Challenges and Opportunities Of Data In Africa: Spring 2018 Voices from the Field Speaker Series
Jagudelo
GWI is once again teaming up with the Center for African Studies, the Global One Health initiative to present Voices from the Field, a brown bag speaker series featuring multidisciplinary researchers from Ohio State who work in Africa. This semester’s theme, Challenges and Opportunities of Data in Africa, explores how research, teaching, and extension efforts can capture the potential of data (collecting, sharing, communicating, securing) in an African context.
The series is intended to provide networking opportunities for faculty, students and members of the general public. All sessions will be held on Wednesdays from 12-1 in Enarson Classroom Building room 160 starting September 6. Participants are welcome to bring lunch and eat during the sessions.
Series Theme: Challenges and Opportunities for Data in Africa
Researchers working in Africa in any field—from social science to hydrology to epidemiology—need data to be able to develop and guide best practices and produce actionable scholarly results. Speakers will discuss the data challenges they face in their research in Africa and their strategies to surmount them. Examples could include challenges collecting data (scarcity of samples, cultural barriers, physical logistics), managing data (digital infrastructure), communicating the value or implications of data to stakeholders, and more. Speakers will also discuss some opportunities that they have made use of (serendipitously or intentionally) to collect data, such as crowdsourcing, pairing data capture with other unrelated activities, digital games, etc. By sharing best practices and notable “worst practices” in data collection, analysis, management, the series aims to foster a community of practice at Ohio State that would benefit those working in Africa and in other international settings.
Miss a Session? Catch It Later
New this semester: sessions will be streamed live and recorded using Adobe Connect. Streaming links appear in each session’s page (linked below) and on Facebook.
Spring Semester 2018 Voices from the Field Brown Bag Speaker Series Lineup
Jan. 17–POSTPONED
Rudy L. Hightower (John Glenn College of Public Affairs)
“Building Capacity in System Dynamics in Africa: the Mandela Washington Fellowship Experience”
Ethiopia
Jan. 31
Sui Chian Phang (Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology)
“Cooperation and Collaboration to Meet Challenges of Research in a ‘No-Go’ Zone”
Cameroon
Feb. 21
Jan Pierskalla (Department of Political Science)
“Re-Constructing the Colonial State: Experiences with Archival Field Research in Namibia”
Feb. 28
TBD
Mar. 7
Leah Bevis (Agricultural, Environmental and Developmental Economics)
“Household Surveys for Interdisciplinary Research: Challenges of Multidimensional Data Collection
Uganda”
Mar. 12-16 Spring Break
April 4
Nicole Kraft (School of Communication)
“Online Teaching and Learning in Ethiopia”
April 11
April 18
Sally Miller (College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences Professor of Plant Pathology)
