Monthly Archives: February 2011

Data visualistion – a quick lesson

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Vicki Bolton

Have a look at this.  What do you think it is?  Go on, take a guess. Keep thinking while I write about why it’s relevant…  I went to a seminar last week on data visualisation given by a very clever visual … Continue reading →

Posted in Other blogs, Pedagogy | Tagged | 2 Comments

Guardian Datablog – data is nothing without analysis

Posted on February 17, 2011 by Vicki Bolton

David Brindle posted NCVO’s charity data to the Guardian’s Datablog on Valentine’s Day (gotta love a charity, right).  The data are available by local authority.  When the page loads correctly, you can click on the data table to sort the … Continue reading →

Posted in Government, Journalism | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Guardian Datablog – data is nothing without analysis

Volunteering as therapy

Posted on February 17, 2011 by Vicki Bolton

Volunteering is (extremely) broadly defined in academia.  There are articles discussing volunteering as service, volunteering as serious leisure, volunteering as activism, volunteering at work, volunteering as a pathway into work, volunteering in as many domains as you can think of…  But nothing (caveat: … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

A Gini coefficient for volunteering?

Posted on February 15, 2011 by Vicki Bolton

The Gini coefficient is used to measure income inequality.   It struck me on my way in that it would be great to have something like that for volunteering.  Bear with me…  John Mohan has used a concept called the “civic core” … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged , , | Comments Off on A Gini coefficient for volunteering?

What kind of day has it been?

Posted on February 11, 2011 by Vicki Bolton

Please excuse the shameless West Wing quote in the title…  It occurs to me that I haven’t really written much about my project and maybe I should remedy that.  I’m going to write a three papers thesis (rather than the traditional … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged , , | Comments Off on What kind of day has it been?

Will this tempt me to use R…?

Posted on February 11, 2011 by Vicki Bolton

Probably not.  But it’s sweet, nevertheless.  Matt Blackwell from the Harvard Social Science Statistics blog has created a Crayola vector to allow you to create graphics in R with all the colours in the Crayola rainbow.  So if you ever … Continue reading →

Posted in Other blogs | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Will this tempt me to use R…?

A glimpse of what might have been

Posted on February 10, 2011 by Vicki Bolton

A fascinating seminar today on the Big Society – presented by Pete Alcock and Bernard Harris.  It made me think about what I would have been doing if I hadn’t e-mailed John Mohan and been sold on the idea of quantitative … Continue reading →

Posted in Academic research | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on A glimpse of what might have been

Surviving the hazard (yes, that is what passes for a demography joke…)

Posted on February 9, 2011 by Vicki Bolton

Hill Kulu gave a seminar on housing and fertility at Southampton last week.  He did use the words “linear spline” on a couple of occasions, but otherwise it was extremely accessible.  He had used a hazard model to examine housing type, house moves … Continue reading →

Posted in Academic research, Demography | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Surviving the hazard (yes, that is what passes for a demography joke…)