Data Communities
Data Services is an enthusiastic member of our data communities. Some of the community groups we are involved in or support include:
WashU Groups | Local Groups | National and International Groups
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WashU Groups
Data for Social Impact (DSI) is an initiative that builds data capacity and collaboration among social sector organizations working to increase impact for and with the communities they serve.
The Digital Humanities Working Group offers a space for faculty and advanced graduate students to present works-in-progress for feedback before submitting their work to an external conference, journal, or grant body. The working group aims to create a regular community gathering space for researchers in the digital humanities across disciplines in the Arts and Sciences. It is a collaboration between the HDW, the Transdisciplinary Institute in Applied Data Sciences (TRIADS), and Olin Library Data Services.
The Digital Intelligence & Innovation (DI2) Accelerator is the home of the WashU Digital Transformation initiative. By supporting researchers, equipping students and mid-career learners with digital skills, and working to make the best of computational infrastructure, the accelerator is leading the charge to make WashU a leader in the digital domain.
Fox Fridays is a weekly, low-stress workshop series introducing the WashU community to overlooked or lesser-known tools, resources, processes, and ideas. It provides a platform for students to develop hybridized practices of creative output that transcend discipline, medium, and experience
The Geospatial Research Initiative (GRI) is an intensive two-year project to build excellence in Geospatial research across all schools at WashU. GRI aims to make WashU a preeminent international leader in global, interdisciplinary, geospatial research by 2030.
The Immersive Technology Collective (ITC) brings together literary scholars and historians with engineers, scientists, and doctors to imagine with immersive technologies. ITC collaborates with students to help them clarify any uncertainties.
The Skandalaris Center works with the best and brightest at WashU – the change makers, thought leaders, and visionaries – to solve the world’s problems and meet local needs through innovation and entrepreneurship. As an interdisiplinary center, our initiatives serve students, faculty, staff, and alumni from all levels and disciplines.
The Systems Science Interest Group is a community of scholars, researchers, and evaluators at WashU who are interested in systems science, including network analysis, agent-based modeling, and system dynamics. Sessions are held once per month during the academic year and include a mix of formal and informal presentations and discussions.
The Transdisciplinary Institute in Applied Data Sciences (TRIADS) mission is to explore new datasets and new techniques to better understand and address critical problems facing society today. We create and support transdisciplinary collaborations among scholars to connect big data to big questions.
The WashU Tableau User Group (WU TUG) welcomes any member of the WashU community interested in learning about data visualization and Tableau software. Their meetings are not formal training workshops; they come together as a supportive group to share current projects, exchange helpful tips, and discuss additional data-wrangling resources on campus.
Local Groups
The Geospatial Users Group is a group of GIS professionals across all disciplines in the St. Louis area who meet quarterly to discuss applications of spatial technology and solutions. DS staff attend these meetings and other related events to interact with GIS counterparts and receive training. This organization also links DS staff and organizations from which WashU users frequently request spatial data.
The Missouri Geographic Systems Advisory Council (MGISAC) is a statewide committee formed under Missouri’s Chief Information Officer to foster cooperation between state agencies in geospatial technologies. The group holds monthly meetings, occasional conferences, and trainings to set standards for the production and use of spatial data in the state and advise on the direction of the Missouri Spatial Data Information Service (MSDIS). MSDIS is an important spatial data resource for many WashU students and researchers.
The purpose of R-Ladies St. Louis is to promote gender diversity in the R community through regular meetings and provide support for gender minority R users through conference participation, continuing education, and R package development. The local chapter of R-Ladies holds monthly meetings on various R topics, such as data visualization, data wrangling, and app development.
The Taylor Geospatial Institute is a St. Louis-based academic nonprofit dedicated to amplifying the geospatial research collaboration across its consortium of 8 research institutions.
Modeling the core value of inclusivity in innovation, TechSTL is democratizing membership to build the largest, most diverse – and therefore strongest – tech council in North America.
Technology Entrepreneur Center Inc (T-REX) is a non-profit innovation and entrepreneur development center dedicated to strengthening the economic vitality of St. Louis, one startup at a time. Like a magnet, T-REX attracts innovation to our core downtown region. A coworking space, technology incubator, and entrepreneur resource center, T-REX offers an ecosystem where ideas are conceived, brought to fruition, and given room to grow.
The Women in Geospatial Technology STL group is open to all women in the St. Louis area interested in geospatial technology. This group is for networking, building support, changing the world, and helping each other achieve success.
National and International Groups
The Community Standards for 3D Data Preservation is an international community of 3D data and data curation experts working to ensure that digital 3D data is preservable, sharable, findable, and usable long-term. DS staff are co-leading this effort.
The Data Curation Network is a professional network of data curators, research data librarians, academic library administrators, directors of international data repositories, disciplinary subject experts, and scholars. The Data Curation Network represents academic institutions and non-profit societies that make research data available to the public.
The Research Data Alliance (RDA) was launched in 2013 as a community-driven initiative by the European Commission, the United States Government’s National Science Foundation and National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Australian Government’s Department of Innovation. Its goal is to build the social and technical infrastructure to enable open sharing and re-use of data.