Data analysts should always be skeptical of their data, because it very often goes bad. The Quartz bad data guide is a summary of the most common data flaws, from automatic Excel conversions to inappropriate use of Margins of Error.
Collect and analyze data about the food system in San Diego county.
The San Diego Food System Alliance’s Healthy Food Access Working Group is developing an indicator library to analyze food access issues, and we need your help to locate datasets, wrangle them into useable shape, and create visualizations.
The work is similar to the topics of our March 2015 Data Contest, with additional work of building a reusable data library to perform additional analysis.
On October 3, the Center for Human Dynamics in the Mobile Age will host a Big Data Hackathon at San Diego State University. Contestants will use data analysis and programming to solve civic problems related to water conservation, disaster recovery and crime prevention. Visit the Devpost website for details and to register, or hit Github for the tech details and data.
Finally, our legislators are getting below the surface of the Open Data issue and addressing one of the deeper plains: Open Data is nearly useless when it is delivered in PDF. To address this problem, our very own Brian Maienschein (well, the inland “us” ) has introduced AB 169, which mandates that when agencies publish open data, it is published in a machine readable format. Yea! One prayer answered! If you are in district 77, send Maienschein some love, if not, tell your assembly person to get with the program.
We completed our 2015 Data Contest with final presentations and winners at the awards ceremony on Tuesday. Here are the winners and their presentations:
We also have two Honorable Mentions:
The SDSU Data Contest Kickoff is tomorrow! Better register if you haven’t already. Here are all of the last minute details. Time and Location:
Before:
Bring:
Staff Contacts:
Also, Our Twitter hashtag is #sddc15
To get ready for the Data Contest, you’ll want to ensure that your laptop already has installed on it all of the tools you’ll need. There is a set of tools that we use in most of our programs, and it will serve as a good base for your contest toolkit. These tools are:
Additionally, we frequently use Sqlite files for data storage and to sort and search thorough data using SQL. Sqlite is already installed almost everywhere, but you may want to get a Sqlite GUI to make it more like working with a spreadsheet. If you’d like to get a visual introduction to these tools, we’ll be running Google Hangouts to demo the tools. Signup and get contact information for these sessions at our Meetup Page. This same set of tools will serve you well if you come to the full day data conference that the Python Meetup group is hosting, starting at 8:30 on the same day as the Contest. Come early, learn some useful skills, and put them to the test in the afternoon. Visit the Data Science FunConference registration page for details and to get a free ticket.
The SDSU / Data Library Data Contest has teamed up with UCSD, Python User Group and several Data Science User’s groups to now offer a full day event with two morning tutorials (R and Python) a mid-day exhibition with many Data Science projects and software demos, an afternoon Machine Learning challenge and the kick off to the SDSU / Data Library Data Contest. Visit the signup page to join the contest, learn more about data science, and have a chance to win part of the $2,100 in prizes. Visit the Conference Eventbright page to register for the conference.
The San Diego Regional Data Library, the SDSU Society for Statisticians and Actuaries and Teradata are organizing a data analysis contest to aid nonprofits, journalists and government agencies in making better use of data, develop a broader regional capacity for data analysis, and introduce students interested in data analysis to future employers. In this contest, student teams will work on one of three projects, addressing education, food insecurity or community development. After the February 28th kick off, teams will have one week to analyze the data and visualize the analysis, before presenting the results to the public at the March 10 awards ceremony. Data Science FunConference. The Data Contest is running together with a Data Science Conference run by the Python Meetup group, 5 other meetup groups, companies and universities. The conference will feature training sessions, data science training, and software demos. Visit the conference registration page for a full schedule. No Experience Necessary. This event will be held in conjunction with the San Diego Python User Group and San Diego Data Science, who will be offering a data science training class the morning before the contest kickoff. Come early to learn data analysis techniques in your favorite language, then apply them in the contest later in the afternoon. Additionally, Teradata employees will serve as mentors to teams, to offer guidance or help if you get stuck. No Team Required. Singleton analysts are welcome! You can come early for the training session to meet other single analysts, or join a team at the event. College, High-school or Pro. The contest is open to high-school students and college students. Professionals and post-students are welcome to participate too, but only students are eligible for prizes.
Even little data, such as a list of crime incidents, locations of bus stops, or population growth estimates, is a big idea, at least according to San Diego magazine’s 25 BIG Ideas.