BIOL368/F20:Class Journal Week 8

Yaniv Response

1. Which of these core competencies are being demonstrated by the individuals profiled in the two Wired articles you read?
   • Databases and Data Formats as well as Data Management and Organization. The article regarding the true meaning of “real” programming talked about the importance of databases and highlighted the fact that “true” programming has been changing as our society becomes more complex and acquires more and more technology. That being said, the author emphasized the importance of the database, and that simply having access to a database is all that is necessary to be successful. Even more so, he went on to say that it is soothing, true power, and that doing so is considered real programming. The second article touched more on data management and organization in the way he compiles voter lists and information and curates to make sure there are no purges and creates essentially what is a database of information for voting. He is organizing all the information and pulling these names off of previous databases. Thus, it somewhat also incorporates data conversion and interoperability; pulling voter information from states and transferring them to software databases.
2. Name two of these core competencies are you most skilled with (or which is most familiar to you)? Where and how did you gain the skills/become familiar?
   • I believe I am strong in ethics, including citation of data especially after having taken this class. This class has taught me an incredible amount regarding the importance and true nature of citing information we use and why it is so important to properly acknowledge and cite all components that played a role in the creation of a project, presentation, or paper. The second competency I think I am most skilled with is discovery and acquisition of data. I believe I have over the years been able to hone in my skills of searching for strong pieces of data and especially after the discussion with the librarians last week been able to understand what pieces of information are most important and what biases to look out for.
3. Name two of these core competencies that you want to know more about? Why?
   • I would like to learn more about data conversion and interoperability (migrate data from one format to another, and understand the benefits of standard data formats) as well as cultures of practice (know the practices, values, and norms of discipline as they relate to managing, sharing, and curating data). I believe that data conversion could be a very resourceful and intuitive process and can help enhance anyone's pool of resources and possibilities with extracting different pieces of data to create an overall project. Secondly I think it is important to understand the ins and outs of data usage and to know the norms of discipline with regard to data management, storage and curation. This is a world of its own and it is important to be able to jump into it respectfully and to adhere to the rules and regulations that surround this world to be able to then navigate it easily.

Yaniv Maddahi (talk) 14:04, 27 October 2020 (PDT)

Anna Horvath Response

1. Which of these core competencies are being demonstrated by the individuals profiled in the two Wired articles you read?
   • The core competencies being demonstrated by these individuals in the two articles are 'Data Management and Organization' and 'Databases and Data Formats'. The article speaking of voter registration spoke of using databases and spreadsheets as a way to track and manage data. This spoke directly to 'Data Management and Organization'. In it, they created a spreadsheet of voters when they noticed some people were being marked not as active but as confirmed voters. They used the organization of data in order to help counteract the fact that they had been purged. This ultimately helped them to understand and rectify the errors made by the state. The other article, talking about real programming deals with 'Databases and Data Formats'. It speaks to the fact that after the large peak of COVID-19 in New York, new simple databases were emerging that attempted to help use databases as a service, such as for food delivery and organization. They spoke about how creating these incredibly simple databases may be intimidating to programmers.
2. Name two of these core competencies are you most skilled with (or which is most familiar to you)? Where and how did you gain the skills/become familiar?
   • The two core competencies with which I am familiar with are 'Data Visualization' and 'Ethics'. Throughout my education at LMU, I have become familiar with presenting data in a simple, analyzable way through the creation of tables, graphs, figures, and the like. I now understand how to create the figures which work best with a given data set, as well as how to analyze other types of data. In terms of ethics, I have learned how to always use a reference and cite data that is not directly mine and instead give the credit to the original authors of a work.
3. Name two of these core competencies that you want to know more about? Why?
   • Two core competencies I want to know more about are 'Data Curation and re-use' as well as 'Quality Preservation'. I believe that the curation and re-use of data has a lot of nuances that I may not yet be familiar with. As far as quality assurance, I think I have a difficult time assessing the quality of a work or database, especially when I have limited exposure to that given data set. Therefore, I would be interested to learn how I could prevent the potential spread of bad data, leading to misinformation.

Anna Horvath (talk) 17:42, 28 October 2020 (PDT)

Aiden Burnett's response

1. Which of these core competencies are being demonstrated by the individuals profiled in the two Wired articles you read?
   • I think that both articles show excellent examples of data management and organization, as well as data ethics. The former is seen in the very effective uses of spreadsheets and coding to solve real world problems. Keeping track of information on millions of voters and making that information organized in such a way to be useful is a testament to their competency I think. Both cases also demonstrate information ethics, but not in terms of proper citing and understanding of information rights. Both articles demonstrated examples of open source data or cooperative use of information for an ethically admirable end goal. Maybe this means that they did not exemplify scientific data literacy ethics, but it still felt like something worth noting.
2. Name two of these core competencies are you most skilled with (or which is most familiar to you)? Where and how did you gain the skills/become familiar?
   • I would say that I am most skilled at Data Management and Organization and Data Preservation. This is because I naturally like to categorize my thoughts and different types of information. For example, I'm the only person I know who uses folders on Spotify. This is a feature that you have to make using the desktop version, but it allows you to sort and store playlists. I love them because they help me organize my music beyond simple playlists. I also have a running folder where I save playlists of my favourite songs each month (data preservation). There are more example but i n short, organizing and preserving data is just something I am inclined to do.
3. Name two of these core competencies that you want to know more about? Why?
   • I think I would like to know more about cultures of practice and data visualization. The former because this is something I will need to know as a practicing biologist. The latter because, beyond utility, I find good visualizations pleasing. I spent an hour and a half making one chart for our project 1 presentations just because I knew the end product would look really nice.

Macie Duran

1. Which of these core competencies are being demonstrated by the individuals profiled in the two Wired articles you read?
   • The core competencies Data Management and Organization and Databases and Data Formats are demonstrated in the two articles. The article about voter suppression mentioned using spreadsheets to organize and manage voter registration status of the citizens of Ohio. This is an example of Data Management and Organization because the data has to be compiled from county lists into a master state list. The state must purge voters that are not properly registered, while also making sure that voters that are registered remain on the active list. Tingley-Hock was able to organize the data each week and identify the thousands of people being wrongly purged from the list of active voters, in an effort to get them to re-register. The second article about ‘real’ programming is an example of Databases and Data Formats. This article outlined the importance of coding and programming being made accessible to ‘regular people’. Although amateur programs may seem juvenile to ‘real’ programmers, it allows less experienced people to organize and manage their data for their businesses. In the article’s example, it allowed a community in New York to better organize their food pantry during the COVID-19 peak.
2. Name two of these core competencies are you most skilled with (or which is most familiar to you)? Where and how did you gain the skills/become familiar?
   • I feel most familiar with Ethics and Discovery and Acquisition of Data. Ethics involves understanding intellectual property and being careful when sharing and citing data, and Data Acquisition involves finding appropriate data sources. Throughout my years of being a student, I feel that I have used these competencies the most. Being able to find reliable sources and then properly citing those sources is very important when learning and sharing information.
3. Name two of these core competencies that you want to know more about. Why?
   • I would like to know more about Data Conversion and Interoperability and Data Curation and Re-use. I would like to learn more about the standard data formats and how different formats should be used for different data. As far as curation, I don’t know much about the process of curating a dataset so I think it would be interesting to understand it better.

(Macie Duran (talk) 19:08, 28 October 2020 (PDT))

Owen Dailey

1. Which of these core competencies are being demonstrated by the individuals profiled in the two Wired articles you read?
   • I would argue that the individuals profiled in these Wired articles are demonstrating the databases and data formats competency, the data management and organization competency, and the cultures of practice competency. Its obvious as to how the first two competencies that I listed are being demonstrated, but the third one is definitely being demonstrated by the community members when “They write notes in the notes field in Airtable, and people read and respond to those notes.”
2. Name two of these core competencies are you most skilled with (or which is most familiar to you)? Where and how did you gain the skills/become familiar?
   • Discovery and Acquisition of Data: I believe I became somewhat proficient at this through research and the use of Box.
   • Ethics, Including Citation of Data: Every core class requirement at LMU has indirectly/directly helped me cultivate this competency.
3. Name two of these core competencies that you want to know more about? Why?
   • Data Conversion and Interoperability: I can barely download a google slides as a powerpoint, so this would be a helpful competency to learn more about.
   • Metadata: I know metadata is extremely important for coding in a group because you want everyone to be able to understand the code that has been written. But it would be interesting to learn more about this and the norms that surround metadata.

Owen R. Dailey (talk) 19:28, 28 October 2020 (PDT)

Fatimah Alghanem

1. Which of these core competencies are being demonstrated by the individuals profiled in the two Wired articles you read?
   • the two core competencies demonstrated by individuals profiled in the two Wired articles are Databases and Data Formats and Data Management and Organization. That is in the article "One IT Guy’s Spreadsheet-Fueled Race to Restore Voting Rights" Databases and Data Formats is demonstrated by that the It guy familiarity with data and format leads him to be able to call out the flaw in voting. Additionally in the article "Real Programming Is an Elitist Myth used Data Management and Organization were used to help people in need with food and supplies.
2. Name two of these core competencies are you most skilled with (or which is most familiar to you)? Where and how did you gain the skills/become familiar?
   • I'm most skilled in Data Management and Organization and Ethics, including citation of data. I learned Data Management and Organization through being an active member online and in social media as I naturally learned how to manage data and organize it if needed. Further, I learned Ethics, including citation of data through my college education as I learned about plagiarism and citation ethics.
3. Name two of these core competencies that you want to know more about? Why?
   • I know to know more about Metadata as I have never heard of the term "Metadata" which makes me interested in learning more about it. I also want to know more about Data Preservation because I am not the best at preserving data and I think I could get better at it.

Nathan Beshai

1. Which of these core competencies are being demonstrated by the individuals profiled in the two Wired articles you read?
   • In the article "‘Real’ Programming Is an Elitist Myth", the author really shows a lot of the core competencies but, specifically, the interpretation of metadata and Data Conversion and Interoperability core components. The author is illustrating how a lot of people want to know how to code, however, breaking down databases is crucial to allowing people to be able to access information better. The data is all out there and sometimes free, however, it is rendered useless if people do not know how to use it. Coding new information is important but beaking down databases is also important. The second article, "One IT Guy’s Spreadsheet-Fueled Race to Restore Voting Rights" demonstrates quality assurance, is focused on quality assurance and finding voter suppression. Being able to interpret data and voting patterns in a demographic area is crucial because votes do matter. Many people believe that a single vote won't really matter, however, the 2016 Wisconsin shows that only 22,000 votes can elect a president. Making sure that everyone has the chance to vote and that their votes are counted is what is being studied in the paper. In a state like Wisconsin, looking through the data and finding flaws is necessary to make sure everyone's vote counts.
2. Name two of these core competencies are you most skilled with (or which is most familiar to you)? Where and how did you gain the skills/become familiar?
   • I think that I am most skilled with data visualization and analysis. I think that being able to interpret data is crucial to how somebody views the world. I think that I learned these skills from my interests in politics and taking labs. In the news, there are constantly figures being shown and I think that I have been able to learn interpreting data by just watching news and analysis that break down charts and figures which have allowed me to gain some of those skills. Taking labs has allowed me to learn and be efficient at making graphs. Sometimes visualizing data can be redundant, but making graphs upon graphs in labs has allowed me to become effective in all forms of data visualization. I am still taking statistics but I think it has also given me another perspective on data visualization.
3. Name two of these core competencies that you want to know more about? Why?
   • Two core competencies that I want to learn more about are quality assurance and the cultures of practice competencies. The quality assurance competency and cultures of practice competencies both help me look at data and know whether the data is accurate or not and whether this data is shared and accessed by all. Quality assurance is crucial because looking at a data set and not knowing what is missing or what is incorrect can cause a false understanding of the subject. Being able to distinguish good and faulty data is important for scientists. The cultures of practice help see who has access to this data and if it is generally accepted. This will help give the source credibility, as well as, giving backing to their data.

Nathan R. Beshai (talk) 20:48, 28 October 2020 (PDT)

Nida Patel Responses

1. Which of these core competencies are being demonstrated by the individuals profiled in the two Wired articles you read?
   • The articles depict a large variety of core competencies, but focus in on 'Databases and Data Formats' and 'Data Management and Organization'. This is due to the core subject of each article revolving around the purpose of databases and its variety of forms to accomplish multiple Tasks. In the article "‘Real’ Programming Is an Elitist Myth", the author discusses that all forms of programming are valid methods of compilation, though more complex coding programs can accomplish more professional or robust programs.In the article "One IT Guy’s Spreadsheet-Fueled Race to Restore Voting Rights" the author centralizes more onto the core competency of 'Data Management and Organization', providing examples as to how such competency allowed for restoration of voting rights through a database that "tracked subsets of processed data" on voter eligibility in a small town in Ohio.
2. Name two of these core competencies are you most skilled with (or which is most familiar to you)? Where and how did you gain the skills/become familiar?
   • I am most proficient in 'Discovery and Acquisition of Data' and 'Cultures of Practice' due to the fact that these skills are almost required in education since technology became so essential in academia. The use of data and locating pertinent information is a skill that every student must be able to use in order to accumulate information. Since there is such a vast amount of information present on the internet, I had to become proficient in picking out relative information. In terms of Cultures of Practice, working in a company that primarily operates around electronic communication and use, being able to provide and comprehend the data in a consistent form is an essential skill.
3. Name two of these core competencies that you want to know more about? Why?
   • I would personally want to be more well versed in 'Data Conversion and Interoperability due to the importance of it in my field. The ability to convert and move data in a comprehendible form has proven to be an important skill in the field of Biology research. When using programs and databases the ability to convert files to be usable has always been a trouble issue for me and therefore I would like to spend more time improving my abilities. "Quality Assurance' is another competency I would like to explore as this is a concerning issue in the age of technology. There is so much information shared everyday being able to decipher and filter through the failures of programming and data is an important issue faced by everyone using technology in their daily lives.

Nidapatel (talk) 21:47, 28 October 2020 (PDT)

JT Correy Responses

1. Which of these core competencies are being demonstrated by the individuals profiled in the two Wired articles you read?
   • “Real Programing is an Elitist Myth” primarily focused on cultures of practice and ethics. The main argument of the essay was that people use programming and data bases to complete the task they need to complete. In the case of the author’s wife that task was feeding people, and just because that is not the typical task of a coder does not mean it is any less a good use of programming. This article also touched on the ethics of databases and protecting the people they were helping. Asking for help is a humbling experience, and these people deserve as much privacy as possible, so the ethics of keeping their information as secret as they could was another topic the author’s wife had to address. The second article dealt more with the nitty gritty aspects of data bases. I would say the primary competency addressed was data management and organization. Right off the bat the attorney general hands over his data base that is little more than names and addresses. This is supposed to be the mater document with as much information as possible, yet it didn’t even have phone numbers.
2. Name two of these core competencies are you most skilled with (or which is most familiar to you)? Where and how did you gain the skills/become familiar?
   • I think the two competencies that I am most familiar with are ethics and data base formats. I feel that a majority of younger people have a decent grasp on ethics of information and privacy. We have grown up with the internet and become familiar with how it works as well as how it should not work. I also think I have a decent grasp of data base formats from my research experiences at LMU. Even going back to first semester of bio lab we had to use library data basis and Google Scholar to help us write papers.
3. Name two of these core competencies that you want to know more about? Why?
   • The first thing that I want to learn more about is ethics. I said previously that I feel I have a decent grasp, but there is still a lot more I would like to learn. The second is data analysis. Similar to ethics I have experience analyzing data but there are so many ways to approach data, I would like to learn more.

Jcorrey (talk) 21:57, 28 October 2020 (PDT)

Taylor Makela

1. Which of these core competencies are being demonstrated by the individuals profiled in the two Wired articles you read?
   • The core competencies being demonstrated by the individuals profiled in the two Wired articles we read were 'Data Management and Organization' and 'Databases and Data Formats'. The articles we read emphasized the importance of databases of all shapes and sizes. In the article "'Real' Programming is an Elitist Myth" by Paul Ford, the author discussed how, often times, programmers look down on "low-code" or "no-code" software because it is made for amateurs, and therefore looks amateur. However, Ford points out that, with practice, anyone can use various databases and softwares to do something that can really help the world. Furthermore, the article "One IT Guy's Spreadsheet-Fueled Race to Restore Voting Rights" by Jack Hitt shows how databases can play vital roles in areas that we may not initially think of, such as politics. Hitt describes how the database that records state voter lists serves as a way of holding people accountable and helping to minimize the number of uncounted or skewed votes.
2. Name two of these core competencies that you are most skilled with (or which is most familiar to you)? Where and how did you gain the skills/become familiar?
   • The two core competencies that I am most skilled with or most familiar with are 'Ethics, including citation of data' and 'Data Visualization'. I feel pretty familiar with citation and ethos, since it is what I have been practicing the longest. Additionally, I feel pretty familiar with 'Data Visualization' because the different databases and tools that we have used thus far in class have provided me with a good base understanding of several visualization tools (i.e. protein structures, phylogenetic trees, protein sequences, etc.).
3. Name two of these core competencies that you want to know more about? Why?
   • The two core competencies that I want to know more about are 'Data Conversion and Interoperability' and 'Metadata'. I have very little experience with transferring data from one format to another, so I would like to gain more experience in this. Furthermore, I have very little experience with metadata, but I think it would be very valuable to be able to interpret and annotate metadata.

Taylor Makela (talk) 22:44, 28 October 2020 (PDT)

Ian Wright

1. Which of these core competencies are being demonstrated by the individuals profiled in the two Wired articles you read?
   • Ford: Data Formats: Showed that there are different forms of relational databases; Discovery and Acquisition: Showed how simple data can be collected from the neighborhoods inhabitants; Conversion and Interpretability: The database for the food pantry had to be interpretable by non-professionals; Ethics: data is being used for ethical purposes.
   • Hitt: Discovery and Acquisition: voter data was acquired by Tingley-Hock; Conversion and Interpretability: data converted into the 'purge' dataset; Analysis: political information regarding the voters on the purge list were analyzed; Ethics: data collected to pull out ethical concerns over voter politics.
2. Name two of these core competencies are you most skilled with (or which is most familiar to you)? Where and how did you gain the skills/become familiar?
   • Data Curation and Reuse: I have learned to reuse data from various sources at the Center for Urban Resilience. The project that required the most curation was the mosquito monitoring in the Ballona Freshwater Marsh. Water quality data, vegetation data, adult mosquito data, water flow data, and larval mosquito data were all collected by different people with no intent to collaborate or combine their findings. This was a very difficult challenge.
   • Data Organization: I became very familiar with organizational practices in BioStatistical Analysis last year. The SPSS statistical program requires very careful data structuring in order to pull the most meaning from different chart building/analytical tools.
3. Name two of these core competencies that you want to know more about? Why?
   • Preservation: I think preservation should be considered in a very organizational mindset. When deeply stored data becomes relevant again, how will it relate to the other forms of data that it is stored with? Will there be a meaningful connection between different forms of data?
   • Curation: I want to know more about curation because I think data from all sources should ultimately be able to fit together. If I have a better understanding for curation, then I will become more concious in my collection practices. I want to be able to ask myself the question, "How can I collect this data so that it is meaningful when placed side by side with data collected 10 years ago?" and be able to answer the question.

Ian R. Wright (talk) 23:12, 28 October 2020 (PDT)

Kam Taghizadeh

1. Which of these core competencies are being demonstrated by the individuals profiled in the two Wired articles you read?
   • In the article, ‘Real’ Programming Is an Elitist Myth, Paul Ford highlights the fact that programming is not just some elitist skill that only highly educated people can participate in. Rather, everyone who has access to a computer is able to do it. This is exemplified when he talks about his wife, who has divided the neighborhoods into different zones for food deliveries. So, one of the core competencies being demonstrated here would be Discovery and Acquisition: where common people have utilized their skills to collect data from around their neighborhoods in order to contribute in a positive way. In the second wired article, One IT Guy’s Spreadsheet-Fueled Race to Restore Voting Rights by Jack Hitt, Data management and organization is a core competency that is represented, as databases are important tools when it comes to voting and getting voters information.
2. Name two of these core competencies are you most skilled with (or which is most familiar to you)? Where and how did you gain the skills/become familiar?
   • I think I am most skilled at data curation and reuse, as I have done many research projects that were based on the findings of other people. The second core competency would be discovery and acquisition of data. For instance, in certain lab classes I have accumulated enough data to make an excel spreadsheet.
3. Name two of these core competencies that you want to know more about? Why?
   • I would like to know more about data visualization, because I want to be capable of reading data in various forms.

Kam Taghizadeh (talk) 00:47, 29 October 2020 (PDT)