Logistics and Procedures

This document contains Yale-specific information about the event. Some of this information comes from the DataRescueNHV page.

Basic Event Logistics

Bathrooms

There are several restrooms on the first floor. From the TEAL classroom, take a left, another left, and yet another left. The restrooms will be ... on your left. There are additional bathrooms downstairs.

Yale prohibits discrimination based on gender identity or expression. Community members and campus guests are free to use the bathroom of the gender with which they identify. All-gender restrooms are available using this map.

What You Need

You will need, at minimum, a laptop. If your laptop doesn't have an ethernet port, please brining your own ethernet adapter, if you have one. We’ll provide cables and external hard drives. We’ll provide beverages, lunch, and snacks!

Code of Conduct

The organizers of #DataRescueNHV ask for your assistance to make this event welcoming, inclusive, and harassment-free for all participants. Please review our code of conduct and talk to an event organizer if you have any questions or concerns.

Technology and Communication Logistics

USB Drives, Accounts, and Internet

If you are a Yale affiliate, we recommend using YaleSecure.

If you are on a track, such as Harvester, Bagger, or Checker, that requires downloading and uploading files, we recommend using Ethernet.

If you need a USB drive or another storage solution, please find Joshua Dull (Slack: @joshua.dull).

If you need accounts, please find Scott Matheson (@smatheson) or talk to Joshua Dull (@joshua.dull) or Kayleigh Bohémier (@kayebohemier).

Slack Communication

The Slack channels include special places for all of the roles described above for specific troubleshooting circumstances. You can also privately message individuals using the Slack. If you need assistance setting up Slack so you can see everything you need, please find Kayleigh Bohémier, who is @kayebohemier on Slack.

Agency and Data Selection Priorities

If you're worried about specific datasets, these data likely come from the EPA or NOAA if they are environmental data. Other datasets come from places like the Department of Justice or Department of Education. The EPA and NOAA were the highest-priority agencies at the beginning of the #DataRescue project. We're nearing the end of covering those, so future efforts will focus on other agencies from a variety of Departments.

Currently, the process for selecting agencies and departments for #DataRescue depends on two things: What has already been covered and what needs a primer. A primer is a basic description of the units within a Department (e.g., the Department of Justice), along with its agencies and sub-agencies. These primers are used by seeders and sorters to check the subagency web sites for uncrawlable data. If a Department has no primer, or if it has limited agency and subagency information in its primer, it isn't ready for seeders and sorters to use. Some individuals at the event on Saturday will be creating primers to seed future events at other institutions. If you have concerns about social science data in particular, writing a primer on Saturday is a good way to ensure that something gets done at future events.

We will focus on the Office of Water in the EPA because a primer has been written for that agency.

Data Rescue is focusing on identifying new datasets. Long-term preservation is a future phase of the project, but there are already conversations like this one about what that might look like.