<?xml version="1.0"?>
<News hasArchived="false" page="1" pageCount="1" pageSize="10" timestamp="Mon, 20 Apr 2026 14:32:06 -0400" url="https://dev.my.umbc.edu/groups/umbc-ai/posts.xml?tag=r">
  <NewsItem contentIssues="false" id="154278" important="false" status="posted" url="https://dev.my.umbc.edu/groups/umbc-ai/posts/154278">
    <Title>Talk: Dealing with unstructured data, APIs, and API calls to LLMs 11/7</Title>
    <Tagline>Dr. Eric Stokan, 12-1:30pm Fri. Nov. 7, Public Policy 438</Tagline>
    <Body>
      <![CDATA[
          <div class="html-content"><div>In this session <a href="https://socialscience.umbc.edu/home/staff/eric-stokan/" rel="nofollow external" class="bo"><strong>Dr. Eric Stokan</strong></a>, director of UMBC's <a href="https://socialscience.umbc.edu/" rel="nofollow external" class="bo">Center for Social Science Scholarship</a>, will discuss ways to process and handle unstructured data such as text and images. The session will take place in person at UMBC in <strong>Public Policy 438</strong> from 12-1:30pm on Friday, November 7.  </div><div><br></div><div>Topics he will cover include:</div><div><ul><li>Using the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_(programming_language)" rel="nofollow external" class="bo">R</a> programming language to work with unstructured data like text and images</li><li>Using OpenAI (makers of ChatGPT) to analyze unstructured data through an API</li><li>Comparing <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_language_model" rel="nofollow external" class="bo">LLMs</a> to other AI techniques such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic_model" rel="nofollow external" class="bo">topic models</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Named-entity_recognition" rel="nofollow external" class="bo">named entity recognition</a></li><li>Discussing more effective ways to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prompt_engineering" rel="nofollow external" class="bo">prompt LLMs</a> </li></ul><div><h4><a href="https://my3.my.umbc.edu/groups/csss/events/147076/a6c/df250055cc06b1209244d1b97851e232/web/link?link=https%3A%2F%2Fmy3.my.umbc.edu%2Fgroups%2Fcsss%2Fevents%2F145563%2F3a823%2F3758c55a75776c33902bfaaecc71abb1%2Fweb%2Flink%3Flink%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fforms.gle%252FDzFhYJP8XtzNJY7y5" rel="nofollow external" class="bo"><strong>REGISTER</strong></a></h4><h6><span>Lunch will be provided for registered attendees.</span></h6><h6><span><br></span></h6><h6><span><em>Hosted by the Center for Social Science Scholarship and cosponsored by the Division of Information Technology, the Center for Scalable Data and Computational Science, and CGC-SCIPE.</em></span></h6></div></div></div>
      ]]>
    </Body>
    <Summary>In this session Dr. Eric Stokan, director of UMBC's Center for Social Science Scholarship, will discuss ways to process and handle unstructured data such as text and images. The session will take...</Summary>
    <Website>https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe3Ak7LlIMsTLTxgyLBg62qtlbbPDQcC6vNFULCQiDZOEkEwQ/viewform</Website>
    <TrackingUrl>https://dev.my.umbc.edu/api/v0/pixel/news/154278/guest@my.umbc.edu/002ae6914387fd7011836dcdf21faa68/api/pixel</TrackingUrl>
    <Tag>ai</Tag>
    <Tag>data</Tag>
    <Tag>llm</Tag>
    <Tag>r</Tag>
    <Tag>talk</Tag>
    <Group token="umbc-ai">UMBC AI</Group>
    <GroupUrl>https://dev.my.umbc.edu/groups/umbc-ai</GroupUrl>
    <AvatarUrl>https://assets4-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xsmall.png?1691095779</AvatarUrl>
    <AvatarUrl size="original">https://assets2-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/original.png?1691095779</AvatarUrl>
    <AvatarUrl size="xxlarge">https://assets1-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xxlarge.png?1691095779</AvatarUrl>
    <AvatarUrl size="xlarge">https://assets1-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xlarge.png?1691095779</AvatarUrl>
    <AvatarUrl size="large">https://assets1-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/large.png?1691095779</AvatarUrl>
    <AvatarUrl size="medium">https://assets3-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/medium.png?1691095779</AvatarUrl>
    <AvatarUrl size="small">https://assets3-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/small.png?1691095779</AvatarUrl>
    <AvatarUrl size="xsmall">https://assets4-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xsmall.png?1691095779</AvatarUrl>
    <AvatarUrl size="xxsmall">https://assets1-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xxsmall.png?1691095779</AvatarUrl>
    <Sponsor>UMBC Center for Social Science Scholarship</Sponsor>
    <ThumbnailUrl size="xxlarge">https://assets2-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/154/278/c38544e995b73abbbc4d01df79028911/xxlarge.jpg?1762438461</ThumbnailUrl>
    <ThumbnailUrl size="xlarge">https://assets1-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/154/278/c38544e995b73abbbc4d01df79028911/xlarge.jpg?1762438461</ThumbnailUrl>
    <ThumbnailUrl size="large">https://assets4-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/154/278/c38544e995b73abbbc4d01df79028911/large.jpg?1762438461</ThumbnailUrl>
    <ThumbnailUrl size="medium">https://assets3-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/154/278/c38544e995b73abbbc4d01df79028911/medium.jpg?1762438461</ThumbnailUrl>
    <ThumbnailUrl size="small">https://assets4-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/154/278/c38544e995b73abbbc4d01df79028911/small.jpg?1762438461</ThumbnailUrl>
    <ThumbnailUrl size="xsmall">https://assets1-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/154/278/c38544e995b73abbbc4d01df79028911/xsmall.jpg?1762438461</ThumbnailUrl>
    <ThumbnailUrl size="xxsmall">https://assets1-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/154/278/c38544e995b73abbbc4d01df79028911/xxsmall.jpg?1762438461</ThumbnailUrl>
    <ThumbnailAltText>talk by Dr. Eric Stokan</ThumbnailAltText>
    <PawCount>0</PawCount>
    <CommentCount>0</CommentCount>
    <CommentsAllowed>true</CommentsAllowed>
    <PostedAt>Thu, 06 Nov 2025 09:42:12 -0500</PostedAt>
    <EditAt>Thu, 06 Nov 2025 10:16:58 -0500</EditAt>
  </NewsItem>
  <NewsItem contentIssues="false" id="153555" important="false" status="posted" url="https://dev.my.umbc.edu/groups/umbc-ai/posts/153555">
  <Title>Short course: AI for Statistical Analysis</Title>
  <Tagline>2:00-5:00pm EDT Friday, Oct. 31, 2025, Math/Psych 104</Tagline>
  <Body>
    <![CDATA[
    <div class="html-content"><p>Dr. <a href="https://reetamm.com/" rel="nofollow external" class="bo">Reetam Majumder</a> from the University of Arkansas will lead a three-hour short course on AI for statistical analysis from 2:00 to 5:00 pm on Friday, October 31, 2025, in room 104 of UMBC's Math &amp; Psychology building. The course will provide a hands-on introduction to deep learning models using the <a href="https://keras.io/" rel="nofollow external" class="bo">Keras</a> package in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_(programming_language)" rel="nofollow external" class="bo">R</a>.</p><h4><strong>Register </strong><a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfnmZACusd7MbsJlWZsOfpoiQcYMmBC6NOCZ4nLIZXSl5PmDQ/viewform?usp=header" rel="nofollow external" class="bo"><strong>here</strong></a><strong> by October 24.</strong></h4><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_learning" rel="nofollow external" class="bo">Deep learning</a> is the cornerstone of all current AI models. While they have historically been used extensively in supervised and unsupervised learning problems, deep learning is also seeing increased adoption for statistical inference associated with complex/intractable models, massive datasets, or both. The short course will provide a hands-on introduction to deep learning models using the keras package in R.</p><p>The course aims to familiarize statisticians with the entire pipeline for analyzing data, including software setup, data preprocessing, and some common neural network architectures used in predictive modeling for different data types like tables, images, and time series. Participants will also be introduced to deep learning approaches for density estimation and parameter estimation in statistical problems, and an overview of the current state-of-the-science. </p><p>The hands-on sections will be demonstrated on <a href="https://colab.google/" rel="nofollow external" class="bo">Google Colab</a>, and participants will be able to follow along on their own personal devices. Course materials, including code, data, slides, and resources for installing the Keras and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torch_(machine_learning)" rel="nofollow external" class="bo">Torch</a> deep learning libraries on R, will be made available on GitHub.</p><div><br></div></div>
]]>
  </Body>
  <Summary>Dr. Reetam Majumder from the University of Arkansas will lead a three-hour short course on AI for statistical analysis from 2:00 to 5:00 pm on Friday, October 31, 2025, in room 104 of UMBC's Math...</Summary>
  <Website>https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfnmZACusd7MbsJlWZsOfpoiQcYMmBC6NOCZ4nLIZXSl5PmDQ/viewform</Website>
  <TrackingUrl>https://dev.my.umbc.edu/api/v0/pixel/news/153555/guest@my.umbc.edu/e5b3454efe6fc4a2b9e3a284c9ce815a/api/pixel</TrackingUrl>
  <Tag>ai</Tag>
  <Tag>analysis</Tag>
  <Tag>colab</Tag>
  <Tag>course</Tag>
  <Tag>keras</Tag>
  <Tag>r</Tag>
  <Tag>statistical</Tag>
  <Tag>three-hour</Tag>
  <Group token="umbc-ai">UMBC AI</Group>
  <GroupUrl>https://dev.my.umbc.edu/groups/umbc-ai</GroupUrl>
  <AvatarUrl>https://assets4-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xsmall.png?1691095779</AvatarUrl>
  <AvatarUrl size="original">https://assets2-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/original.png?1691095779</AvatarUrl>
  <AvatarUrl size="xxlarge">https://assets1-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xxlarge.png?1691095779</AvatarUrl>
  <AvatarUrl size="xlarge">https://assets1-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xlarge.png?1691095779</AvatarUrl>
  <AvatarUrl size="large">https://assets1-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/large.png?1691095779</AvatarUrl>
  <AvatarUrl size="medium">https://assets3-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/medium.png?1691095779</AvatarUrl>
  <AvatarUrl size="small">https://assets3-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/small.png?1691095779</AvatarUrl>
  <AvatarUrl size="xsmall">https://assets4-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xsmall.png?1691095779</AvatarUrl>
  <AvatarUrl size="xxsmall">https://assets1-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xxsmall.png?1691095779</AvatarUrl>
  <Sponsor>UMBC AI</Sponsor>
  <ThumbnailUrl size="xxlarge">https://assets2-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/153/555/c9febbcd4543c3354b17c73ec9b7467d/xxlarge.jpg?1760463743</ThumbnailUrl>
  <ThumbnailUrl size="xlarge">https://assets4-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/153/555/c9febbcd4543c3354b17c73ec9b7467d/xlarge.jpg?1760463743</ThumbnailUrl>
  <ThumbnailUrl size="large">https://assets4-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/153/555/c9febbcd4543c3354b17c73ec9b7467d/large.jpg?1760463743</ThumbnailUrl>
  <ThumbnailUrl size="medium">https://assets4-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/153/555/c9febbcd4543c3354b17c73ec9b7467d/medium.jpg?1760463743</ThumbnailUrl>
  <ThumbnailUrl size="small">https://assets1-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/153/555/c9febbcd4543c3354b17c73ec9b7467d/small.jpg?1760463743</ThumbnailUrl>
  <ThumbnailUrl size="xsmall">https://assets4-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/153/555/c9febbcd4543c3354b17c73ec9b7467d/xsmall.jpg?1760463743</ThumbnailUrl>
  <ThumbnailUrl size="xxsmall">https://assets4-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/153/555/c9febbcd4543c3354b17c73ec9b7467d/xxsmall.jpg?1760463743</ThumbnailUrl>
  <ThumbnailAltText>Short course on AI for Statistical Analysis at umbc</ThumbnailAltText>
  <PawCount>0</PawCount>
  <CommentCount>0</CommentCount>
  <CommentsAllowed>true</CommentsAllowed>
  <PostedAt>Tue, 14 Oct 2025 13:54:01 -0400</PostedAt>
</NewsItem>
  <NewsItem contentIssues="false" id="153192" important="false" status="posted" url="https://dev.my.umbc.edu/groups/umbc-ai/posts/153192">
  <Title>Introduction to R and the Basics of LLMs and Generative AI</Title>
  <Tagline>12-1:30pm EDT, Friday October 3, 2025 in PUP 451</Tagline>
  <Body>
    <![CDATA[
    <div class="html-content">UMBC's Center for Social Science Scholarship kicks off its Fall workshop series on generative AI, LLMs, and computational social science methods with <a href="https://www.ericjstokan.com/" rel="nofollow external" class="bo">Eric Stokan</a>'s session on computing in R and how to use generative AI/LLMs in social science research workflows. The session will cover:<div><ul><li>How to install and set up <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_(programming_language)" rel="nofollow external" class="bo">R</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RStudio" rel="nofollow external" class="bo">RStudio</a></li><li>R fundamentals: objects, vectors, data frames, scripts, packages (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidyverse" rel="nofollow external" class="bo">tidyverse</a>)</li><li>R Markdown/Quarto: document structure, code chunks, rendering to HTML/PDF</li><li>LLMs 101: what they are, common research use cases, and calling them through the R package <a href="https://ellmer.tidyverse.org/" rel="nofollow external" class="bo">ellmer</a></li><li>A checklist for responsible LLM use in research</li></ul><div>The session will be held 12-1:30pm in person in room 451 of the Public Policy Building.</div></div><div><strong><br></strong></div><div><strong>Lunch will be provided for </strong><a href="https://my3.my.umbc.edu/groups/csss/events/146488/a6c/db722cf0ff049717edca46a54588ca86/web/link?link=https%3A%2F%2Fdocs.google.com%2Fforms%2Fd%2Fe%2F1FAIpQLSe3Ak7LlIMsTLTxgyLBg62qtlbbPDQcC6vNFULCQiDZOEkEwQ%2Fviewform%3Fusp%3Dheader" rel="nofollow external" class="bo"><strong>registered</strong></a><strong> attendees only.</strong></div><div><strong><br></strong></div><div><a href="https://my3.my.umbc.edu/groups/csss/events/146488/a6c/db722cf0ff049717edca46a54588ca86/web/link?link=https%3A%2F%2Fdocs.google.com%2Fforms%2Fd%2Fe%2F1FAIpQLSe3Ak7LlIMsTLTxgyLBg62qtlbbPDQcC6vNFULCQiDZOEkEwQ%2Fviewform%3Fusp%3Dheader" rel="nofollow external" class="bo"><strong>Register here</strong></a></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div>
]]>
  </Body>
  <Summary>UMBC's Center for Social Science Scholarship kicks off its Fall workshop series on generative AI, LLMs, and computational social science methods with Eric Stokan's session on computing in R and...</Summary>
  <Website>https://my3.my.umbc.edu/groups/csss/events/146488</Website>
  <TrackingUrl>https://dev.my.umbc.edu/api/v0/pixel/news/153192/guest@my.umbc.edu/ac21a062f4361afd0525984cc2633ac9/api/pixel</TrackingUrl>
  <Tag>ai</Tag>
  <Tag>ellmer</Tag>
  <Tag>genai</Tag>
  <Tag>llm</Tag>
  <Tag>programming</Tag>
  <Tag>r</Tag>
  <Group token="umbc-ai">UMBC AI</Group>
  <GroupUrl>https://dev.my.umbc.edu/groups/umbc-ai</GroupUrl>
  <AvatarUrl>https://assets4-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xsmall.png?1691095779</AvatarUrl>
  <AvatarUrl size="original">https://assets2-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/original.png?1691095779</AvatarUrl>
  <AvatarUrl size="xxlarge">https://assets1-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xxlarge.png?1691095779</AvatarUrl>
  <AvatarUrl size="xlarge">https://assets1-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xlarge.png?1691095779</AvatarUrl>
  <AvatarUrl size="large">https://assets1-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/large.png?1691095779</AvatarUrl>
  <AvatarUrl size="medium">https://assets3-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/medium.png?1691095779</AvatarUrl>
  <AvatarUrl size="small">https://assets3-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/small.png?1691095779</AvatarUrl>
  <AvatarUrl size="xsmall">https://assets4-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xsmall.png?1691095779</AvatarUrl>
  <AvatarUrl size="xxsmall">https://assets1-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/002/081/cfb27ebe008c2636486089a759ea5c36/xxsmall.png?1691095779</AvatarUrl>
  <Sponsor>UMBC AI</Sponsor>
  <ThumbnailUrl size="xxlarge">https://assets1-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/153/192/4813b64b24b579d0aa17736e5023ea7e/xxlarge.jpg?1759432868</ThumbnailUrl>
  <ThumbnailUrl size="xlarge">https://assets4-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/153/192/4813b64b24b579d0aa17736e5023ea7e/xlarge.jpg?1759432868</ThumbnailUrl>
  <ThumbnailUrl size="large">https://assets4-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/153/192/4813b64b24b579d0aa17736e5023ea7e/large.jpg?1759432868</ThumbnailUrl>
  <ThumbnailUrl size="medium">https://assets2-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/153/192/4813b64b24b579d0aa17736e5023ea7e/medium.jpg?1759432868</ThumbnailUrl>
  <ThumbnailUrl size="small">https://assets4-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/153/192/4813b64b24b579d0aa17736e5023ea7e/small.jpg?1759432868</ThumbnailUrl>
  <ThumbnailUrl size="xsmall">https://assets3-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/153/192/4813b64b24b579d0aa17736e5023ea7e/xsmall.jpg?1759432868</ThumbnailUrl>
  <ThumbnailUrl size="xxsmall">https://assets3-dev.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/thumbnails/news/000/153/192/4813b64b24b579d0aa17736e5023ea7e/xxsmall.jpg?1759432868</ThumbnailUrl>
  <ThumbnailAltText>Headshot of UMBC Professor Eric Stokan</ThumbnailAltText>
  <PawCount>1</PawCount>
  <CommentCount>0</CommentCount>
  <CommentsAllowed>true</CommentsAllowed>
  <PostedAt>Thu, 02 Oct 2025 15:31:32 -0400</PostedAt>
  <EditAt>Thu, 02 Oct 2025 15:39:29 -0400</EditAt>
</NewsItem>
</News>
