---
title: Data Science Space Needs
spellcheck: true
tags: dsc, space planning
---

The [Data Science Center's](https://www.library.ucla.edu/location/data-science-center) mission is to foster a welcoming research community by developing data literacy and foundational coding skills through consulting and education. We support researchers & students throughout the full data life cycle of activities: planning research projects and data management plans; data acquisition, storage, cleaning, and usage; analysis; publication; curation; and preservation.

We:

* Provide support for full data science life-cycle
* Build data science infrastructure that promotes sharing, data use and life-cycle management
* Provide support for computational reproducibility and discovery
* Deliver & contribute to data science instructional and curricula support
* Provide support and referrals for researchers needing to work at scale computationally (beyond the laptop)

### Data Life Cycle from the NSF

## Current Space

In 2018, the DSC moved into an existing classroom in the Young Research Library, Floor 2. After receiving a donation to provide more modular, ergonomic and comfortable furniture to better support the DSC's needs. We have a floor plan and have spec'd out furniture. A sense of what this will look like is below:


The key attributes of this design are:

* Modular furniture that we can fold up, put in small group clusters or align as a classroom style
* Work space area for four staff with data specializations, including data science, geospatial, data curation & open science
* Not pictured but we will have monitors mounted on walls for work needing larger screen area

The key weaknesses are:

* Size of the room is small, there's no opportunity for staff to do more focused work because we consult in the space
* No real space for more private or small group consulting

## Longer Term Goals

The DSC's service model is designed to provide a welcoming and supportive environment for data and computationally intensive scholarhip. We see this as a space as supporting a `community of practice` where novices get help to become competent practitioners with help & guidance from both their peers and library/partner specialists in data science. We want the space to support individual focused research and group activities, including peer learning opportunities and workshops. We also need office space for staff specialists near to the active public services so staff can complete work that requires concentration. Additionally, this space should have rooms for consulting and small group interactions.

The DSC staff met and white-boarded some of these ideas as separate floating rooms for our needs below. We didn't sketch a total floor plan, but these spaces should be colocated.

### Public services & instructional space:


Modular furniture to support workshops, group work and presentations. Dual large presentation monitors. We also want space that supports individual study and research where researchers can plug into a monitor or kick off jobs in remote computing infrastructure.

### Consulting rooms:


We also need more private consulting rooms for small groups or 2 people. These should be glass rooms that are sound proof enough to support conversations that might be sensitive. Each room should have a large monitor on the wall.

### Staff offices:


Supporting data services also requires work that is more focused and individuated for support staff. This requires space for staff that, ideally, is adjacent but separate from the public service aspects. We want cubes for some privacy and a lounge area with a kitchen. We also would like natural light and windows.