“GenAI is like an unreliable and sloppy employee, they can make your life easier but also much harder. Always double check their work”- my podcast w/Stern we dicuss the environmental impact of AI, bias, AGI &science fiction, workplace automation & the future of education
www.stern.de/wirtschaft/d...
Universities Give Away Knowledge and Sell Degrees
This post is a piece I wrote a couple years ago. I tried unsuccessfully to publish in five different venues and gave up, so I'm posting it here. It is also republished in my book, Being a Scholar. I focus on an issue that I've been thinking about…
A success story for a physician with Alzheimer's which, in spite of the obstacles outlined, is a precursor for our enhanced ability to prevent the disease in the future
gift link
www.wsj.com/opinion/i-ca...
#rstats
A new package, {CASIdata}, provides the datasets from Efron & Hastie, _Computer Age Statistical Inference_ for teaching and learning.
friendly.github.io/CASIdata/
dplyr 1.2.0 is out now and we are SO excited!
- `filter_out()` for dropping rows
- `recode_values()`, `replace_values()`, and `replace_when()` that join `case_when()` as a complete family of recoding/replacing tools
These are huge quality of life wins for #rstats!
tidyverse.org/blog/2026/02...
Ever walked down bookstore aisles and had a strange feeling that something's changed? Our web developer Jonathan did, and he decided to investigate. 🕵️ 📚 ☄️
www.datawrapper.de/blog/science...
Upcoming deadline -- AERA Open invites submissions for a Special Topic Collection. The deadline for abstracts is February 1, 2026. www.aera.net/Portals/38/1...
Some academic publishing contract advice: make sure your contract specifies 1. a qualified human copyeditor will copyedit on the MS; 2. a qualified human proofreader will proofread the MS; 3. that production must have a proper system for version control (!).
hivemind, i'm curious how you are dealing with llm/vibecoding in recruiting undergraduate research and masters RAs ..... so far the range has been pretty wide in terms of way overconfident use vs. being able to leverage tools to move along at a fairly effective pace
I’ve been thinking about how to find R packages by functionality when you don’t already know the package name.
So over the holidays, Claude Code and I built The Warehouse: a functionality-first R package directory that helps you find packages by what they do.
rwarehouse.netlify.app
#rstats
Issue 30 of RDM Weekly is out! 📬
➡️Mapping Public OA K-12 State Education Data @alexjbowers.bsky.social
➡️ A New Tool for Measuring Metadata Completeness
➡️ Ten Simple Rules on How to Write a Standard Operating Procedure
➡️ Please Switch to Python
and more!
rdmweekly.substack.com/p/rdm-weekly...
Implication: opportunity and outcome indicators can now be integrated across states.
But inconsistent metadata, unstable URLs, and siloed infrastructures still block evidence-informed decision-making. 🏛️📉
FAIR principles offer a governance framework.
#EducationPolicy #FAIRData #EduSky #PublicData
Practical resources now available: 🧰📊
• State-level metadata catalogs
• Interoperable CSVs
• Open appendices
• Network visualizations
• Replication-ready workflows
Designed for district leaders, analysts, and research teams.
#EduSky #EducationLeaders #K12Data #OpenAccess #DataTools
A major infrastructure failure: link rot. 🔗⚠️
We found broken URLs, moved datasets, and unstable hosting across state agencies — undermining transparency and reuse.
Public data exist, but long-term accessibility is fragile.
#EduSky #DataInfrastructure #OpenAccess #FAIRData #EducationPolicy
We built a FAIR-aligned Metadata Catalog (MDMT) and standardized workflows to support reuse and replication. 🔍📂
Includes:
• SOPs for discovery
• PRISMA workflows
• Interoperable metadata
• Indicator-level tagging
#SciSky #FAIRData #Metadata #OpenAccess #EducationData #DataReuse
Methods innovation:
2 independent raters coded each 3,822 datasets.
15 of 16 indicators reached at moderate agreement.
Highest: Academic Readiness, Access to Effective Teaching, Nonexclusionary Discipline.
Lowest: Curricular Breadth, Academic Supports. 🧪🧠
#OpenScience #FAIRData #EducationResearch
Key finding: All 7 states + D.C. had public data for 14 of 16 indicators.
Six states had data for all 16. 📊⚡
The data already exist — but they are fragmented, inconsistently documented, and hard to reuse.
#EduSky #EducationPolicy #PublicData #K12 #OpenAccess #FAIRData
We mapped 3,822 public open-access K–12 education datasets across 7 states + D.C. using FAIR data principles and the National Academies’ 16 indicators. 🗺️📊
Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable
First cross-state FAIR mapping at this scale.
doi.org/10.7916/c0jk...
call-ecl.wceruw.org
#TodayinHistory #datavis 📊
📅 Jan. 13, 1832 John Frederick W. Herschel reads a paper on the orbits of revolving double stars. He explains
a graphic method to interpolate among "imperfect observations", establishing the essential ideas of the scatterplot.
www.datavis.ca/papers/frien...
📊 The data visualization field is undergoing a fundamental shift from simply presenting information to fostering active, participatory conversations with diverse communities.
Erica Gunn explores how this transition is redefining the purpose and impact of the craft.
nightingaledvs.com/info-plus
"Heatmap" chart showing the number of hours per day from 1913-2025 that the water level spent above the mean high tide (using the current 1983-2001 epoch) at Key West FL.
This is one of my favorite ways to visualize #SeaLevelRise...
With another year of verified water levels at Key West behind us now (as of today), here's the updated version of this chart I've been making for the past decade or so. 🧪🌊
[1/3]
What movie remakes are most common? And how much do we like them, compared to originals? Our developer Julian sets out to tell fact from fiction in the movie remake world. 👀 🎞️ 🍿
www.datawrapper.de/blog/movie-r...
The fact that a train (!!!) can travel under ideal conditions at over 600km/h is unbelievably amazing to me. Also, I had no idea that Indonesia would pop up in the top 10 list!
ANNOUNCE: #dataviz #rstats #psy6136 📊
This winter I'm teaching a new instance of my course on Categorical Data Analysis, featuring analysis and
visualization methods for frequency data and model-based methods (loglinear models, logistic/Possion regression).
Screenshot of a paper entry: Fictional Failures and Real-World Lessons: Ethical Speculation Through Design Fiction on Emotional Support Conversational AI Authors: Faye Kollig, Jessica Pater, Fayika Farhat Nova, Casey Fiesler (There are tabs with "abstract" and "summary" and "summary" is selected.)
The ACM Digital Library, where a LOT of computing-related research is published (I'd say at least 75% of my own publications), is now not only providing (without consent of the authors and without opt-in by readers) AI-generated summaries of papers, but they appear as the *default* over abstracts.
Photo of students and staff from our first Diverse CDT cohort working through a group data visualization exercise together around a table in our dedicated visualization lab.
Photo of three students from our first cohort of Diverse-CDT PhD students reading and discussing visual thinking in our dedicated visualization workspace.
Sketch of a 'skills map' design co-created by Diverse-CDT PhD students during their first 'immersion week' at the start of their PhD journey. Sketch courtesy of Ana Marques, one of the students. It comprise a series of coloured dots, each representing a skill held by one or more of the students. Dots are clustered by skill type with some labelled for context. Dots are connected with lines in a tree-like structure with 'Diverse CDT' at the centre emphasising relationship between skills and skill types.
A photo of our first cohort of Diverse CDT PhD students who embarked on their PhD journey together in October 2025. Students are located in our dedicated Visualization learning space, posing for the camera with arms folded.
Interested in a fully-funded #datavis PhD with training?
Applications for our 2nd cohort of PhD students at Diverse-CDT open! We're keen to diversify the sector, encouraging anyone with enthusiasm for using 📊 to make change, even if you've not considered PhD study before:
diverse-cdt.ac.uk
"less than 48 hours since the product was released, people within the Post have flagged what four sources described as multiple mistakes in personalized podcasts. The errors have ranged from relatively minor pronunciation gaffes to significant changes to story content"
Merriam-Webster’s human editors have chosen ‘slop’ as the 2025 Word of the Year.
A line chart comparing life expectancy vs. health expenditure per capita from 1970 to 2022 across multiple countries. The y-axis shows life expectancy (60-85 years), x-axis shows health expenditure ($0-$10,000). Lines track each country's progress, with the United States notably showing high expenditure but lower life expectancy than peers like Japan and Switzerland. Countries are color-coded by continent. Source: Our World in Data
An unhealthy outlier...
ourworldindata.org/grapher/life...
Side-by-side comparison of two multi-panel bubble charts faceted by world region. The left column shows the default facet labels placed above each panel (“Africa”, “Americas”, “Asia”, “Europe”, “Oceania”). The right column shows the same charts, but the facet labels are moved inside each panel at the top-left using a negative margin. In the center, there is a title reading “Want to place your facet labels inside each panel?” with an arrow pointing right, followed by a short ggplot2 theme code snippet demonstrating how to move strip text inside the panel.
I ignored the strip.clip argument in #ggplot2 for way too long 😲
Combined with a small negative margin tweak, you can place facet labels inside each panel. A tiny trick that makes small multiples feel so much cleaner.
🔵 no manual coordinates
🔵 inherits theme styling
🔵 scales nicely when resizing
