Research Support
Consultation, collaboration and more
DataLab provides Data Science and Informatics training, advice and collaboration services to researchers (faculty, postdocs, students, staff) on all aspects of data-enabled research including:
- Developing research questions and grant proposals
- Using Data Science tools and technologies (including open source software for research computing)
- Obtaining and accessing data (e.g., from Web pages, APIs, databases)
- Structuring data for analysis (e.g., relational databases, NoSQL, text search engines, Hive, Pig)
- Data management, curation, security and privacy
- Approaches for cleaning and transforming data
- Data analysis via statistical modeling and machine learning
- Visualization for exploratory data analysis and publication graphics
- Computational issues (e.g., parallel computing, remote and high performance computing, algorithmic and software development)
- Reproducibility and provenance
- Responsible and ethical data science practices
- and other Data Science education and implementation resources at UC Davis
Consultations and Office Hours
The DataLab offers no-fee research consultations and office hours during which university members can obtain help and advice on theoretical and technical matters relating to data science and working with data. Learn more about our office hours.
Research Projects
DataLab works with UC Davis researchers on a quarter-long competitive basis to help accelerate research projects from idea to a viable pilot product in preparation for a grant proposal, manuscript, book chapter, or other scholarly or creative work. Project calls are announced annually and prospective partners are encouraged to contact us. Past projects have included pilot data analyses, webscraping, database design, software development, and publication-quality visualizations. Learn about our projects.
Collaborations
DataLab collaborates with researchers across UC Davis on transformative grant proposals, training opportunities, and funded research. A goal of DataLab is to provide the cutting-edge expertise in data science that makes qualitatively new research possible. This ranges from enabling new data-driven projects in traditionally non-data-driven fields, to projects that require research-level innovations in data science itself. If you are interested in starting a collaboration with DataLab, please contact us.
TDM Studio
ProQuest’s Text Data Mining (TDM) Studio is a feature rich platform for finding relationships, patterns, and connections within and between text data sets. Its built-in collaboration tools allow research teams to work together in a common workspace, sharing data and analyses as they work. TDM Studio provides access to current and historical ProQuest content (news, journals, dissertations and theses, primary sources and more) as licensed by the home university. Researchers also have the option to upload their own data into the platform. TDM Studio provides a number of built in tools, and also allows scripting in R and Python for analyses and visualizations.
DataLab has access to one shared TDM Studio workspace for which UC Davis research teams can apply for access for a fixed term to access the platform and execute their work. The workspace is reset in between research teams.
To express interest in using the UC Davis workspace on Text Data Mining (TDM) Studio, please contact us. Because the workspace is a shared environment and access can only be granted to one team of researchers at a time, there is often a waiting list.
Contact us
Email us at datalab@ucdavis.edu to discuss your research support needs.