1 Workshop Description

This workshop provides a broad overview of the various technologies for storing and organizing different collections of data. We will discuss how data structure and data types impact your storage options, when you should use a database, and which platforms you might consider for your research. This workshop is a general lecture with case studies and Q&A (no laptops necessary). This workshop is a prerequisite for DataLab’s Intro to SQL for Querying Databases Workshop (event), and Spatial SQL with SpatiaLite Workshop (event).

1.1 Learning Objectives

After completing this workshop, you will be able to answer the following questions:

  • What are the most common data structures people use?

  • Which data structures lend themselves to answering different types of research questions?

  • What is a database?

  • What are the differences between relational and noSQL databases?

  • What factors impact what type of data store I should use for my research?

1.2 Prerequisites

No prerequisites or software required. This workshop is designed for researchers with active or planned data collection and storage.

1.3 Credits

All images were created by Elise Hellwig unless otherwise noted. Movie information courtesy of IMDb (https://www.imdb.com). Used with permission for non-commercial purposes only.

1.3.1 References

Henderson, Harold V., and Paul F. Velleman. 1981. “Building Multiple Regression Models Interactively.” Biometrics 37 (2): 391–411. https://doi.org/10.2307/2530428.
IMDb. 2023. “IMDb Non-Commercial Datasets. IMDb Developer.” November 12, 2023. https://developer.imdb.com/non-commercial-datasets/.
Tingeborn, Jonas. 2023. “Imdb-Sqlite: Imports IMDB TSV Files into a SQLite Database.” https://github.com/jojje/imdb-sqlite.
Wikimedia. 2024. “Wikidata Query Service. Wikidata.” March 5, 2024. https://query.wikidata.org/.
Wikipedia contributors. 2024. “House of Tudor.” In Wikipedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=House_of_Tudor&oldid=1212771076.