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Jean & Alexander Heard Libraries

Digital Scholarship
and Communications

  2. Digital Scholarship and Communications
  3. DiSC Education and Training

DiSC Education and Training

DiSC, along with campus partners, hosts a number of learning opportunities in a variety of formats. The core of our work consists of a series of multi-part lessons on topics ranging from GIS, to introductory research computing and network analysis. Additional information on those offerings may be found below. DiSC also remains available for virtual training and consultation in group or one-on-one settings upon request. If you have any sort of digital scholarship need, please reach out! We would be happy to tailor trainings to your needs as we are able. Please contact disc@vanderbilt.edu to schedule a workshop or request additional information.

Throughout the semester, DiSC also offers a series of guest lectures and single-session workshops. Check Library News Online, or our Newsletter for notifications.

Upcoming sessions:

  • Workshop series may be found below, but check Library News Online for upcoming special events on Open Access publishing, the Open Science Framework, data management, and more.

 

GIS Workshop Series

We will run a series of GIS themed workshops in the Spring of 2023 These workshops will be held every Thursday at 1:15 in the Author's room of the Central Library. Additional information and asynchronous video content may be found on the workshop series website. Please contact Stacy Curry-Johnson for additional information, or to resolve scheduling conflicts.

 

Introduction to GIS
January 26

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have become widely used in a variety of disciplines.  Have you heard about GIS many times, but are not sure what GIS is or how it is used?  Are you unsure of how to get started?  What are my software options?  This session will start you down the path to using geospatial technologies in your research by guiding you through the foundational concepts of GIS and how to think spatially.  You will learn what GIS can do and a general Q&A on how you might incorporate GIS and mapping into your research. A discussion of resources available across campus to help you utilize GIS for your research.  

Best Practices and Finding Geospatial Data
February 2

Learn the best practices to plan, start and complete a GIS project.  Topics covered include how to acquire geospatial data, formatting data to use in GIS software, including multimedia into a geospatial project, and other nontraditional GIS datasets, and more.    

Introduction to QGIS
February 9

In this workshop, you will learn to use raster and vector data in the powerful (free to use) open-source GIS software, QGIS. Users will receive instruction on the QGIS interface and learn basic GIS methods.

ESRI ArcPro
February 16

Participants will get an introduction on how to use ArcGIS Pro, a desktop GIS software. The material includes an introduction to creating and manipulating data in ArcGIS Pro, ESRI's latest desktop GIS technology.  Both working with raster and vector data in Pro are included, as well as how to move maps and data to the web to ArcGIS Online. 

ESRI ArcGIS Online (AGOL)
February 23

In this workshop participants will learn how to work in the ESRI online web mapping environment.  Topics will range from creating interactive web map, webapp, and a dashboard.

ESRI Storymaps
March 2

A story map is a web map that has been thoughtfully created, given context, and provided with supporting information so it becomes a stand-alone resource. It integrates maps, legends, text, photos, and video and provides functionality, such as swipe, pop-ups, and time sliders, that helps users explore this content.  This workshop will be hands on and the participants will make their own StoryMap.

Social Explorer
March 23

Social Explorer provides easy access to demographic information about the United States. We provide thousands of interactive data maps going back to 1790.  In this introductory session, participants will learn how to use the interactive maps provided through the service, but also how to customize data for download and bring into a GIS for analysis.  

Projections and Coordinate Systems
March 30 (virtual)

One of the most important parts to successful GIS project is understanding projections and coordinate systems.  Being able to choose, define, and project differing datasets into the same projection and coordinate system can prove difficult.  This virtual session will provide the basics of projections and coordinate systems.  

Zoom link:  https://vanderbilt.zoom.us/j/99185365063?pwd=M2dnZTVxTGR3MlMvRkJkMmx4K0FmZz09  

Pitfalls and Troubleshooting
April 6 (virtual)

This virtual session will help the participants navigating common issues that one might face in a GIS project.  What common mistakes can be made? From data management to manipulation to visualization, tips and tricks to make a mapping project run smoother.  

Zoom link:   https://vanderbilt.zoom.us/j/99107744558?pwd=WFZ4UUdyWmJyRzVhczY1Q0M3TW0yQT09  

 

 

Network Analysis: An Introduction

Tuesdays 1:00-2:00 p.m. CT. February 7 -- March 7 (virtual)

This series of five sessions will introduce you to the basics of network analysis. You will learn to use Gephi to create a small-scale network from scratch and use appropriate analytical approaches to uncover the underlying structures in relatively more complex networks. No experience in network analysis is required to attend this workshop. If you have a research question in mind and would like to explore if you can potentially incorporate network analysis into your research, this course will be an ideal first step. Please contact Shenmeng Xu for additional information. This course will be offered online. Please register here .   

 

Bibliometric Analysis: An Introduction

Tuesdays 1:00-2:00 p.m. CT. April 25 -- May 9 (virtual)

This series of three sessions will introduce you to the basics of bibliometric network analysis. You will learn to use VOSviewer to construct and visualize citation networks, collaboration networks, and semantic networks. Basic understanding of networks is desired but not required to attend this workshop. Please contact Shenmeng Xu for additional information. This course will be offered online. Please register here .  

 

Python Series

These lessons allow learners to develop programming skills as part of a group of learners working through the curriculum together, or on their own and at their own pace. They are designed to get you started using Python in the Colab notebook platform and teach the basics of the Python language. A particular goal of the lessons is to make it possible for you to understand and use for your own purposes code that has been developed by others.

Beginner lessons will be offered during the spring semester on Wednesdays from 1:00-2:00 PM Central Time, February 1 through March 1. The synchronous lessons will be offered over Zoom with advance registration required.  

For more information about all DiSC Python lessons including the schedule of sessions and registration details, visit the course website.

R Series

These lessons allow learners to develop programming skills as part of a group of learners working through the curriculum together, or on their own and at their own pace. The synchronous lessons will be offered over Zoom with advance registration required. 
 
Six sessions of Beginner lessons will be offered during the spring semester on Wednesdays from 1:00-2:00 PM Central Time, March 22 through April 19. The lessons are designed to get you started using R quickly through the popular RStudio Cloud interface. They will introduce the fundamental R data structures and will teach the basics of data wrangling, calculating statistic quantities, and making simple plots.

For more information about all DiSC R lessons including the schedule of sessions and registration details, visit the course website.

 

Self-Paced Learning and On Demand Learning

DiSC has prepared a list of digital resources and tutorials on our Github page on the following topics:

Digital Literacies

Both media and scholarly outputs are shared in increasingly open, diverse ways. Indeed, this increasing production and consumption of digital media, necessitates an understanding of the cultural logics of information sharing ecologies, an understanding of how and why digital outputs are created, and our own ethical responsibilities in sharing those outputs. Just as information literacy is critically important to student success, digital literacies are critically important for life-long learners, engaged citizens, and critical consumers of open scholarship.   For additional information on past series, please visit the  Digital Literacies Workshop Website. For information on future programming, please contact disc@vanderbilt.edu

The Vanderbilt Libraries also provides access to O’Reilly for Higher Education, a multimedia collection of instruction and reference materials focused on computer programming, web development, audio-video editing tools, and gaming and AR/VR.