Classes – Fundamentals of NYC Open Data

We believe that government information should be accessible and easily understandable. Since the passage of NYC’s open data law, we have worked with a number of partners to make tutorials, tools, and classes. In partnership with Manhattan Borough President Gale A. Brewer, the author of NYC’s open data law, our Civic Innovation Lab and Fellows Program has developed a number of interlocking workshops and tools to demystify data and turn it into action.

Below, you will find links to our teaching materials, presentation slides, speaker notes, and tools.

If you are interested in attending these classes, we offer them on a quarterly basis via our Meetup at https://meetup.com/betanyc.

Many thanks to the generous support of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Manhattan Borough President Gale A. Brewer, Microsoft, Socrata, Carto, NYC 311, and NYC Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics in helping create these classes.

All content is copyright BetaNYC, a project partner of the Fund for the City of New York, and is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0).

THIS IS OUR DATA. THIS IS HOW YOU USE IT.

Class 101: Introduction to NYC’s open data

Our introduction to open data workshop will introduce you to the fundamental terms and processes needed to understand NYC’s open data. Then, we will move to an interactive game that helps orient you to NYC’s 311 data and how to ask questions from NYC’s open data portal. This workshop will focus on the NYC 311 dataset and a few key municipal tools.

NO COMPUTER NEEDED!
Class time 90 mins.

Note – this class requires a card deck we have printed out and we’re in process of reworking this deck. In the meantime, you might want to move on to 102.

Link to teaching materials:

Class 102: Unlocking Open Data with BoardStat and Data Journeys

BetaNYC has designed tools and customized trainings specifically intended to help Community Boards and civic organizations access, analyze, map and use data to inform decision-making.  This workshop will introduce you to BoardStat < https://beta.nyc/boardstat >, an easy-to-use tool to query 311-requests and explore trends in health, safety and quality of life concerns. Additional municipal tools will be introduced. Come ready to learn and get right into datasets and graphs.

This class was developed in conjunction with the Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and NYC Civic Innovation Fellows.

Equipment needed, a laptop and power adapter.
Class time 90 mins.

Link to teaching materials:

Class 103: Diving into NYC’s open data portal, spreadsheets, and the Pivot Table

This workshop will teach you how to navigate the NYC open data portal to find your desired datasets, and implement fundamental data analytics in Socrata and spreadsheets. Believe it or not, you will leave this workshop completely confident in your ability to create useful data summaries using the Roll-up in Socrata and Pivot table in Google Sheets.  Be prepared to work on and off the computer, as mid-way through we join together for a tactile, hands-on data exercise.

Equipment needed, a laptop and power adapter.
Class time 90 mins.

STATUS: beta! 

Class 104: Mapping & analyzing NYC’s census and open data

This workshop will extend your understanding of data into the spatial dimension, teaching you to make maps using Carto, a web-based mapping platform. Specifically you will learn how to map NYC open data, import a boundary shape-file into a map, and join a boundary file with Census information in order to map socio-demographics of NYC communities. Come ready to take your understanding of data into the spatial realm!

Equipment needed, a laptop and power adapter.
Class time 90 – 120 mins.

STATUS: beta! 

If you are interested in partnering with us to develop new curriculum, please email us at CIF@beta.nyc for more information.