On April 19, a group of over 40 Carleton researchers gathered in Dunton Tower for a day-long Research Data Retreat hosted by the Institute for Data Science. The day was designed to bring together researchers from all faculties, the library, and computing services to further Carleton’s collaborative research and other activities in the data science and analytics space.

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The day began with a datablitz slideshow, providing all participants with an opportunity to speak briefly on their data science and analytics research interests, skills, and needs. We heard from engineers, computer scientists, economists, mathematicians, historians, social scientists, chemists, and data librarians — to name a few!

Gallery | Datablitz Slideshow

The afternoon session followed an un-conference workshop format whereby participants initiated discussions on topics inspired by the datablitz, and then claimed a time and space for their discussion to occur by filling up a blank agenda grid.

Discussion topics included:DSC00695

  1. Multisensory Data Visualization
  2. Correlating Science-based Computer Models with Data from the Real World (e.g. experiments)
  3. Text Mining Applications in the Financial Industry: Understanding Unconstructed Financial Data and Applying it to Monetary Policy, Financial Market Monitoring, Investing, etc.
  4. Reverse Engineering Algorithms: Proprietary Algorithms (unpacking the values embedded in them)
  5. Data Classification
  6. Bio-Medical and Bio-Ethics: Privacy, Data Access
  7. Permafrost Data and Modeling
  8. Computational Requirements: State of the Art Computing Infrastructure, Types of Software Used, Computing Methodologies
  9. Big Data in the Undergraduate Classroom: Finding Data Sets, Evaluating Models, Mining, Objectively Evaluating Outputs

We thank all who contributed to the event and look forward to future opportunities for collaboration with Carleton’s data science/analytics community!