Blog: Data Science Insights

Moderating Harassment in Twitter with Blockbots

With Data, Bigger Might Not Always Be Better

Every conversation I’ve heard about what it means to be a data scientist consists of tons of ideas but no consensus. While it seems like nobody can agree on the sufficient conditions for obtaining this illustrious title, a lot of people are vehement about a necessary one: being a data scientist means you work with big data.

Computational Thinking: I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means

BIDS visiting scholar Lorena Barba posted a great blog post on computational thinking and was kindly willing to let us cross-post on our blog. Check it out below.

The Joy of Code Refactoring

If you write software for your research, you have most likely had the experience of looking at your code and realizing it has become a tangled mess. Perhaps it has even gotten to the point where you, the original author, have a hard time remembering how all the pieces fit together. Don’t despair! This is perfectly natural in research software; it is just time to refactor.

Bringing Data Science Back to Statistics

One of the sessions that I attended at the 2015 Moore-Sloan Data Science Environment Summit was titled "Isn't Statistics Part of Data Science?" It is a niggling question I often consider, especially given how few statisticians there are at BIDS. A group of about forty people from statistics, computer science, and applied domains convened to discuss differences in practice and culture that divide statistics from data science. I am an applied statistician and a fellow at BIDS straddling these two worlds. I find it difficult to identify the line dividing these roles.

Women Raise More Money with Crowdfunding, Research Shows

Women raise more money with crowdfunding than men do because of the words female founders tend to use, according to a study currently under peer review. _________ Women Raise More Money with Crowdfunding, Research Shows February 9, 2016 | Catherine Clifford | Entrepreneur

What’s the Big Deal about Python?

In research and data analysis, a lot of work is routine and repetitive. This is the perfect place for automation: where we tell our computers to do things. How? We write instructions that computers understand—or “programming.”   Why Would I Learn Programming at All?

NIMBLE: Programming Statistical Algorithms for Graphical (Hierarchical) Models

A Software Release Checklist

BIDS Docker Workshop Overview and Lessons Learned

A big thank you to Titus Brown, associate professor of population health and reproduction at UC Davis, for hosting a two-day Docker Workshop at BIDS. Below is a write-up of the event as well as Titus's takeaways from the workshop.