Many know that Wesleyan has a very large collection of prints dating back to the 15th century, stored in the Davison Art Center (DAC). Not many are aware that, through the efforts of the DAC staff, the collection comes with an extensive dataset containing metadata for all records. In the fall of 2017, students from the Introduction to Network Analysis (QAC 241) got a chance to view some of the famous prints and then search for new insights in art history using their quantitative skills. This post describes the experiences, accomplishments, and challenges of working with art history data.
Featured
Should data scientists <3 emojis?
Within a sea of New York start-ups hides a data journalism lab that treats the heart tacked on at the end of your tweet with the same seriousness as its 140 characters. PRISMOJI, founded by ex-Facebook data scientist Hamdan Azhar, hunts and reports on patterns in tweet trends. From the Swift/Kanye debacle to Brexit, the … Read more
Wesleyan’s 2017 DataDive: An Exploration into Activism through Data Analysis
On October 27-28, Wesleyan will host our first DataDive event. Similar to DataFest, DataDive asks people to get to know a dataset in a very short period of time. At the end of the weekend, participants present to the information’s owner some important insights and ideas on how this data could be used. However, where DataDive is truly different is its desire for volunteers to understand specifically how their data could be used for good.
The Hottest New Commodity is Personal Data
The Data Dollar Store was a shop that only accepted data in exchange for items. That’s right, data was this store’s form of currency. However, it wasn’t just data that this store required, but personal data. Appearing as a pop-up store in London in early September, the Data Dollar Store aimed to show people the true value of their personal data.
Fun in the Sun: A Look at Summer QAC Projects
It’s bizarre to go to a university where it’s practically a given that your classmates will your mind when they tell you about their summer. This could be daunting, as not all of us have the resources for a big internship or trip around the world. However, you don’t need to travel to have a story worth sharing, a fact that seventeen Wesleyan students took advantage of this summer. The QAC’s Summer Apprenticeship is a program in which students partner with a faculty mentor to work on a data-based research project. I spoke to a couple of participants and asked them to tell me about their work.