Please join us for the next Krasnow Institute (Fairfax Campus) Monday Seminar on 9/23/13 at 4pm.
Refreshments will be served at 3:30pm.
Come chat with colleagues and like-minded researchers and students prior to the talk.
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TITLE:
GDELT: Event Data Meets Big Data, and How We Can Use It

SPEAKER:
David Masad
PhD Student
Computational Social Science Department
Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study
George Mason University

DATE: Monday, September 23, 2013
TIME: 4:00 p.m.
LOCATION: Lecture Room (Room 229)
Krasnow Institute Building
George Mason University, Fairfax, VA

ABSTRACT:
The Global Database of Events, Language and Tone (GDELT) is a new dataset of detailed, politically-relevant events from around the world, updated daily and freely available - over 250 million events, from 1979 to yesterday. It offers new opportunities to find spatial and temporal patterns and trends in international events, develop new theories and models, and even build and test forecasts of future events. As the largest dataset of its kind, it also introduces new challenges, and invites the application of tools from other fields and across disciplines.

This presentation will provide an introduction to GDELT and some of the work that has already been done with it. It will touch on the history of event data and on GDELT's machine-coding approach (and how it compares to human coding); it will describe some of the research that has already utilized GDELT, and the strengths and weaknesses of the data that the research community is discovering. Finally, it will discuss the future of GDELT research, and invite questions and interdisciplinary discussion.

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** Parking Note: The former meter/pay-station lot across Shenandoah River Lane has been converted to a loading/unloading zone and can no longer served for Monday seminar visitor parking. Visitors should park in one of the campus decks.
For additional directions or information call 703-993-4333 or browse to http://krasnow.gmu.edu/location/ .
The schedule of future seminars can be found at http://krasnow.gmu.edu/blog/category/monday-seminars/upcomingmondayseminars/
.