We aim to expand the community of people who can contribute to and work with the ICE-D database and infrastructure. We will be teaching you how to use the tools necessary to interact with ICE-D, and we will provide examples and a platform for discussion to help you make your own meaningful visualizations, applications and analyses of cosmogenic nuclide exposure data.
For more information about the ICE-D project, please visit the Top level page of this wiki
The focus of this workshop will be on expanding the user base to the folks working with cosmogenic-nuclide exposure dating at the University of Maine.
Ideally, attendees will come away from the workshop with the following:
1) Enough knowledge of how the ICE-D database and associated software works to interact with it, add data to it and quality-control existing data, and contribute to maintaining and improving it.
2) Some ideas about what visualizations, applications and analyses are possible with this tool and what software/skills you need to make them happen.
– How the infrastructure is set up
– How the database is organized
– How to put data into the database (hands-on)
– Spend some time digging data out of the literature/contributing your own data to expand the database
– How to get data out of the database using MATLAB, Python, GIS, etc.
– Example analyses using ICE-D data
– The AskICE-D tool; an automatic ICE-D querying tool stored in the Ghub project
The workshop is scheduled for 2(ish) days, and each day is laid out roughly as follows:
Day 1: Introduction, database connections/structure, and data entry
– 9:00am - 10:00am: Intro to the ICE-D project, ice breakers, basic concepts of database setup, etc.
– 10:00am - 12:00pm: Check in with everyone to make sure they know how to 1) connect to the database, and 2) add data to the database through our admin page on the website (see tutorial links below for instructions)
– 12:00pm - 1:00pm break for lunch
– 1:00pm - 5:00pm Finish getting folks set up to see the database and add data, data entry. Data analysis examples if time
Day 2: Data visualizations, applications and analyses using ICE-D
– 9:00am - 10:00am: review of previous day's topics/intro today's topics, questions, discussion, etc. (if necessary)
– 10:00am - 12:00pm: Setting up connections to ICE-D through other software, mainly Matlab and desktop GIS applications like QGIS
– 12:00pm - 1:00pm: break for lunch
– 1:00pm - 5:00pm: examples/discussion of potential visualizations/applications/analyses using ICE-D.
Much of our process for viewing and adding data to ICE-D has become quite streamlined, but you can help expedite the process even more by taking the following steps prior to the meeting:
Step 1: Come prepared with a brief bio about yourself; what are your interests, current projects you are working on, and what you are hoping to get out of the workshop (5-ish minutes).
Step 2: Determine what personal machine (most likely a laptop) you plan on using for a while to interact with ICE-D (the setup is basically platform-independent and we are using/have used Mac, Windows, and Linux machines). Part of the connection scheme is unique to each individual machine, so it is best to try to pick one and stick with it if you can.
Step 3: Read through our tutorials for connecting to the database. For best time management, it is super helpful if everyone connecting to the database follows the instructions linked in 3.1 and sends us an SSH key for their personal laptop ahead of the workshop.
3.1: Find the tutorials for connecting to the database through SQL Clients here: Windows Users | Mac and Linux Users
3.2: Find the tutorial for getting set up and adding data through the admin panel on the ICE-D webpage here: Data entry page
3.3: The page general page for connecting to ICE-D, adding data to ICE-D and examples of applications and visualizations also has lots of other info available that attendees are encouraged to check out: ICE-D tutorials, visualization and analysis applications page
Step 4: if you can, and have time for it, come to the workshop with either your own data for data entry or data from a paper or two that you know of that have not yet been entered into ICE-D. Furthermore, try to brainstorm ahead of the workshop what sorts of visualizations, applications, and/or analyses you might like to explore using ICE-D.