Type of session : PLAY

Title : What can you do with this data ??

Name of session facilitator(s) : Geraldine + ?

Approximate duration : 2h

Skill level : all

Proposal

One corpus of open data (Text ? CSV ?), five teams.

Each uses open source software (limited choice or free ?) to work on the data set and try to achieve results.

Each team presents these to the rest of the group at the end of the session.

Suggestions for the corpus to use or the tasks to complete ??

Prerequisite : Laptop with internet connection

Type of session : MAKE

Title : Open source toolkit for working with social media/networks

Name of session facilitator(s) : Geraldine

Approximate duration : 45mn ?

Skill level : all

Proposal

Social media and networks have in recent years emerged as an El Dorado for research, be it academic or commercial. The promises are attractive, yet dealing with the data made available through those can seem daunting as illustrated by Monroe in his article entitled ‘The Five Vs of Big data Political Science’. To the challenges related to volume, Monroe adds velocity, variety, but also vinculation and validity. Indeed, the data available on social networks is heterogeneous, constantly evolving and interrelated which raises issues pertaining to collection, storage and usage.

The session could provide an opportunity to draw a list of open source tools currently available to address those various challenges.

Prerequisite : none

Type of session : TALK

Title : How to limit black box effects in collaborative projects

Name of session facilitator(s) : Geraldine + Javier ?

Approximate duration : 30mn ?

Skill level : all

Proposal

“In science, computing, and engineering, a black box is a device, system or object which can be viewed in terms of its inputs and outputs without any knowledge of its internal workings” (Wikepedia) + “a complicated electronic device whose internal mechanism is usually hidden from or mysterious to the user; broadly : anything that has mysterious or unknown internal functions or mechanisms” (Merriam Webster).

In research labs as well as in many companies today, computer scientists are working with non-specialists of computing who delegate to them tasks they are unable to perform on their own. Such a collaboration can lead to a productive partnership on both sides but dialogue between individuals and teams with different backgrounds, skills and methodologies can be challenging. One of those challenges is the blackbox effect. For a non-specialist of computing, how much does one need to understand of the mechanisms involved in the automated processes of the tasks performed to guarantee the scientific validity of the results ? What level of training is necessary and in what ? For a computer scientist working with non-specialists, how to make those processes understandable ? Is drawing a step by step summary of those tasks realistic ? Which tools could make it more easily manageable ?

Prerequisite : none

Type of session : TEACH

Title : Introduction to data mining and visualisation with Voyant Tools

Name of session facilitator(s) : Geraldine

Approximate duration : 1h

Skill level : beginner

Proposal :

Voyant Tools is an open-source, web-based application for performing text analysis. It can be used to analyze online texts or ones uploaded by users. It offers features such as word frequency lists, frequency distribution plots, word clouds… Its interface is composed of panels which perform these varied analytical tasks. Here is a list of the tools available :

voyant-tools.org/docs/#!/guide/tools

The workshop could comprise a brief presentation of the software’s capabilities followed by an exercise to manipulate its mains functions.

Prerequisite : Laptop with internet access and sample file downloaded

Type of session : TEACH

Title : Workshop : Introduction to Open Refine for data wrangling.

Name of session facilitator(s) : Geraldine / Nora ?

Approximate duration : 1h

Skill level : beginner (no coding)

Proposal :

Open refine is a free and open source tool to clean and explore datasets in tabular forms.

An open refine project consists of a table with rows of data.

OR makes it possible to identify elements in a massive file and to modify them if need be. Useful to correct mistakes, spot empty cells, merge data…

There is in particular a ‘clustering’ function which is precious to normalize data automatically.

The user can also use OR to filter the rows to display using facets that define filtering criteria. Facets can be textual, numeric….

For example, if you have a file with customer information, you can filter the rows of clients living in Brighton, whose company has over 50 employees and whose boss is female. Or those whose turnover is over a certain amount and haven’t ordered anything in the last two years. If you’re doing research on a file with information on works by various authors, you can filter only the ones whose title contains the word ‘love’, published between 1858 and 1954 in Germany.

The workshop could consist in a brief presentation of the software’s capabilities followed by an exercise to manipulate its mains functions.

Prerequisite : A laptop with OR installed and the sample file dowloaded.

Grenoble Alpes University (UGA) is delighted to be hosting on June 14-15, 2018 on its Valence campus its first THATCamp !

We’re glad to offer here an opportunity for sessions suited to areas of interest common to all participants, be they tools, methods, sources or any issue which could lead to meaningful exchanges. This year in Valence, it will be around the following topic :

Open data and Freeware : Researchers in the humanities and social sciences share their experience.

Here are a few suggestions about what it could be about :

• What are your favourite sources of open data available to researchers ?
• Public libraries, private data ?
• Using Open Refine, Gate, Crowdcrafting etc… You name it, we’ll be happy to look into it!
• Sharing datasets
• Academic/business partnerships, who owns the data in the end ?
• Etc…. !

If this is an area you would like to explore with us, please feel free to suggest ideas about what YOU would like to address, learn about, teach others, get feedback on etc…

When registration opens, please indicate ideas for sessions in all four of the possible formats : Talk, make, teach, play.

An outline for the programme will be built thanks to your proposals and the sessions actually taking place will be the ones deemed the most interesting by campers.

The camp is open to anyone interested as long as they are willing to actively participate in the activities and debates offered. The goal is to bring together people from a variety of backgrounds to share experience on projects and ideas.

The cost to participants is 25€. It covers attendance to all sessions as well as lunches on the two days of the camp, and coffee/tea breaks. The number of participants is limited to 40 so as to favour interaction. All events will take place in the facilities of the UGA in Valence town centre and ADUDA building next door.

Come and share your skills, passion, concerns, hopes and anything in between !