Fall IAP classes are here!

photo by L.Barry Hetherington

photo by L.Barry Hetherington

The Libraries are hosting a series of classes all during the month of October! Some require registration and are filling up quickly – see below for details.

Resources from the OECD – Register
Thu October 9, 3:00 – 4:00 pm, 14N-132
Contact: Kate McNeill, mcneillh@mit.edu

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is coming to MIT! Join us to:

  • increase your knowledge of the world
  • get a leg up on your job search
  • enjoy some refreshments!

Join the Libraries for an event co-hosted and MIT Economics major Caroline Shinkle, the first-ever MIT student to be selected by the OECD to be a Student Ambassador. In this role, Caroline is raising awareness about the OECD within the MIT community.

Kathleen DeBoer, Deputy Head of the OECD Washington Center, will present about the OECD iLibrary (//libraries.mit.edu/get/oecd), including:

  • Information the OECD provides on countries around the world, in areas such as:
    • Development
    • Employment
    • Energy
    • Environment
    • Trade
    • and more…
  •  How to efficiently extract data from their vast array of statistics

Note: For those interested in working for the OECD, Ms. DeBoer will be available to meet in the afternoon before and after the presentation to discuss the application process. If interested, contact her at Kathleen.DEBOER@oecd.org.

NIH Public Access Compliance Hands-on Working Session- Register

Thu October 14, 12:00 – 1:00 pm, 14N-132

Contact: Courtney Crummett, crummett@mit.edu

Missing a PMCID? Can’t figure out why a paper isn’t in compliance? Lost in NIH manuscript system? Join us for a problem solving session. This session is designed to provide an opportunity for hands on problem solving in the systems that need to be navigated in the process of submitting and authorizing manuscripts and reporting progress on NIH Funded Grants (eRA Commons; NIHMS, and MyNCBI). Please bring your NIH compliance problems and logins to this session to work through together.

Manage your PDFs and citations: Zotero and Mendeley – Register
Thu October 16, 2:00 – 3:00 pm, 14N-132
Contact: Jennie Murack, murack@mit.edu

Using citation management software to create and maintain a collection of references or PDFs is common and important in today’s academic world. These tools will help you to save citations from your favorite databases and websites, store related PDFs or attachments, and quickly build a bibliography for your papers and publications. We’ll review Zotero and Mendeley and show how to use them together to help your manage your PDF’s and citations.

Intro to GIS – Register
Tue October 21, 1:00 – 4:00 pm, 14N-132
Contact: Jennie Murack, murack@mit.edu

Learn the basics of visualizing and analyzing geographic information and creating your own maps in a Geographic Information System (GIS). We will introduce open source and proprietary GIS software options and let attendees choose to work through exercises using ESRI ArcGIS (proprietary) and/or Quantum GIS (QGIS) (open source). Learn to work with data from the MIT Geodata Repository, analyze the data, and create maps that can be used in reports and presentations.

Compute anything: Mathematica 10 and Wolfram Alpha Pro in education and research – Register
Wed October 22, 11:30 am – 12:30 pm, 14N-132
Contact: Jennie Murack, murack@mit.edu

This talk demonstrates capabilities in Mathematica 10 and Wolfram Alpha Pro that are directly applicable for use in teaching and research on campus. Topics include:

  • Enter calculations in everyday English, or using the flexible Wolfram Language
  • Visualize data, functions, surfaces, and more in 2D or 3D
  • Store and share documents locally or in the Wolfram Cloud
  • Use the Predictive Interface to get suggestions for the next useful calculation or function options
  • Access trillions of bits of on-demand data
  • Use semantic import to enrich your data using Wolfram curated data
  • Easily turn static examples into mouse-driven, dynamic applications
  • Access 10,000 free course-ready applications
  • Utilize the Wolfram Language’s wide scope of built-in functions, or create your own
  • Get deep support for specialized areas including machine learning, time series, image processing, parallelization, and control systems, with no add-ons required

Current users will benefit from seeing the many improvements and new features of Mathematica 10 (http://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/new-in-10/), but prior knowledge of Mathematica is not required.

Intro to R – Register
Wed October 22, 1:00 – 4:00 pm, 1-115
Contact: Jennie Murack, murack@mit.edu

Get an introduction to R, the open-source system for statistical computation and graphics. With hands-on exercises, learn how to import and manage datasets, create R objects, install and load R packages, conduct basic statistical analyses, and create common graphical displays. This workshop is appropriate for those with little or no prior experience with R.

Business Information for Engineers and Scientists – Register
Thu October 23, 1:00 – 2:00 pm, 14N-132
Contact: Howard Silver, hsilver@mit.edu

This session will introduce engineers and scientists to business information resources that will help you understand the commercial potential for your ideas, how to find partners, and sources for financial support. We will use realistic examples and hands-on exercises with key resources to demonstrate how to match your ideas and discoveries with the opportunities and realities of the marketplace.

Patent Searching Fundamentals – Register
Tue October 28, 12:00 – 1:00 pm, 14N-132
Contact: Anne Graham, grahama@mit.edu

This session will enable you to successfully find patent references from all over the world, and obtain patent text and diagrams. This hands-on session will help de-mystify the patent literature and show key resources for finding patents.

GIS Level 2 – Register
Tue October 28, 1:00 – 4:00 pm, 14N-132
Contact: Jennie Murack, murack@mit.edu

Expand your experience with GIS software and learn how to create and edit GIS files, geocode addresses onto a map, re-project data, and use tools like Clip, Buffer, and Spatial Join. Prerequisite: Intro to GIS workshop or basic knowledge of ArcGIS.

Managing Confidential Data – Register
Wed October 29, 9:00 am – 12:00 pm, 66-168
Contact: Randi Shapiro, shapiror@mit.edu

This tutorial provides a framework for identifying and managing confidential information in research. It is most appropriate for mid-late career graduate students, faculty, and professional research staff who actively engage in the design/planning of research. The course will provide an overview of the major legal requirements governing confidential research data; and the core technological measures used to safeguard data. And it will provide an introduction to the statistical methods and software tools used to analyze and limit disclosure risks.

R programming – Register
Wed October 29, 1:00 – 4:00 pm, 1-115
Contact: Jennie Murack, murack@mit.edu

This hands-on, intermediate R course will guide users through a variety of programming functions in the open-source statistical software program, R. This workshop covers blocks, loops, program flow, functions,S3 classes and methods, and debugging in R. This workshop is intended for those already comfortable with using R for data analysis who wish to move on to writing their own functions. Prerequisite: basic familiarity with R, such as acquired from an introductory R workshop.

Webinar: Managing your references: overview of Zotero, Mendeley, and EndNote – Register
Thu October 30, 5:00 – 6:00 pm
Contact: Peter Cohn, pcohn@mit.edu

Using citation management software to create and maintain a collection of references or PDFs is common and important in today’s academic world. These tools will help you to save citations from your favorite databases and websites, store related PDFs or attachments, and quickly build a bibliography for your papers and publications. We’ll compare and demo 3 tools (EndNote, Mendeley, & Zotero), so you’ll leave the session knowing which tool might work best for your needs.

This session will be offered over WebEx. Registrants will receive an email with details on how to join the meeting prior to the session. This session is open to the MIT Community.