The Development Research in Practice course accompanies the release of The DIME Analytics Data Handbook and aims to teach all users of development data how to handle data effectively, efficiently, and ethically. The course will cover the data workflow at each stage of an empirical research project, from design to analysis to publication. Participants will learn how to think about research from a data perspective, how to structure research projects to ensure data quality, and how to institute transparent and reproducible workflows with attention to data privacy and security.
This virtual, self-paced course will last for 8 weeks, from July 12 – September 3. It is designed for World Bank employees, development practitioners, academic researchers, public servants and students working on empirical research projects. Each week will focus on one chapter of the accompanying Handbook and will include video lectures, assigned readings, discussion sessions with the authors, and quizzes. Participants who successfully pass all quizzes will receive a course certificate. This course does not require any previous technical or software programming knowledge, although the Handbook contains additional materials for readers handling data in Stata and R. The estimated time commitment is of 5 hours a week.
Participants will learn to:
- Ensure that research is transparent, reproducible, and credible (week 1)
- Structure data work for effective collaboration, while ensuring the privacy and security of research participants (week 2)
- Develop a measurement framework and reproducibly implement randomized sampling and treatment assignment (week 3)
- Acquire high-quality data reproducibly and ensure data subject privacy, with an in-depth focus on electronic data collection (week 4)
- Process data efficiently, from constructing “tidy” datasets, to checking data quality, and cleaning data in preparation for analytical tasks (week 5)
- Analyze data effectively, from creating analytical datasets and derived indicators to writing analytical code for generating reproducible research outputs (week 6)
- Data publication, preparation of dynamic documents using data outputs, and compiling research outputs and reproducibility packages (week 7)
Register here. The deadline to register is June 30.
