Before you can work with data you have to get some. This course will cover myriad ways that data can be obtained. The course will cover obtaining data from the web, from APIs, from databases and from colleagues in various formats. It will also cover the basics of data cleaning and how to make data “tidy”. Tidy data dramatically speed downstream data analysis tasks. The course will also cover the components of a complete data set including raw data, processing instructions, codebooks, and processed data. The course will cover the basics needed for collecting, cleaning, and sharing data.
-
Week 1 We look at finding data and reading different file types.
-
Week 2 We look at the most common data storage systems and the appropriate tools to extract data from web or from databases like MySQL.
-
Week 3 The lectures will focus on organizing, merging and managing the data you have collected using the lectures from Weeks 1 and 2.
-
Week 4 We finish up with lectures on text and data manipulation in R.