Harvard Kennedy School

HKS Library Newsletter

March @ HKS Library 🌷

In this email you'll find:

This week: Data visualization support for PAE writers 📊
Just announced: Intro to Machine Learning Workshop 🤖
This Friday: Data + Donuts with Professor Sharad Goel 🍩
Explore Student Publications in the HKS Library 📰
Opportunities for advanced GIS learning 🌍

This week: Data visualization support for PAE writers 📊

The HKS Library is hosting two events this week to help students incorporate data visualizations into PAE. Whether you're using Tableau, R, Excel, or something else, we can help you enhance your arguments and make clear recommendations to your clients beyond the written word.

If you can't make the events, you can book an appointment with one of our Data & Methods Course Assistants, our Manager of Research & Data Services, or Harvard Library's Visualization Specialist.

Principles of Data Visualization Workshop

Wednesday, March 22, 2023
11:00AM-12:00PM
Littauer L-332 Deland Classroom

This workshop will introduce you to the fundamental principles of data visualization. You'll learn:

How to prepare data for analysis and visualization
How to choose and create effective visualizations
Software and other tools for visualizing data

Details & Registration (Harvard login)

Finishing Your PAE: Citations, Design, Copyright & Beyond

Thursday, March 23, 2023
4:15-5:30PM
Wexner 332 Classroom

Calling all MPP students! Join faculty, librarians, data visualization specialists, communications experts, and fellow students to get help with the final stages of your PAE. Our team can help you with citations, layout and design, data visualization (including mapping), copyright and image licensing, accessibility, and submitting your PAE.

Details (Harvard login)

Just announced: Intro to Machine Learning Workshop 🤖

Programming + Pizza // Intro to Machine Learning: Decision Trees in R

Wednesday, April 12, 2023
5:00-7:00PM
Library Commons

This workshop edition of Programming + Pizza will introduce you to the basic concepts of supervised Machine Learning. Machine Learning is a set of methods used to detect patters in data then use those patterns to make predictions on future data. In this workshop you'll learn:

Basic principles and methods of Machine Learning (training and testing splits, calculating error, and overfitting)
How to use basic machine learning models with tabular data in R
How to use Decision Trees and Random Forests in R

Details & Registration

This Friday: Data + Donuts with Professor Sharad Goel 🍩

Data + Donuts // Access and Equity in College Admissions with Sharad Goel

Friday, March 24, 2023
10:30-11:30AM
Library Commons & Zoom

Sharad Goel is a Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, and an affiliate faculty member in Computer Science at the Harvard School of Engineering. He looks at public policy through the lens of computer science, bringing a computational perspective to a diverse range of contemporary social issues including policing practices, fair machine learning, and democratic governance.

At this session of Data + Donuts, Professor Goel will talk about his recent empirical work on access to education. He'll discuss a series of inter-related empirical projects aimed at understanding and reducing disparities in college applications and admissions.

Details & Registration

Two shelves in the HKS Library with small signs featuring covers of the latest editions of all 12 Student Journals.

Explore Student Publications in the HKS Library 📰

HKS' student-led journals and newspaper showcase student research and opinions on a variety of policy areas, including on specific regions and identities.

You can explore all 12 Student Journals currently in publication in the Library Commons, to the right of the Diversity, Inclusion, & Belonging Collection.

The HKS Library has digitized all available past issues of the student journals. You can explore past issues online through HOLLIS.

Opportunities for advanced GIS learning 🌍

If you attended one of our Intro to GIS workshops this semester (or even if you didn't!) you may be looking for ways to advance your skills working with geospatial data and geographic information systems.

Harvard's Center for Geographic Analysis is a great resource. This summer, they're hosting two multiday workshops on advanced GIS skills for research. Please note the application deadlines, which are coming up soon!

GIS Institute Summer 2023: Immersive Training for Spatial Research
May 30 - June 9, 9:30 am - 5:00 pm, CGIS Knafel Building.
Find details and apply online. Application deadline is March 24.

The Summer Workshop on Spatiotemporal Innovation
July 10 - 14, 9:00 am - 5:00 pm, CGIS Knafel Building.
Find details and apply online. Application deadline is April 1.

HKS librarians can support your research and academic work. Ask us a question or schedule an appointment!

Contact the Library

ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF LAND AND PEOPLE

Harvard University is located on the traditional land of the Massachusett people, and the Nipmuc and Wampanoag Nations have long been our neighbors as well. Harvard Kennedy School recognizes and honors the past, present, and future of these Indigenous people and precious lands.