Bard Network Computing Initiative
The goal of the Bard Network Computing Initiative (BNCI) is to support delivery of and expansion of computing and data analysis activities throughout the Bard Network. The Bard Network includes the Bard Early College program and the institutions of the Global Higher Education Alliance for the 21st Century.
What do we do?
Work of the BNCI is support by and carried out in concert with the Computational Sciences program at Bard College, largely by the Data Analytics faculty. Activities of the BNCI include:
We offer modules developed for and delivered in courses across the disciplines at Bard College and throughout the network. Examples of modules to date:
| Course Title | Module |
|---|---|
| Intro to Media | Media consolidation, personal data, and algorithmic bias |
| Epidemics & Society | Modeling and visualization of disease spread and vaccine efficacy |
| Intro to Community Sciences | Introduction to tidy data |
| Problems of Archaeological Archives | Text analysis, expanded spreadsheet analysis, critical reading of data visualizations |
| Introduction to Physics | Statistical analysis and data manipulation |
| Quantum Mechanics | R programming for quantum tunneling and sunspot analysis |
| Literature in the Digital Age | LLMs and word embeddings |
| Diplomacy for the 21st Century | Tidy data, data visualization, scaling by population |
We also
provide support for senior project students with data analysis challenges
are planning short courses on Statistics, Geographic Information Systems, Data Visualization
are discussing Network Collaborative Courses for students across GHEA21
Our future goals:
- On-campus Data Analysis Support Center
- Data Science major
Who’s Who
The Director of the BNCI is Valerie Barr, the Margaret Hamilton Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at Bard College.
Jordan Ayala, Assistant Professor of Data Analytics and Environmental Studies, is a key brain-stormer and contributor to the BNCI, working on development of modules, short courses, and senior project support.
Matt Lavin and Charlotte Clapham are the newest members of the Data Analytics and BNCI team.
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