and run until 9PM; for evening help simply send a note requesting help to CSSCR_evening@uw.edu.

As always (see list below) CSSCR is offering a set of introductory workshops on a variety of software platforms/topics.   We have added some new content including the use of AI in facilitating coding and error checking.  These workshops are open to the general UW community. All we ask is that you register for the in-person workshop in advance. (All workshops are scheduled for 1.5 hours with roughly the first hour being key content and the last half-hour allowing for follow-up questions and some 1:1 discussion.)

Finally, I want to announce that Professor Darryl Holman will be taking over CSSCR as the interim director for Winter and Spring quarters. Dr. Holman was the director previously in 2014-17.

Best regards,

J. Herting
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CSSCR Workshop Offerings Winter Quarter 2025

***Workshops are listed in the order of the dates they will be delivered***

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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: Alireza Aminkhaki, CSSCR Consultant
  • Date: Tuesday,  January 28, 2025
  • Time: 2:30pm – 4:00pm
  • Location: Savery 117 (Big Lab)
  • Register here.

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Making Dynamic Maps using QGIS

Description:   This course will show you how to bring your spatial data to life! In this hands-on workshop, you’ll learn how to create captivating animated time-series maps using QGIS, a powerful open-source GIS platform perfect for beginners and experienced GIS users. No prior experience with QGIS is required.

  • Instructor:  Yuying Xie, CSSCR Consultant
  • Date:  Wednesday, January 29, 2025
  • TIme:  3:30pm – 5:00pm
  • Location: Savery 117 (Big Lab)
  • Register here.

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Introduction to Text Analysis using R

Description:  This workshop will introduce the basics of text analysis in R using the tools from the “tidytext” package. Participants will learn how to manage and clean text data, perform sentiment analysis, and calculate descriptive statistics on a body of text.   Basic level of using R/RStudio is assumed.

  • Instructor:  Victoria Sass, CSSCR Consultant
  • Date: Thursday, January 30, 2025
  • Time: 1:30pm – 3:00pm
  • Location: Savery 117 (Big Lab)
  • Register here.

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Data Visualization in R with ggplot2

Description: This CSSCR workshop introduces students to data visualization in R using ggplot2, emphasizing both scientific and aesthetic principles for creating effective graphs. Topics include scaling various visual properties in ggplot2, choosing colors, utilizing small multiples and diagonalization, and other techniques to highlight patterns and tell stories with data. A basic understanding of R/RStudio is assumed.

  • Instructor: Brian Leung, CSSCR Consultant
  • Date: Monday, February 3, 2025
  • Time: 10:30am – 12:00 noon
  • Location: Savery 117 (Big Lab)
  • 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:  Crystal Yu, CSSCR Consultant
  • Date:  Tuesday, February 4, 2025
  • Time:  1:30pm – 3:00pm
  • Location: Savery 117 (Big Lab)
  • Register here.

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Introduction to Stata

Description: This workshop will teach you how to get started using the statistical package Stata. The workshop will cover a) reading in data files from different sources, b) basic data manipulation, and c) some basic common statistical procedures. No previous Stata experience required.

  • Instructor: Biying Zheng, CSSCR Consultant
  • Date: Wednesday,  February 5, 2025
  • Time: 9:30am – 11:00am
  • Location: Savery 121 (Small Lab)
  • Register here.

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Direct Coding of Audio Data using ATLAS.ti

Description: This workshop focuses on the ability to directly code audio data (e.g. interviews) using ATLAS.ti software. Direct coding of the data can make transcripting unnecessary, hence, can be initiated soon after data collection. If time permits, some visualization techniques ( such as Word Clouds) will be introduced. The workshop assumes a base knowledge of ATLAS.ti . While the workshop does not require having access to Atlas-ti it is helpful. For UW students/researchers/faculty access to ATLAS.ti on CSDE terminal server is available, please contact CSDE (Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology).

  • Instructor:  Baishakhi Basu, CSSCR Consultant
  • Date:  Wednesday, February 5, 2025
  • Time:  3:30pm – 5:00pm
  • Location: Savery 117 (Big Lab)
  • Register here.

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Using AI to Help Program/Code in R

Description: This workshop will provide an engaging demonstration of how AI-powered assistants can facilitate your R programming! Discover how tools like GitHub Copilot can enhance coding efficiency, streamline workflows, and provide intelligent suggestions. This session is designed for both beginners and seasoned R programmers.

  • Instructor: He Ren, CSSCR Consultant
  • Date: Thursday,  February 6, 2025
  • Time: 12:30pm – 2:00pm
  • Location: Savery 117 (Big Lab)
  • Register here.

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A Continued Introduction to Python

Description:  The workshop adds to the Autumn Quarter’s “Introduction to Python” but does not require prior experience with Python. We will build off of the first workshop, in which we introduced basic syntax and data structures to move into some visualization and analysis. We will work with a sample dataset to run regressions and introduce the machine learning library scikit-learn. We will also touch upon using AI for generating starter code and debugging. (Note: “start up” knowledge of Python is helpful but no familiarity with Python is required nor did you have to attend the prior session).

  • Instructor:  Tynan Challenor, CSSCR Consultant
  • Date:  Friday, February 7, 2025
  • Time:  10:30am – 12noon
  • Location: Savery 117 (Big Lab)
  • Register here.

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If you have questions or problems registering please send a note to CSSCR@uw.edu.
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New and Recent Data at CSSCR 

  • NEW DATA:
  • 2023 ACS 1-Year Summary File for WA
  • 2023 ACS 1-Year Summary File for US
  • 2023 ACS 1-Year PUMS for WA
  • 2023 ACS 1-Year PUMS for US
  • 2020 Census Privacy-Protected Microdata File (PPMF)
  • 2022 ACS 5-Year (2018–2022) Summary File for WA
  • 2022 ACS 5-Year (2018–2022) Summary File for US
  • 2022 ACS 5-Year (2018–2022) PUMS for WA
  • 2022 ACS 5-Year (2018–2022) PUMS for US
  • UPDATED DATA: 
  • 2020 Demographic and Housing Characteristics File (DHC)
  • RECENT DATA:  
  • 2022 ACS 1-Year Summary File for WA
  • 2022 ACS 1-Year Summary File for US
  • 2022 ACS 1-Year PUMS for WA
  • 2022 ACS 1-Year PUMS for US
  • 2020 Census 2020 Demographic and Housing Characteristics File (DHC) for US
  • 2020 Census 2020 Demographic and Housing Characteristics File (DHC) for WA

Also see news regarding data availability for Census 2020 at our website under Data Archive Decennial Census http://depts.washington.edu/csscr/census/

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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 (csscr@uw.edu) 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 for our constituent members.

Hours of Operation

CSSCR is primarily an in-person service!  

Drop in In-Person Consulting (Savery 119) — no appointment needed just stop on by!

Winter Hours Monday-Friday 8AM-6PM (5PM on Friday)

 

If you prefer an online meeting during the above times…simply e-mail csscr@uw.edu  with your question/problem and we will arrange a Zoom meeting or answer your questions via e-mail.

NOTE:  Winter Quarter Evening on-line consulting is available Monday – Thursday from 6PM-9PM — just send a request to csscr_evening@uw.edu.

Main office and other services (Savery 110)

Main office is open Monday-Friday 9AM-12PM and 1PM-5PM — Please send queries to csscr@uw.edu.

We are closed weekends and for all University holidays.

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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@uw.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 Darryl Holman at CSSCR so we may discuss the necessary classroom accommodations.

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