IDS 101: The Power of Data: Using the Library

Library Hours

Mon-Thur    8 a.m. -- Midnight
Friday         8 a.m. -- 9 p.m.
Saturday    10 a.m. -- 6 p.m.
Sunday      10 a.m. -- Midnight

Reference Hours

Mon-Wed   10 a.m. -- 5 p.m.
                    6 p.m. -- 9 p.m.
Thursday    10 a.m. -- 5 p.m.     

Friday          1 p.m. -- 4 p.m
Saturday         (Closed)
Sunday           (Closed)

Archives Hours

Contact:  archives@willamette.edu for an appointment.

Note: The library is open to the general public Monday-Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

More calendar info...

These will help guide you to find other types of information.

  Book Reviews                                                    Newspaper Articles
  Books                                                                 Speeches
  Dictionaries                                                        Statistics
  Government Info                                                Videos/DVDs
  Journal Articles

Librarians are here to help with your research!

You can set up an individual research consultation with me to:

- Determine the best places to begin your research.

- Develop effective search strategies.

- Locate & get the info you need

- Help request materials from other libraries

- Find additional info from bibliographies and reference lists

- Judge the quality & reliability of information

- Use information ethically (e.g. plagiarism and copyright)

- Cite information correctly (e.g. APA style)

- Show and use citation tools

- Determine the differences between literature types

- Diagnose whether something is peer-reviewed

Course taught by: Haiyan Cheng

Colloquium Associate: Tyler Bontrager

Campus Partner: Jessica Cardinal-Lanier

Social media, mobile computing, self-driving cars, virtual reality, chatbots...enormous amounts of data are generated around us every second. International Data Corporation predicts that over 175 zettabyte (2⁷⁰ or 10²¹) of data will be created by 2025. Efficient use of data can help with business intelligence, improving public health, finding cures to diseases, and improving our quality of life. Misuse of data can threaten our privacy and reinforce biases.

In this class, we will address issues around data collection, management, analysis, and data-driven decision making. Students will practice asking good questions using given data, and finding data sources to answer them. Course materials include research articles, videos and books such as Algorithms of Oppression, The Book of Beautiful Questions and Automating inequality. Students will work on both individual and group projects.