Berkeleyites have loved data for a long time now. Way back in 2000 (20 years ago is EONS in the dataverse!), the American Association for Public Opinion Research gave an award to the Berkeley creators of what became SDA, or Survey Data Analysis, an early online data tool still used today, and the best thing since sliced bread if you are a data geek. In 2010, Berkeley researchers teamed with Alice Waters from Chez Panisse, using data to show how kids make better choices about nutrition if they grow their own food. And check out this 2014 book review from the School of Information’s Data Science program, on the book Data: A Love Story, in which an enterprising online dater applies data science to her quest and (spoiler!) finds a lasting match.
So, it’s not at all surprising that UC Berkeley has an affection connection with the annual event Love Data Week, which has been a growing worldwide phenomenon since it started in 2016. Love Data Week (LDW) began, as the site mentions, “to raise awareness and build a community to engage on topics related to research data management, sharing, preservation, reuse, and library-based research data services.” Berkeley has always offered a range of events and chances for participation during LDW, and this year is no exception.
On Monday, there will be an “Introduction to Savio” workshop, introducing you to the campus Linux high-performance computing cluster. On Tuesday, there will be a session on Security Incident Handling (titled, tellingly, “Not If, When: Data + Information Security”). Wednesday brings an introduction to the venerable and vast social science data repository, ICPSR (Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research), and Thursday’s offering is a talk by Daniella Lowenberg, Product Manager for the open data publishing platform Dryad (which allows all UC Berkeley researchers to archive and publish their data).
More information about each of these sessions is available on Berkeley’s Love Data Week 2020 page; note that all UC Berkeley staff, students and faculty are welcome, and refreshments will be provided at all sessions!
As you see, there’s something for everyone, and it’s totally OK if you don’t love data— YET! As they say on the Love Data Week site, “We believe research data are the foundation of the scholarly record and crucial for advancing our knowledge of the world around us. If you care about research data, please join us!”