The Computational Demography Working Group Is Reconvening

Posted: 11/5/2018 (CSDE Research)

Mark your calendar! The Computational Demography Working Group is meeting twice this quarter. On November 15, Tim Thomas will give an Introduction to Git and Github.com Workflows. His workshop will draw on his own expertise as well as materials from the Software Carpentry project. On December 6, Connor Gilroy, Neal Marquez and Lee Fiorio will conduct an open discussion of the possibilities and limitations of Conducting Demographic Research with Facebook Ads Data. They will describe ongoing research projects and recent debates around so-called “digital trace data” in demographic research.

The Computational Demography Working Group meets regularly to provide an interdisciplinary forum for discussions of digital and computational approaches to demographic research. The workshop features a range of paper presentations, methods demonstrations and software tutorials. Plus there will be free pizza!

 

Introduction to Git and Github Workflows

Git is an industry and academic standard for version-controlling computer files (i.e. tracking changes) and collaborating with multiple people. Github is an online platform designed for maintaining git repositories for sharing and developing reproducible work. In this workshop, you will learn workflow standards for these powerful tools.

Date: 11/15/2018
Time: 12:00-1:30 PM
Location: 114 Raitt Hall

 

Conducting Demographic Research with Facebook Ad Data

Facebook’s business model is to sell targeted advertisements based on user demographics, behavior and interests. To help potential advertisers design an ad and stage an advertising campaign, Facebook provides estimates of “audience size” given the targeted demographic.

In this meeting, Connor Gilroy, Neal Marquez and Lee Fiorio will host an open discussion about the possibilities and limitations of using FacebookAds data on audience size to estimate the characteristics of populations and improve population estimates where data are missing or data quality is poor. The discussion will focus on recent work Connor, Neal and Lee have all conducted using FacebookAds data and on issues of working with non-traditional digital data more broadly.

Date: 12/06/2018
Time: 12:00-1:30 PM
Location: 114 Raitt Hall

 

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