OpenRefine for Social Science Data

Social and Cultural Informatics Platform (SCIP), The University of Melbourne

Online

October 15, 2020

2:30 pm - 4:30 pm (optional pre-workshop installfest at 2pm)

Instructors: Maria del Mar Quiroga

Helpers: Greg D'Arcy, Trent Ryan

Please register using the Google form below in order to receive the Zoom link for the session by email

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General Information

Data Carpentry develops and teaches workshops on the fundamental data skills needed to conduct research. Its target audience is researchers who have little to no prior computational experience, and its lessons are domain specific, building on learners' existing knowledge to enable them to quickly apply skills learned to their own research. Participants will be encouraged to help one another and to apply what they have learned to their own research problems.

For more information on what we teach and why, please see our paper "Good Enough Practices for Scientific Computing".

Who: The course is aimed at graduate students and other researchers. You don't need to have any previous knowledge of the tools that will be presented at the workshop.

Where: This training will take place online. The instructors will provide you with the information you will need to connect to this meeting.

When: October 15, 2020. Add to your Google Calendar.

Requirements: Participants must bring a laptop with a Mac, Linux, or Windows operating system (not a tablet, Chromebook, etc.) that they have administrative privileges on. They should have a few specific software packages installed (listed below).

Accessibility: We are dedicated to providing a positive and accessible learning environment for all. Please notify the instructors in advance of the workshop if you require any accommodations or if there is anything we can do to make this workshop more accessible to you.

Contact: Please email scipenquiries@unimelb.edu.au for more information.

Roles: To learn more about the roles at the workshop (who will be doing what), refer to our Workshop FAQ.


Code of Conduct

Everyone who participates in Carpentries activities is required to conform to the Code of Conduct. This document also outlines how to report an incident if needed.


Surveys

Please be sure to complete these surveys before and after the workshop.

Pre-workshop Survey

Post-workshop Survey


Schedule and syllabus

Thursday 15 October 2020, 2:30pm

Before starting Pre-workshop survey
2:00pm (optional) Pre-workshop installfest: The instructors will be online for 30 minutes before the scheduled start of the workshop to address any issues you may encounter while installing the required software. Attendance is not required, just drop in if you have questions or issues.
2:30pm Introduction
2:40pm Working with OpenRefine
2:55pm Q&A and/or exercises
3:10pm Filtering and Sorting
3:20pm Examining Numeric Data
3:30pm Generating Scripts
3:40pm Q&A and/or exercises
4:00pm Exporting Data
4:10pm Other Resources
4:15pm Q&A and/or exercises

Setup

To participate in a Data Carpentry workshop, you will need access to the software described below. In addition, you will need an up-to-date web browser.

We maintain a list of common issues that occur during installation as a reference for instructors that may be useful on the Configuration Problems and Solutions wiki page.

Install the videoconferencing client

If you haven't used Zoom before, go to the official website to download and install the Zoom client for your computer.

Set up your workspace

Like other Carpentries workshops, you will be learning by "coding along" with the Instructors. To do this, you will need to have both the window for the tool you will be learning about (a terminal, RStudio, your web browser, etc..) and the window for the Zoom video conference client open. In order to see both at once, we recommend using one of the following set up options:

This blog post includes detailed information on how to set up your screen to follow along during the workshop.

OpenRefine

For this lesson you will need OpenRefine and a web browser. Note: this is a Java program that runs on your machine (not in the cloud). It runs inside a web browser, but no web connection is needed.

  1. Check that you have either Firefox or Chrome installed and set as your default browser. OpenRefine runs in your default browser. It will not run correctly in Internet Explorer.
  2. Download software from http://openrefine.org/
  3. Create a new directory called OpenRefine.
  4. Unzip the downloaded file into the OpenRefine directory by right-clicking and selecting "Extract ...".
  5. Go to your newly created OpenRefine directory.
  6. Launch OpenRefine by clicking openrefine.exe (this will launch a command prompt window, but you can ignore that - just wait for OpenRefine to open in the browser).
  7. If you are using a different browser, or if OpenRefine does not automatically open for you, point your browser at http://127.0.0.1:3333/ or http://localhost:3333 to use the program.
  1. Check that you have either the Firefox or the Chrome browser installed and set as your default browser. OpenRefine runs in your default browser. It may not run correctly in Safari.
  2. Download software from http://openrefine.org/.
  3. Create a new directory called OpenRefine.
  4. Unzip the downloaded file into the OpenRefine directory by double-clicking it.
  5. Go to your newly created OpenRefine directory.
  6. Launch OpenRefine by dragging the icon into the Applications folder.
  7. Use Ctrl-click/Open ... to launch it.
  8. If you are using a different browser, or if OpenRefine does not automatically open for you, point your browser at http://127.0.0.1:3333/ or http://localhost:3333 to use the program.
  1. Check that you have either the Firefox or the Chrome browser installed and set as your default browser. OpenRefine runs in your default browser.
  2. Download software from http://openrefine.org/.
  3. Make a directory called OpenRefine.
  4. Unzip the downloaded file into the OpenRefine directory.
  5. Go to your newly created OpenRefine directory.
  6. Launch OpenRefine by entering ./refine into the terminal within the OpenRefine directory.
  7. If you are using a different browser, or if OpenRefine does not automatically open for you, point your browser at http://127.0.0.1:3333/ or http://localhost:3333 to use the program.