Elevate your computing and data-related skills through workshop sessions on data processing, qualitative analysis, and qualitative methods.
Fall 2025 workshop sessions will cover topics such as data processing and qualitative analysis.
CCSS workshops are held in person at 291 Clark Hall and via Zoom (sent after registering). All workshops are open to the Cornell community. We encourage attending in person for the best learning experience. In-person attendees are provided CCSS swag and a post-workshop Q&A session. Get Directions to 291 Clark Hall.
View Spring 2025 workshop recordings here.
Message socialsciences@cornell.edu for workshop-related questions.
Extracting SEC Filings with Python APIs | Sept 18 | 12:00pm - 1:15pm
Description:
Publicly traded companies are required to file reports with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to offer transparency into their operations and financial health. In this hands-on workshop, you’ll use Python to extract real company data through the SEC’s EDGAR Application Programming Interface (API). No prior experience with EDGAR or APIs is required -- just a basic familiarity with Python.
Learning Objectives:
- Request the SEC API key and implement with Python.
- Extract desired sections from an SEC filing, including:
- 10-K annual report (income statement, balance sheet, cash flow statement)
- 10-Q quarterly report (income statement, balance sheet, clash flow statement)
- 8-K (event-driven updates for stakeholders, like mergers, earnings releases, asset acquisitions, etc.)
- Apply filters to refine search results by company name, date of filing, etc.
- Organize results into a dataset.
Pre requisites:
- Python Basics
- Request API key. This will give you 100 free calls to the SEC filing database
Helpful Information:
This workshop will have a 15-30 minute Q&A session afterwards where in-person attendees can ask the instructor questions and get personalized assistance with their research.
Instructor: Jacob Grippin
Creating Reports in RMarkdown and Quarto | Sept 23 | 12:00pm - 1:15pm
Description:
RMarkdown and Quarto are RStudio extensions that allow users to create dynamic and reproducible data analysis reports. Using RMarkdown and Quarto, you can organize your code, document your data analysis, visualize your data, write text, and publish reports, all within the same workspace. By eliminating the need to copy and paste code, data visualizations, and summary tables from multiple sources, RMarkdown and Quarto increase the likelihood of an error-free report. We recommend attendees arrive with R (windows, mac) and RStudio installed on their laptops. Prior R experience is not required.
Learning Objectives:
- Create a report in RMarkdown and Quarto that combines code, text, data visualizations, and summary tables
- Format reports to include titles, headers, bulleted lists, and italicized and bolded text
- Export reports as HTML, PDF, and Word documents
- Distinguish between RMarkdown and Quarto and discuss the benefits to each
- Explore the R shiny app’s interactive online dashboard that displays real-time results, tables, and figures.
Pre requisites:
- Install R (windows, mac)
- Install RStudio
Helpful Information:
This workshop will have a 15-30 minute Q&A session afterwards where in-person attendees can ask the instructor questions and get personalized assistance with their research.
Instructor: Jacob Grippin
Web Scraping LinkedIn Data with Python | Sept 25 | 12:00pm - 12:50pm
Description:
LinkedIn is a social media platform for professional networking and career development. In this hands-on workshop, you’ll use Python’s Selenium package to scrape data from LinkedIn company pages. You’ll then organize these results into a clean dataset ready for analysis. No prior experience with web scraping is required – just basic Python knowledge.
Learning Objectives:
- Use Python’s Selenium package to extract information like company size, headquarters location, founding year, etc.
- Organize web scraping results into a dataset.
This workshop will have a 15-30 minute Q&A session afterwards where in-person attendees can ask the instructor questions and get personalized assistance with their research.
Instructor: Jacob Grippin
Research Opportunities at the Cornell FSRDC | Oct 23 | 11:40am - 12:55pm
Description:
The Cornell Federal Statistical Research Data Center (FSRDC) provides access to confidential federal data from several agencies, including the U.S. Census Bureau. The Cornell FSRDC administrator, Nichole Szembrot, will give an overview of the available data and proposal process. This workshop is recommended for faculty and Ph.D. students.
Learning Objectives:
- Understand the advantages of working with confidential data compared to public-use data
- Become familiar with the data available through the Cornell FSRDC
- Understand the process of applying for access to confidential data
Pre requisites:
None
Helpful Information
This workshop will have a 15-30 minute Q&A session afterwards where in-person attendees can ask the instructor questions and get personalized assistance with their research.
Instructor: Nichole Szembrot
Data Storytelling with Maps | Oct 1 | 3:00pm - 4:30pm
Description:
Maps are a powerful and engaging way to visualize qualitative data and spatial relationships. They can be used to enrich and communicate research in the arts, humanities, and social and life sciences, shaping public opinion and informing policy. Digital mapping tools make it easy to create custom maps and incorporate text and multimedia elements in narrative form, allowing us to contextualize history, trace routes across time and space, and tell stories about the physical environment and our relationships to it.
In this hands-on workshop, we’ll build a foundational understanding of what makes a well-designed map, discuss ways to incorporate maps into your research, and explore a few online mapping tools (StoryMap JS, Google My Maps, and ArcGIS StoryMaps). Join us to learn how you can use maps to enrich and communicate your research. This workshop is open to all audiences, but may be especially relevant to graduate students researching movement.
Presented by Cornell University Library in partnership with the Einaudi Center Migrations Program and the Qualitative & Interpretive Research Institute. This event is supported by the Migrations Program, part of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, and the Mellon Foundation’s Just Futures Initiative.
Instructor: Gabriella Evergreen, Research Data Librarian at Cornell University Library
Building Qualitative Surveys with Generative AI | Oct 28 | 12:30pm - 2:00pm
How can we design open-ended survey questions that dynamically engage the participants and still serve our research goals?
Description:
Generative AI opens new possibilities for qualitative researchers, especially when integrated into survey platforms like Qualtrics. In this hands-on workshop, we will explore how large language models (LLMs) can be used to generate or refine open-ended questions in real time, allowing surveys to better adapt to participant input. You will learn about context engineering—a strategy for shaping how LLMs respond by setting up structured inputs and examples—and how it can be used to support research tasks like dynamic question generation.
We will also compare common ways to access LLMs (e.g., chat interfaces, APIs, local tools), and discuss how those choices affect what you can do and how easily you can integrate these tools into your workflow. Through a live demo and guided build, participants will create their own dynamic Qualtrics survey using the OpenAI API.
Please bring a laptop and ensure you have access to a Qualtrics account. No prior coding experience is required. We will end with a discussion on how genAI tools are changing how researchers think about concepts like reliability, validity, and trust.
Instructor: Alexandra Werth, Assistant Professor in the Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering