In-person only (Washington DC's MLK Jr. Central Library)Governments, NGOs, and other research institutes spend billions of dollars each year collecting demographic, economic, and health information about their populations. These efforts form the basis of many official reports, academic journal articles, and public health surveillance systems, each of which motivate public policy or inform the public to varying degrees. Though dependent on the sensitivity of the topic, these sponsoring organizations often publish household-level, person-level, or company-level datasets alongside their final, summary report. This response-level data (commonly known as microdata) allows external researchers both to reproduce the original findings and also to more deeply focus on segments of the population perhaps not discussed in the data products released by the authors of the original investigation.The website http://asdfree.com/ offers obsessively-detailed instructions to analyze a wide variety of publicly-available datasets with easy-to-follow R language instructions. This resource generally contains three core components step-by-step: (1) Download automation or data acquisition; (2) Helpfully-noted analysis examples; (3) Replication of published estimates to prove correct methodology.This three hour short course will include a powerpoint-free lecture and discussion of survey data followed by a hands-on tutorial of working with publicly-available survey data.Eligibility: Researchers interested in conducting original research with the extremely rich and varied amount of public data available. This course could be of interest to anyone hoping to learn more about quantitative research, economics, public policy, demography, or any other field reliant on social statistics to better understand individuals and businesses.Software: Both beginner or advanced R users are welcome! Some understanding of R syntax will be helpful depending on the complexity of the microdata chosen, but the instructor will attempt to guide participants toward datasets appropriate for their coding skill level.Admission to this free workshop is open to the public but limited to 20 in-person participants.More information & registration: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1237411754869