Connecticut Data Collaborative to Offer Fall Workshops Statewide

The Connecticut Data Collaborative’s CTData Academy will be offering a series of workshops on survey design, qualitative and quantitative data analysis, and data storytelling and visualization this fall, beginning with sessions this month.

The Connecticut Data Collaborative (CTData) is a statewide public-private partnership that advocates for the public availability of open and accessible data, serving nonprofits, advocates, policymakers, community groups, and funders in using data to drive policy and improve programs and services, budgeting and decision making at the state, regional and local levels.

CTData will be offering their most popular workshop, Data Storytelling, on September 25. This engaging, interactive session walks participants through the process of creating a data story, from start-to-finish, using real data. By learning some basic principles of how to combine analysis with visualization, participants leave with the skills to tell their own data stories. Registration is now open at www.ctdata.org/academy. The workshop will be in Hartford at the offices at CTData.

The goal of the CTData Academy is to increase data literacy, build data capacity and enable nonprofits, state and local government, community groups, and organizations across the state to effectively use their own data, open data, and data from other sources, for the purpose of understanding, measuring, advocating, and positively impacting lives.

“These sessions will help organizations across Connecticut harness the power of data, design, and evaluation to inform policy and decision-making,” said Sarah Eisele-Dyrli, Data Engagement Specialist at CTData. “Increasingly, organizations in the public and private sector are looking to better understand how to use data to drive decisions, effectively and efficiently.”

In October, CTData Academy sessions will include Data Bootcamp: Analysis, Data Basics, Data Storytelling and a first-time Analyzing Qualitative Data session. In the new workshop, participants will learn what qualitative data is and where it comes from, how to prepare, manage and analyze qualitative data, and how to generate and compile insights from qualitative data analysis. Many businesses and organizations already have qualitative data they have not thought of and are not currently using to inform their work. This session will provide the skills to do just that.

Data Bootcamp will be held on October 7 at CTData in Hartford, the Analyzing Qualitative Data workshop will be on October 15 at CTData, Data Basics on October 17 in New London, and Data Storytelling on October 24 at the CT Nonprofit Center in Hartford. Additional workshops are being planned for November; details and registration for all the workshops is available on the CTData website.

CT Data strives for informed decision-making across Connecticut, empowering an ecosystem of data users by democratizing access to public data and building data literacy skills. More than 200 data sets are now accessible to the public on the CTData website, including a wide array of subjects and policy categories.

Among its areas of responsibility, CTData has been designated as the lead organization for the State of Connecticut in the U.S. Census Bureau’s State Data Center Program and as Connecticut’s official source for Census data related to the 2020 Census.

More information on the CTData Academy, CTData programs and events, and current datasets is available at ctdata.org.