Google Refine

Google Refine is a powerful tool for dealing with messy data. It seems to have more power than a spreadsheet and lots of potential. Have a look at the videos on the Google Refine site to get a feel.

Unlike a lot of Google tools this one is downloaded to your machine and works with the data there, so there is no worries about loading data into the cloud and worrying about who can access. The capacity of your machine will dictate how much data you can manipulate.

I’ve only done a little experimenting and can see plenty  of projects I could run with this, but there does look to be a steep learning curve and I can’t find much in the way of tutorials.

So if there are others who are interested in exploring we probably need to set up a self-teach group.

About Shirley Williams

Shirley Williams is a National Teaching Fellow and Professor of Learning Technologies at the University of Reading. She is involved in a number of research projects related to learning technologies, communities, social networks, Digital identity and knowledge transfer. She also enjoys reading and cooking.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

One Response to Google Refine

  1. That was fast Shirley! Thank you. My meeting with Google refine was at a workshop for the BioVEL project last week.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *