Using OpenRefine to Manage Messy Metadata

Register Here.  The cost is $40.

Wed, Aug. 12, 2015   3 p.m. – 5 p.m. US/Eastern

Messy, inconsistent metadata makes collection management tasks challenging, yet it is the unfortunate the reality for most of us. In this workshop, participants will learn the basics of using OpenRefine (formerly Google Refine), “a free, open source power tool for working with messy data” to analyze, normalize, and clean up collections metadata so that datasets can be better integrated into workflows and across systems. The workshop is designed for practitioners who are interested in accessing, cleaning up, and modifying data with freely available tools. We will explore and explain how OpenRefine provides options to navigate around challenging data, and normalize both formatting and the data itself.

Participants will walk through several practical exercises using sample collections metadata featuring common metadata transformation techniques. We’ll explore approaches to transformation like text clustering and writing basic expressions to get your data in its ideal state. Advanced OpenRefine topics, such as reconciliation of datasets against Freebase and other external datasets and web services will be discussed, but not in-depth. This is an introductory workshop, ideal for those who are new to OpenRefine and are interested in exploring it’s simple yet powerful features.