Data Science Campus

Posts by Data Science Campus

The International Data Masterclass is a collaboration between the ONS, FCDO, ESCAP and UNSD. The course is designed to help…

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The use of microdata for firm-level analysis of preference tariff utilisation in the UK: technical report

We go behind our analysis on the use of microdata for the examination of preference tariff utilisation and take a deep dive into challenges of drawing together new administrative data sources to answer relevant policy questions.

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Using new shipping data to improve government understanding of trade flows

We show how shipping instructions can be used to map the trade routes of critical goods. This will help understand our reliance on global ports for accessing specific products, and draw insights on the impact of important events such as strikes.

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Using Sentinel-2 images to measure the change in tree coverage in eastern Uganda: what does it mean for the Mbale Trees Programme?

We used machine learning to develop a model to identify areas of trees from satellite images in eastern Uganda, where the Mbale Trees Programme has been running since 2010.

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Identifying different roles in the social care sector using online job advertisements 

In this guest blog, data science apprentice Evie Brown from the Social Care Analysis team at the Office for National Statistics (ONS) presents work on grouping online job adverts by social care role. This project was a significant part of the final year of the Level Six Data Science Apprenticeship. 

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Paving the way for accessible data science training in the public sector 

A large-scale accessibility audit of many courses and presentation templates on the Learning Hub and the ONS website in 2021 revealed many accessibility issues that would impact users of screen reader technology.
In this blog post Jake Marshall talks about the process I developed and why this project is important not only to the Campus, but to him personally. 

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Case study: responding to the coronavirus pandemic using aggregated BT mobility data

To support the national fight against coronavirus (COVID-19) in March 2020, BT made aggregate, anonymised mobility data available to the UK Government. We quickly turned this into daily updates, with only one day’s delay between activity and the reporting of it.

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Use of hybrid data to understand the community-level influences on coronavirus (COVID-19) incidence

Understanding and monitoring the major influences on COVID-19 infection numbers in communities is essential to inform policy making and evaluate the impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions. We have developed a community-level analysis by assembling a large set of static and dynamic data for England.

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Worker shortages: A window on labour demand during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic

The UK’s exit from the European Union created uncertainty about workers across a range of sectors, exacerbated by concerns over workers leaving the country and the impact on labour supply. The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic created additional and sudden changes, with sectors being affected heterogeneously and demand switching from services to goods.

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Technical report: Predicting cattle camp locations in South Sudan from Sentinel 2 satellite imagery

Cattle are central to many people’s livelihoods in South Sudan, but there are very few recent data on the number of animals and their geographic distribution. Building on previous work, this blog explores new methods, based on convolutional neural networks, that can better distinguish cattle camps from similar landscape features.

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The Data Science Campus – five years of data science for public good

On 27 March 2017, with an audience of UK and international data science leaders from across the public, private and academic sectors, a team of 8, some brilliant presentations, and a lot of excitement, the Data Science Campus was launched. 5 years later, Louisa Nolan shares what have we learned along the way.

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Employing data science to analyse the use of preferential tariffs in free trade agreements

Preference utilisation rates (PURs) measure the extent to which UK businesses make use of the zero or reduced tariffs available via free trade agreements (FTAs). In this work, we study the take-up of preferential tariffs by UK businesses between 2009 and 2019 and examine their trends and patterns.

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Technical Report: Project Mertz—novel use of historical RAF flight safety records

Part of our mission at the Data Science Campus (DSC) is to build data science capability across the public sector. In this project, which grew out of our Data Science Accelerator programme, we worked with the Royal Air Force (RAF) to help upskill their staff in the Python programming language and natural language processing (NLP) methods.

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Mentoring without borders – growing data science skills internationally

The International Data Science Accelerator Programme opened for its’ first applicants on 31 January. We spoke to Fatima Al Taharhwa (Department of Statistics, Jordan) and her mentor Hatem El Sherif (Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Centre, United Arab Emirates), who took part in the pilot programme.

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How effective mentoring relationships are growing data science skills and capacity

The relationship between the mentor and mentee is vital to successful outcomes on the Data Science Accelerator programme. Daniel O’Callaghan (Forestry Commission) and Sam Taylor (DWP) talk about their relationship that helped to deliver a successful project.

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Graduate Induction Week

In 2021, our highly successful Data Science Graduate Programme has been expanded across the UK pubic sector. We have offered 50 places on the programme, located in 10 public sector organisations. 25 places were offered to new graduates, selected from 511 applications. An additional 25 places have also been offered to 25 analysts already in posts, who want to significantly increase their data science skills.

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