Dear Colleagues,

We hope this email finds you safe and well.

When we return from spring break, GC Digital Initiatives’ programming will resume with workshops, working groups, and timely projects in addition to our ongoing offer to provide one-on-one consultations to students, faculty, and staff. GCDI has modified our approach to accommodate the GC community’s needs in our remote work context. Our workshops, characterized by the opportunity to learn through hands-on practice, now feature a combination of synchronous and asynchronous activities that recognize the constraints of an online learning context. Our GIS working group will be soliciting contributions and participation to develop a spatial model for understanding needs and the emotional toll of COVID-19.

Note that our process for registration for events has changed. All meetings are free and open to the GC community; however, registration is required. We will use registration information to distribute a link and password to the virtual meeting room only to registered participants approximately 1 hour prior to the start of the event.

We are acutely aware of the challenges presented by trying to continue our work while contending with the realities of the coronavirus. We hope that by offering workshops, events, consultations, and user community meetings that we can provide a sense of continuity and connection through troubling times.

We hope to see you online soon.

Lisa and Matt

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Events

Mapping Needs and Solutions During COVID-19
Friday, April 17 at 12 – 1 PM EST

As we’ve seen from all of the COVID models, maps can be powerful tools for revealing important spatial phenomena and disseminating knowledge during a pandemic. We are interested in putting our skills to use to create other maps that can be helpful in this critical moment. Perhaps we can make maps that help to identify people’s needs and vulnerabilities? Or maps that assist with resource distribution? What do you think would be the most helpful factors to collect data on and visualize in a map? Participation is not contingent on knowing GIS or mapping. Read more about this event and register here.

 

Digital Archive Research Collaborative: Digital Archiving in the Time of COVID
Wednesday, April 22, 2:00 – 3:30 PM

This meeting gives GC students, faculty, and staff a chance to talk about their archival work, productive hacks, challenges, and lessons learned in the current context of remote work and distant learning. How are you accessing archival collections? What tools and platforms allow you to stay productive, organized, or committed to your project? We welcome all researchers interested in digital archival work, regardless of experience, discipline, or where they are in their project’s timeline. This event is open to all students, faculty, and staff at the Graduate Center; however, registration is required. Registered participants will receive an email with a link and password for the online meeting one hour in advance. To learn more about the event and to register, visit our GCDI calendar.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Workshops

Working with HathiTrust Data
Thursday, April 23 at 2:00 – 3:30 PM EST

Has limited access to print publications got you down? Learn how to make the most out of the Graduate Center’s membership in HathiTrust, a not-for-profit collaborative of academic and research libraries that holds 17+ million digitized items. The GC’s membership status grants students, faculty, and staff preferred access to advanced HathiTrust Research Center computational services. Join us for this workshop to learn how to access and make use of HathiTrust’s cloud-based research computing tools to search, cluster, and analyze texts across the humanities and social sciences. We will provide an overview of the interface for accessing and analyzing HathiTrust’s collections. Participants will learn some basic digital text analysis concepts and have a chance to begin their own hands-on exploration of HathiTrust’s rich collection.

This workshop is free and open to all GC faculty, students, and staff, but advance registration is required. Registered participants will receive an email with a link to the online workshop room with a password one hour before the start of the workshop. Visit our GCDI calendar to register at least two hours prior to the event.

Digital Annotation with Hypothes.is
Thursday, April 30 at 3:00 – 4:00 PM EST

In the transition to online courses, have you been looking for a way to collaboratively annotate shared texts? Whether you are assigning group work that requires close reading of texts or working with remote research partners to review a shared document, Hypothes.is offers a free, open source, web-based solution for collaborative annotation. Come hear about how to get started reading and writing together while physically distant. This one-hour workshop requires no prior experience or technical knowledge. The event is free and open to all GC students, faculty, and staff; however, registration is required. Registered participants will receive an email with a link and password for the virtual workshop one-hour prior to the start. Learn more and register HERE.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Meetings

Python User Group Meetings

The Python User Group (PUG) is resuming meetings in an online format. If you have participated in the past or are interested in joining the group, please take a moment to fill out this short survey and to join PUG on the Commons, which is the group’s primary platform for communication. Meeting topics range from working through chapters of Python the Hard Way, to simply sharing project ideas and potential solutions and packages of interest. New meeting times will be announced at the end of spring break.

R User Group Meetings

The R User Group (RUG) is a new community of students, faculty, and staff who are interested in learning and using R for their academic projects. The group will resume meetings after spring break with a casual meeting to hear what current issues people are interested in working on, including spatial data analysis and visualization and text mining in R, and working through the free, online R for Data Science book. If you would like to participate, please join the RUG group on the Commons and fill out an availability poll to help schedule the next meeting. The next meeting date and time will be shared through an email on the Commons.

 

Dear Colleagues,

We hope this email finds you safe and well.

When we return from spring break, GC Digital Initiatives’ programming will resume with workshops, working groups, and timely projects in addition to our ongoing offer to provide one-on-one consultations to students, faculty, and staff. GCDI has modified our approach to accommodate the GC community’s needs in our remote work context. Our workshops, characterized by the opportunity to learn through hands-on practice, now feature a combination of synchronous and asynchronous activities that recognize the constraints of an online learning context. Our GIS working group will be soliciting contributions and participation to develop a spatial model for understanding needs and the emotional toll of COVID-19.

Note that our process for registration for events has changed. All meetings are free and open to the GC community; however, registration is required. We will use registration information to distribute a link and password to the virtual meeting room only to registered participants approximately 1 hour prior to the start of the event.

We are acutely aware of the challenges presented by trying to continue our work while contending with the realities of the coronavirus. We hope that by offering workshops, events, consultations, and user community meetings that we can provide a sense of continuity and connection through troubling times.

We hope to see you online soon.

Lisa and Matt

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Events

Mapping Needs and Solutions During COVID-19
Friday, April 17 at 12 – 1 PM EST

As we’ve seen from all of the COVID models, maps can be powerful tools for revealing important spatial phenomena and disseminating knowledge during a pandemic. We are interested in putting our skills to use to create other maps that can be helpful in this critical moment. Perhaps we can make maps that help to identify people’s needs and vulnerabilities? Or maps that assist with resource distribution? What do you think would be the most helpful factors to collect data on and visualize in a map? Participation is not contingent on knowing GIS or mapping. Read more about this event and register here.

 

Digital Archive Research Collaborative: Digital Archiving in the Time of COVID
Wednesday, April 22, 2:00 – 3:30 PM

This meeting gives GC students, faculty, and staff a chance to talk about their archival work, productive hacks, challenges, and lessons learned in the current context of remote work and distant learning. How are you accessing archival collections? What tools and platforms allow you to stay productive, organized, or committed to your project? We welcome all researchers interested in digital archival work, regardless of experience, discipline, or where they are in their project’s timeline. This event is open to all students, faculty, and staff at the Graduate Center; however, registration is required. Registered participants will receive an email with a link and password for the online meeting one hour in advance. To learn more about the event and to register, visit our GCDI calendar.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Workshops

Working with HathiTrust Data
Thursday, April 23 at 2:00 – 3:30 PM EST

Has limited access to print publications got you down? Learn how to make the most out of the Graduate Center’s membership in HathiTrust, a not-for-profit collaborative of academic and research libraries that holds 17+ million digitized items. The GC’s membership status grants students, faculty, and staff preferred access to advanced HathiTrust Research Center computational services. Join us for this workshop to learn how to access and make use of HathiTrust’s cloud-based research computing tools to search, cluster, and analyze texts across the humanities and social sciences. We will provide an overview of the interface for accessing and analyzing HathiTrust’s collections. Participants will learn some basic digital text analysis concepts and have a chance to begin their own hands-on exploration of HathiTrust’s rich collection.

This workshop is free and open to all GC faculty, students, and staff, but advance registration is required. Registered participants will receive an email with a link to the online workshop room with a password one hour before the start of the workshop. Visit our GCDI calendar to register at least two hours prior to the event.

Digital Annotation with Hypothes.is
Thursday, April 30 at 3:00 – 4:00 PM EST

In the transition to online courses, have you been looking for a way to collaboratively annotate shared texts? Whether you are assigning group work that requires close reading of texts or working with remote research partners to review a shared document, Hypothes.is offers a free, open source, web-based solution for collaborative annotation. Come hear about how to get started reading and writing together while physically distant. This one-hour workshop requires no prior experience or technical knowledge. The event is free and open to all GC students, faculty, and staff; however, registration is required. Registered participants will receive an email with a link and password for the virtual workshop one-hour prior to the start. Learn more and register HERE.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Meetings

Python User Group Meetings

The Python User Group (PUG) is resuming meetings in an online format. If you have participated in the past or are interested in joining the group, please take a moment to fill out this short survey and to join PUG on the Commons, which is the group’s primary platform for communication. Meeting topics range from working through chapters of Python the Hard Way, to simply sharing project ideas and potential solutions and packages of interest. New meeting times will be announced at the end of spring break.

R User Group Meetings

The R User Group (RUG) is a new community of students, faculty, and staff who are interested in learning and using R for their academic projects. The group will resume meetings after spring break with a casual meeting to hear what current issues people are interested in working on, including spatial data analysis and visualization and text mining in R, and working through the free, online R for Data Science book. If you would like to participate, please join the RUG group on the Commons and fill out an availability poll to help schedule the next meeting. The next meeting date and time will be shared through an email on the Commons.