While planning your travel for NICAR16 in Denver, don't forget about Sunday morning. In addition to a lineup of panels and hands-on classes, we'll be offering the following special sessions:
- A three-hour interactive workshop with Quinn Norton. "Seeing like a network: Learning how to think about digital security" will cover what's known as "threat modeling" in the computer security world. Participants will leave with an understanding of how networks view them as users, how they can shape what a network sees and how to realistically defend themselves against common attacks. Norton writes about computer security and is an expert on the bad things that can happen online.
- "Just enough Django: Distributed data entry in the newsroom." Ben Welsh of the Los Angeles Times, presents a step-by-step guide to creating a simple web application that empowers you to enlist reporters in data entry and refinement. The three-hour, hands-on tutorial will teach you how to take advantage of the Django Web framework's powerful administration panel, without bothering with all the other web developer crap. You will learn how to design database tables, load in data and quickly create a system for others to improve it. Note: Preregistration is required and seating is limited. Laptops will be provided for the training.
- OpenElections Hackathon. The OpenElections team will be working on loading and publishing election results from the Mountain West, and we're looking for coders interested in helping out and spending a few hours with our team. You can help us load and parse election results from 2000-2014 in different formats. Contributors can pick a year to work on, and work in teams. Or pick another state and dive in. See http://docs.openelections.net/ for ways to get involved. Your time and expertise would be most appreciated either all or part of the day. RSVP to openelections@gmail.com.
