[Foundations] Making Choices About Your Data

“I have some stuff that I want to do a DH project with. How do I get started?” Answering this question (and getting started doing DH) involves several related questions about data: What data/materials do you work with? What format are your data/materials in? What does the format of your data allow you to do? How can you transform your data to do different things with it? What are the stakes of the choices that you make? This course guides participants through answering these questions in relation to their own research areas, datasets, and materials. You will start by introducing your classmates to your data — and will spend the week exploring what you can do with that data, and the ways that you might develop it further.

What do you gain, or lose, by thinking about your subject matter as data? How do you balance between making your data as useful as possible, while still acknowledging its limitations? This course provides an introduction to different types and formats of data (structured, unstructured, etc.), to the work associated with data (building and using vocabularies, working with data models, normalization, cleaning); and best practices for documenting and sharing that work. We’ll look at a few different platforms & tools that you could work with your data in, and think about the full range of things you might do with your data, from analyzing it to making it available for other people to use.”

This is a hands-on course. Consider this offering in complement with most other DHSI courses.