ASA Sections on: # Statistical Computing Statistical Graphics

Data expo

# Soul of the Community

## The winners!

- First place:
  Andrea Kaplan and Eric Hare, Iowa State University: Putting Down Roots: A Graphical Exploration of Community Attachment
  link to Interactive Tool
- Second places:
  - Angela Minster, Temple University: Seeing the Soul of the Community
    link to Interactive Tool
  - Karsten Maurer, David Osthus, Iowa State University and Adam Loy, Lawrence University: A tale of four cities: Exploring the soul of Biloxi, Detroit, Milledgeville, and State College
  - Xiaofei (Susan) Wang, Cynthia Rush, William Brinda, Yale University: Soul of the Community
    interactive poster

## Data

Why do some communities thrive while others do not? Are there specific community at- tributes that attract people to certain communities, tempt them to set down roots and commit to the community for the long term? If so, then this is valuable information for community leaders who wish to grow their communities by attracting both employers and employees and improving the local economic climate.

As part of the project "Soul of the Community", the Knight Foundation in cooperation with Gallup collected data from 43,000 people over three years in 26 communities across the United States. The 26 communities do not constitute a random sample of commu- nities across the United States; participating communities were those where the Knight Foundation was already active.

The web site http://www.soulofthecommunity.org/ provides data by the Knight Foundation measuring the emotional attachment of people towards the community they live in. Below is a compilation of the data available at that site:

- 2008 data SOCTData2008Por.zip, same data as csv file, codebook for 2008 and 2009
- 2009 data SOCTData2009Por.zip, csv file
- 2010 data SOCTData2010Por.zip, csv file, codebook for 2010

Download and unzip the above files, then use package `foreign` and `read.spss` in particular, to read the data into R.
Here are additional links that might be interesting to visit: http://www.soulofthecommunity.org/.

Keep checking this space for more data, we'll post changes here!

## The Challenge

The aim of the data expo is to provide a graphical summary of important features of the data set. This is intentionally vague in order to allow different entries to focus on different aspects of the data, but here are a few ideas to get you started:

- What attaches people their community?
- What are key drivers behind emotional attachment? Are the key drivers all similarly important? What effect does their composition have on attachment?
- How different are the communities?

## Your submission

To enter the competition you need to submit a poster to the data expo session at the 2013 JSM (more details to follow closer to the time). As well as a printed poster, you're also welcome to bring along your laptop to present interactive/animated components. After the JSM, we'll also organize a special journal issue (tentatively, Computational Statistics) where you can submit a paper that describes your methodology in more detail.

## How to enter

Student entries and/or group entries are welcome. If the competition garners sufficient entries we will award separate prizes for student submissions. Educators may want to incorporate this competition as a class project.

The use of dynamic and/or interactive graphics is likely to be very useful, at least in the exploration of the data. This is encouraged, and we will attempt to provide support for laptops within the poster session so that dynamic/interactive graphics can be included in the poster presentation.

## Important Dates

- Send email expression of interest/intention by Feb 4, 2013, to Heike Hofmann, hofmann@iastate.edu.
- Submit abstract to http://www.amstat.org/meetings/jsm/2013/index.cfm by Feb 4, 2013. (It doesn't need to be perfect or very specific. Abstracts can be modified up until May.)
- Bring poster entry to JSM August 3 - 8, 2013 in Montreal, Canada.
  There is an option to have an electronic poster, which could also consist of or include a video. Any video material can at most be 5 min in length to be considered for the competition.

## The prizes

There will be cash prizes awarded to the best posters (as judged by a panel of experts). As well as the honour and glory, the best entries will receive an invitation to publish their work in a journal article.

- First place: $1,500
- Second place: $1,000
- Third place: $500

## Keep in touch

To receive updates about the data expo challenge, please sign up to the competition mailing list. This mailing list will be used highlight changes to the website or data, and remind you of deadlines.

Your email:
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