Blog post

Adding Basemaps In Python With Contextily

October 8, 2020

If you work with geospatial data in Python, you most likely are familiar with the fantastic GeoPandas library. GeoPandas leverages the power of Maplotlib to enable users to make maps of their data. However, until recently, it has not been easy to add basemaps to these maps. Basemaps are the contextual map data, like Google Maps, on top of which geospatial data are often displayed.

The new Python library...

Improving Research Transparency in the Social Sciences through Pre-Analysis Plans

March 23, 2021

Openness, transparency, and reproducibility in research are critical to scientific progress. Yet, according to a 2016 internet-based survey of 1,576 researchers, 90% of respondents felt there was a slight or significant reproducibility crisis.1 Moreover, there are longstanding concerns that scientific journals favor positive or significant results—often referred to as publication bias—which may produce bodies of evidence that are incomplete or misleading (i.e., because studies which report null findings are not published).2 Publication bias can also arise when researchers choose...

Exploring The Oakland Area Through Data

March 10, 2020

A project that uses many tools that are taught at the D-Lab, and on which I’m excited to be working with students, focuses on exploring the city of Oakland, CA through spatial data.

WHY DO I FIND THIS INTERESTING?

One project that I’ve been working on with a student (CS major, ERG minor) is the exploration of environmental justice and transportation in the City of Oakland, CA.

It’s really cool to get to know our neighboring city by exploring the multiple data sets available, and then being able to walk through those spots that...

Data and Tools for Mapping COVID-19

April 28, 2020

Since the early days of the COVID-19 crisis (the past few months!), the spatial and temporal enormity of the situation has been tellingly conveyed in mapped data visualizations. The most compelling maps, in my opinion, have been those created by the New York Times ….

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Manuscript Workflow with R Markdown and GIT

March 16, 2021

As part of my Masters of Public Health program I needed to complete a capstone. Working on a manuscript is a lot of back and forth: You need to make edits, fix your words and figures, and sometimes re-work entire sections. If you are like me, the thought of doing this process over a long period of time in Word makes me nauseous. Two main issues that cause this nausea for me are:

I frequently forget to make a record of my writing and often overwrite work

Copying and pasting figures while arguing with Word’s formatting...

The Pressure to be Productive Amidst Reigning Chaos

April 14, 2020

After more than two weeks following the shelter in place guidelines, I have developed some sort of a routine. That is the only way I can get myself to do any work. As a graduate student, I feel the pressure to be productive even in the middle of a pandemic. My most productive hours usually occur between 7am and 2pm. I have never tried to understand why that is the case. However, since being confined to my apartment, I have been unable to work at the same level of efficiency even during my golden hours.

Some investigation into this lack of productivity has led me to realise that my...

Howdy Neighbor! Proximity Analysis in R

March 1, 2021

Proximity analysis is one of the cornerstones of spatial analysis. It refers to the ways in which we use spatial methods to ask "what is happening near here". It is at the heart of the Tobler's first law of geography which I paraphrase as "Everything is related but near things are more related." In practice, proximity analysis...

Improved Data Protection Features for Berkeley Qualtrics Users

October 14, 2020

D-Lab has long been a champion of campus qualtrics users by hosting workshops and supporting consulting requests. We have some updates that we would like to share with you regarding some changes to the campuswide qualtrics brand that might affect your surveys.

NEW PROTECTED DATA FEATURE ON ALL BERKELEY QUALTRICS PLATFORMS

In order to ensure compliance with UC privacy and ...

Projects as a Learning Tool

April 6, 2021

Let’s say you’re new to programming, or maybe you’ve coded before but you’re tackling a new concept. You’ve read a blog post or taken a workshop, and have a general sense of what is going on. But how do you take this to the next level? One of my favorite ways to dive into a new technique is to simply try it out.

With coding, learning by doing is one of the best ways to improve. When I started learning Python, I took a class where I did homework assignments involving coding small games and algorithms. While these were useful for general coding, I wanted to dig in to the...