ScraperWiki Tutorial

workshop

Presenter: Thomas Levine

Short bio: Thomas Levine, from New York, is a data scientist at ScraperWiki and a partner at Whitby Group. He has a background in ergonomics, with particular interests in the computer use and toilets. He authored DumpTruck and Urchin. His favorite color is pink.

Abstract: Thomas will give a high level overview and show by example what is possible with scraping. He will identify good targets for webscraping and navigating the complexity of different types of web pages. The objective will be to get the data into a structured format, and join it with data from another source. 

He have prepared a few half-hour-long and hour-long modules that cater to different audiences, and he'll decide which one to use at any time based on the people who happen to be in the room at the time. These modules range from the super-conceptual "outline of a data-cleaning operation" to the super-technical "bring Tom your hardest technical problems and see if he can give you any ideas."

Workshop will be held at the educational center at the National Technical Library from 10.15 to 16.15. It will have a form of a hackathon and participants will be able to attend chosen parts of the conference as well.