This survey has two goals:

1) To learn a bit more about your interests and experience so that I can tailor the modify the course content to match the cohort's interests.

2) To gather some information the dataset(s) you might use for the Data Cleanup Project: one of the goals this semester is to take a “messy” dataset, clean it, organize it, and – assuming you have permission and if appropriate at this time – archive it in a repository. This assignment will introduce me to your data set so we can evaluate if it is suitable for the assignment (i.e., is it messy enough, is it big enough?).  The data can be from previous research, even if it is unpublished or not part of a thesis.  

It is important to remember that the 'dataset' can be more than one file. For instance, your dataset might be four files (or collections of files): (1) A file with the responses to surveys of community members, (2) Census data downloaded from a government website, (3) The transcripts of interviews with key informants, and (4) A collection of photographs for ethnographic research.

Please also remember that you may not have a dataset with which to work. That's fine! There are plenty of (useful) datasets out there that are messy and in need of organization. I'll help you find one that matches your interests.