UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Data-related skills and support are important for students entering the workforce, as well as researchers who want to uncover new insights. Both classroom experiences and outside data programs are critical components for developing this expertise. To support this need, Penn State University Libraries recently established services for data analytics and visualization.
Based in the Libraries’ Research Informatics and Publishing (RePub) department in Pattee Library and Paterno Library, the new Data Analytics and Visualization Services unit further supports the technology-driven teaching and research capacity of the Penn State community. For those not at University Park, the services are available remotely at https://weblabs.psu.edu.
Xuying Xin joined the Libraries in April 2019 as a data analyst. She began applying her experience with data analytics tools such as Microsoft’s Access, SQL Server and Business Intelligence (BI) applications to the research data services at RePub. She also introduced related tools, such as Tableau and Microsoft Power BI, to help patrons with their data analysis and visualization projects. This semester, she introduced big data analytics tools and leveraged her research experiences to help with the data curation work for Penn State’s institutional repository, ScholarSphere.
“We partner with students, faculty and staff to consult, provide training and support projects in the areas of research data,” said Xin, who started Data Analytics and Visualization Services as part of RePub’s Research Data Services. “These include data visualizations, digital humanities, mapping, statistical analysis and open publishing.”
Why Data Analytics and Visualization Services?
“Each day, an abundance of data in multiple formats is generated from various sources, such as the web, social media platforms and databases,” said Xin. “It is becoming more important than ever to analyze these data and reveal the insights as visualization to help make data-driven decisions.”
Xin’s team selects top analytics and business intelligence software tools to help library patrons analyze data, present them visually and share them for collaboration purposes. So far, the team has introduced two software tools widely used for data analytics and visualization: Microsoft Power BI (free as part of Office 365) and Tableau Public or Tableau Desktop (free to students and to instructors who teach using Tableau). This semester, Xin and her team partnered with Penn State’s Office of the CIO for Research to introduce big data analytics services including Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform and Amazon Web Services.
Services provided
Last year, RePub opened a digital lab equipped with computers loaded with special software including Tableau, Power BI, SQL Server, Access, Python, R, SPSS, STATA, SAS, ArcGIS and MATLAB. The space is available for workshops, lectures or use by patrons working on data visualization projects. In the future, the lab space may also be used as a small-group study room.
Workshops are offered on Tableau and Power BI for business analytics, and on Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform and Amazon Web Services for big data analytics. The team provides one-on-one consultations to help faculty, staff and students use these tools with their research, class or work projects.
Faculty may take advantage of the new unit’s expertise for their class projects by inviting team members to provide guest lectures on how to use data analytics tools.
University partners
Xin’s team has partnered with the Penn State Institute for Computational and Data Sciences, the new Penn State Data Science Community and the Office of the CIO for Research to help promote and expand the services they provide.
For more information, contact Xuying Xin at xzx1@psu.edu or visit the University Libraries’ Research Data Services web page.