Data Expedition – Mapping the Garment Factories 

The horrific factory collapse at Rana Plaza in Dhaka has brought the business practices of global garment brands, as well their thousands of suppliers, into the spotlight.

Starting on Thursday, and continuing for a full day on Saturday, the School of Data team led by +Anders Pedersen  will be conducting a data expedition into investigating Global Garments factories.

We need storytellers, engineers, designers, data scouts and analysts all to work on getting to the bottom of what is happening in these garment factories. Sign up here: http://bit.ly/14c1WcJ

How it will work: 

 

1. Prior to the data expedition, we’ll be working to collaboratively build a list of garment factories from around the world.

2. In advance of and during the data expedition, data wranglers from around the community will offer one-hour drop in sessions for a limited number of participants as introductions to a particular topic, such as mapping (which will be a large component here).

3. On Saturday 25th – small teams of investigators will pick a story and investigate it in a team, aiming to reach a conclusion by the end of Saturday.

 

More information can be found here: https://schoolofdata.org/data-expeditions/data-expedition-mapping-the-garment-factories/

Next Week – 30th May – One day Expedition on Tax Evasion 

Next week – Lisa Evans will be offering a one day introduction to investigating tax evasion and tax avoidance with an associated data expedition. Places are limited again, so sign up now! http://bit.ly/14c1WcJ

Welcome – Liliana Bounegru 

A very quick and happy welcome to Liliana Bounegru, who has joined the School of Data team today, part time as an editor for the blog to help source case studies from the blog of now NGOs are using data in their campaigns as inspiration for all of us.

You may have heard Liliana’s name before from DataDrivenJournalism.net and the DataJournalismHandbook (ddjbook.org) and we are thrilled she could join us.

Read more: https://schoolofdata.org/2013/05/20/introducing-liliana-bounegru/

The latest from the School of Data ask service

Are you able to offer any insights into the following questions raised this week via the School of Data ask service? If so – please jump in and help out.

• Would you know of a software which would convert all the sheets of an xls file into CSV files ?
  
• Problem installing OpenRefine on Mac OS 10.8
• Translating Datasets
• What is the difference between a KML and a shapefile ?

Many thanks this week to “geohacker”, “Nigini”, “PAC”, and “Gaba” for their helpful input.

We remain,

Your School of Data Team

[email protected].