Add content

[asmockler]

@rickecon

The site needs the following content to be ready to deploy:

• Home page
  • Slides (title, description, and image for each)
  • 3 "Latest from OSM lab" links
    • If you want, these can point to blog posts on the site. You can just write the markdown on this issue for those posts and I can put it in a template so you have an example to go off of, or I've added a README about blog posts here.
• About page
• (Optional) Some subheading text for the gallery page

For the "Latest" links, I can pull the title and description if it is already a link, or let me know if you want to write the post. I should have the blogging stuff ready pretty soon.

Update

See Rick's comment below for the full site map

[asmockler]

@rickecon just bugging you about this again 😄 let me know if I can do anything to help

[rickecon]

OK. Here is an updated sitemap, responding to @asmockler June, 4, 2018 post.

• Home page (oselab.org)
  • Slides (title, description, and image for each)
  • 3 "Latest from OSM lab" links
    • If you want, these can point to blog posts on the site. You can just write the markdown on this issue for those posts and I can put it in a template so you have an example to go off of, or I've added a README about blog posts here.
• About page (oselab.org/about)
• Summer Boot Camp (oselab.org/bootcamp)
  • 2017 (oselab.org/bootcamp/2017)
  • 2018 (oselab.org/bootcamp/2018)
  • 2019 (oselab.org/bootcamp/2019)
    • This will be the page that gives information to prospective applicants and on which we will put the application portal
  • Boot camp alumni comments (oselab.org/bootcamp/comments)
• Research (oselab.org/research)
  • Senior Researchers (oselab.org/senior_researchers)
  • Student Researchers (oselab.org/student_researchers)
  • Papers (oselab.org/research/papers)
• Policy (oselab.org/policy)
  • The policy page will have a list of the different policy project names, a link and a short description. Then each project will have its own page
  • OG-USA
• Visualizations (oselab.org/viz)
  • Here is where I want to put the content that is currently on the osmlab.uchicago.edu site
• Learning material (oselab.org/learning)
  • This page should have links and thumbnails to websites, good lectures, and notebooks
• Photos (oselab.org/photos)
• News (oselab.org/news)
  • This is the place where I would like to post small snippets and links and longer length blog type articles
  • This is also the place that the three-block news feed on the home page can link to.
• Frequently asked questions (oselab.org/faq)

This is my wish list for the whole site. The pieces I need to get up immediately are the Home page, About page, and bootcamp2019 page that has a link button to the application portal.

[rickecon]

For home page content, this image is I think a good banner setup. However, I need to change the name to OSE Lab, and we need to remove the Becker Friedman Institute reference.

As a subtext, I want it to say:

Open Access and Open Source Computational Economics

• Curriculum
• Research
• Policy
• Collaboration

I will e-mail you some pictures that I think are good candidates for the banner slideshow. Or should I post those photos in this repo?

@asmockler

[rickecon]

Content for oselab.org/about page.

The Open Source Economics Laboratory (OSE Lab) was founded by Richard Evans in January 2017 at the University of Chicago thanks to a generous five-year grant from the Charles Koch Foundation. The OSE Lab has a five-point mission that involves supporting open source, open access teaching, research, and policy tools.

A. Create open access training material for computational economics
B. Support open source research that is collaborative, transparent, and replicable
C. Support policy-relevant open source applications
D. Support open source dynamic visualization tools
E. Support web apps for economic models

A. Create open access training material for computational economics. The biggest service provided by the OSE Lab is our Summer Boot Camp. The 2018 camp had 25 students enrolled and 15 different instructors. All of the training materials for the Boot Camp are open access and are available through OSE Lab's open source GitHub repositories (2017 repo and 2018 repo). We expect to add lectures and training modules over the coming months and years.

B. Support open source research that is collaborative, transparent, and replicable. Open source research is valuable for the replicability, sensitivity and robustness testing, and transparency of research. This mission goes beyond making public the code and data for papers. It involves using open source platforms of Git and GitHub in research to make collaboration more efficient. OSE Lab is currently supporting a number of open source projects and paying for student research positions.

C. Support policy-relevant open source applications. In addition to research, economic models that are used for policy analysis have a philosophical obligation to be open source. Closed source and proprietary models cannot be verified or tested for sensitivity or robustness. OSM Lab is currently supporting three models (OG-USA, Tax-Calculator, and B-Tax) that are being used for policy analysis (key examples of use are the 2016 Presidential candidates, 2017 tax reform debate, and 2018 EITC and marginal tax rate debates).

D. Support open source dynamic visualization tools. Dynamic visualizations (Bokeh, D3, JavaScript) are a key tool for both advanced researchers as well as lay people to explore, digest, and understand the complicated results of heterogeneous agent models and other complicated models and data structures. OSM Lab is supporting active development of stand-alone visualizations collected in an online gallery, implemented as results in online web app tools (Cost of Capital Calculator), and a GitHub repository called plot-concepts where individuals can submit issues with dynamic visualization proposals and developers can help build those visualizations.

E. Support web apps for economic models. OSE Lab is partnering with developers to build front-end web applications that allow users to manipulate a key subset of model parameters, run its economic models on Amazon Web Services, and return results to the user via the web interface. Web applications allow researchers to do quick computations with economic models without accessing the source code. Web apps also allow non-economists (e.g., policymakers, journalists, businesses, lobbyists) to run an economic model without having to comprehend all the technical details. Our current web app portals include TaxBrain (microsimulation model for household taxation as well as three linked dynamic models including OG-USA overlapping generations model) and Cost of Capital Calculator which calculates the effects of corporate tax policy on marginal tax rates (incentives) for different industries and asset classes using the B-Tax open-source model.

History
The OSE Lab was administered from the Becker Friedman Institute at the University of Chicago for its first two years from January 2017 to January 2019. During that time, it was called the Open Source Macroeconomics Laboratory (OSM Lab). In January 2019, the name was changed to Open Source Economics Laboratory to reflect the OSE Lab's broader mission in computational economics across fields, and its administration was moved to the Social Sciences Division at the University of Chicago.

Before coming to University of Chicago, Richard Evans and Kerk Phillips founded the BYU Macroeconomics and Computational Laboratory (BYU-MCL) at Brigham Young University in 2012. It was in the BYU-MCL in which the format for the rigorous economics, computational, and mathematics training was developed. The BYU-MCL lasted from 2012 to 2016. The format for the BYU-MCL boot camp was adapted from an interdisciplinary applied mathematics program at Brigham Young University (IMPACT), which ended in 2012 and became the Applied and Computational Mathematics Emphasis (ACME) in the mathematics major at Brigham Young University. The BYU-MCL's adaptation of the applied math and computational curriculum to the focused applications in economics was a particularly good fit.

@asmockler

[rickecon]

I just added an alumni comment page on my wish list under Summer Boot Camp. @asmockler

[rickecon]

FAQ content (oselab.org/faq)

Q: What is the time commitment for students participating in the OSE Lab boot camp?

A: All students who are admitted to the program will be expected to fully participate in and attend all lectures and submit all problem sets. The six-week program is designed to require between 50 and 60 hours of work per week. This program is immersive.

Q: What are the main benefits to students who complete the OSE Lab boot camp?

A: Students who complete the boot camp emerge with an enhanced modern toolkit of computational economics theory, solution methods, and data science methods. They also receive two weeks of training in high performance computing and parallel processing using the University of Chicago's Midway supercomputing cluster. Finally, students learn how to collaborate effectively and work in teams.

Q: Can I be working another job or take classes during the OSE Lab Boot Camp?

A: No. This boot camp is a full-time commitment and will require all of your bandwidth.

Q: If I am an international student, can the OSE Lab give me the stipend and reimburse my travel?

A: Yes. International students are eligible to receive the scholarship stipend and travel reimbursement.

Q: Will the camp sponsor a student visa?

A: No. The OSE Lab and the University of Chicago cannot provide visa sponsorship for international students. Students will travel under a B1/Visa Waiver.

Q: Can I have my recommender send my letter of recommendation directly to OSE Lab?

A: Yes. If your recommender will not give you the letter to upload to the application portal, you can have your recommender e-mail the letter to Richard Evans rwevans@uchicago.edu. Make sure your recommender puts your name and "OSE camp letter of recommendation."

@asmockler

[rickecon]

For the "Boot Camp Alumni Comments" section (bootcamp/comments)

Below are comments from past participants in the OSE Lab Boot Camp at the University of Chicago.

"It was such a great experience to participate in the OSM Macro Bootcamp. After participating in the program, I got a research assistant position simply by just showing the professor my Github and all of the cool Math/Econ/Computation we did in the OSM lab."

-Alex Weinberg, University of Chicago

"The OSM Lab fosters a great environment for growing as researchers in many dimensions. My technical skills have definitely improved. I'm leaving the program with very applicable knowledge in math and computational methods that I'll surely use in future research. The constant collaboration with other students was extremely valuable, too. I learned so much from my peers and am excited to have built this network of motivated students and friends. Lastly, I've connected with many of the OSM Lab faculty, a few of whom I definitely consider as mentors after working with them at the OSM Lab, and am excited to stay in contact and potentially work with them in the future."

-Rebekah Dix, University of Wisconsin, Madison

"For me the high performance computing content was the best part of the bootcamp, as I knew zero python before coming in (only worked in STATA before), and now I feel comfortable saying ""I can do scientific computing in Python"" in an interview. That alone would make the bootcamp worth it, and I thought the ACME exercises,while intense, were absolutely fantastic guides to Python."

-Matthew Brown, University of Notre Dame

"The OSM bootcamp did a great job at bridging the gap between math, economic, and computational theory to their respective applications. It was great to be able to learn the theory and see how it is relevant to research. I also entered the bootcamp feeling relatively less experienced in my coding capability, but now I feel I am proficient enough to be able to do good quality research. The skills developed at the bootcamp are a great tool that I think separates the students of the bootcamp from the majority of other students around the world. Taking the time to learn these things now as opposed to having to learn them on our own in a graduate level program will give a huge advantage to us in such programs, and will help us each to become outstanding researchers."

-Daniel Fox. Brigham Young University

"I liked the atmosphere that pushed all of us to the limit, and making us collaborate with each other. The program shows us that we didn't have to be perfect in every subject; learning the lesson that we didn't have to be perfect in every subject and how to cooperate with each other to finish the tasks were the essence of academic researches, and they were certainly the most important lessons to me who was competition-stricken before this program. During the program, I met with various kinds of friends in other cultures, and had a lot of opportunities to exchange not only our research opinions but also practical lessons from them about economics in general. These were the experiences that will make me leap further to the next stage of my research, and I definitely want to keep in touch with them as my valuable future in my career path from now on."

-Jaehyung Kim, University of Minnesota

"I really enjoyed the way computation, math and economics were brought together for a large part of the boot camp. It made what we learned a lot more useful, applicable and exciting. It was very cool to see esoteric mathematical concepts like SVD and complex matrix operations being applied to the real world of economics or data processing through programming. I don't think I've been through a program in school where what I was learning tied in so well to the real world."

-Bryan Chia, Brigham Young University

"I like the fact that it brings a group of highly motivated students together to work collaboratively on learning programming, mathematics and economics. The atmosphere in the camp was really conducive towards ensuring everyone had a good understanding of all of the material."

-Wei Han Chia, University of Chicago

"Seeing the interaction among instructors, students, and instructors and students, it made me realize how closely connected the (computational) economics community is. It gave me a lot of perspective on paths that previous students and researchers have taken, and introduced me to a marvelous group of people beyond UChicago, some of which I will definitely stay in touch with."

-Jan Ertl, University of Chicago

"My coding skills improved greatly throughout the program and really showed me how the coding could be applied to economic models. The group of students in the program was amazing and I learned a lot from the people around me not only about the topics taught in the course, but also about the other research projects that they are pursuing. I think that I have come out of the program with a very unique skill set that opens up the types of questions that I can ask in my own research and the types of techniques that I have available to answer those questions."

-Geoffrey Kochs, Brown University

"The collaborative nature of the lab allowed me to forge great relationships with people, working on meaningful assignments without the stress of examinations. It's a great format to keep going forward."

-Benjamin Lim, Northwestern University

"While the content and inspiration to do research were phenomenal, what I enjoyed most was getting to know everyone in our cohort. During the boot camp I made some of the closest friendships I've ever had, and we were only here for seven weeks time. From the (many) long hours working together on problem sets and initiating independent research projects to exploring the wonderful city of Chicago, this has one of the best summer experiences ever (and certainly the most formative). I have greatly enjoyed the content we have learned, and feel that my eyes have been opened."

-Eric Miller, University of South Carolina

"The breadth of the materials and topics; witnessing the marriage of theoretical math, computation, and economics. It's particularly rewarding to combine skills honed in different classes to answer interesting questions."

-Elysa Strunin, University of Chicago

@asmockler

[rickecon]

Content for osmlab.org/bootcamp/2019

2019 Open Source Economics Laboratory (OSE Lab) Boot Camp
July 1–August 9, 2019
Saieh Hall for Economics, University of Chicago

The OSE Lab Boot Camp helps build advanced computational skills for economic research and policy analysis.

The Social Sciences Division at the University of Chicago is pleased to announce the third year of the Open Source Economics Laboratory (OSE Lab), which will run an intensive and immersive six-week computational economics Boot Camp from July 1 to August 9, 2019.

The goals of the Boot Camp are to:

• train advanced undergraduates and graduate students with the computational skills to participate in cutting-edge economic research and public policy analysis
• inspire the brightest young researchers to pursue policy-relevant research throughout their careers
• spread ideals of transparency and replicability throughout the economics profession from the ground up
• accelerate scientific progress in economics and policy analysis more broadly through modern collaborative workflows

Applications to the OSE Lab Boot Camp are encouraged from talented and motivated advanced undergraduate students and graduate students, with 25 fully funded student slots available for summer 2019. Funding includes travel to and from the University of Chicago, housing at the University, and a stipend of $4,000 for the six weeks. Successful applicants will have taken courses or demonstrate proficiency in core microeconomic theory (constrained optimization with Lagrangian multipliers), linear algebra, multivariable calculus, real analysis, and writing code in some programming language.

Program Details

The curriculum of this program includes advanced mathematics, economic theory, machine learning, and computational methods, all with a focus on open source languages, collaboration, and exposition. Programming at the Boot Camp will be mostly in Python. We will also use the collaborative open source platforms of git and GitHub extensively. The previous two summers' curriculum materials are available in the BootCamp2018 and BootCamp2017 GitHub repositories.

The OSE Lab Boot Camp curriculum will draw from open source curriculum developed by the OSE Lab instructors as well as the resources of QuantEcon.org produced by Thomas Sargent and John Stachurski. We will also use an extensive set of applied mathematics open source training modules and computational labs from the Brigham Young University Applied and Computational Math Emphasis (ACME). Student researchers who complete the OSE Lab Boot Camp will emerge with a rich set of computational tools, experience in successfully applying those tools to macroeconomic questions, and the ability to collaborate effectively.

One of the most valuable modules in the OSE Lab Boot Camp will be two weeks of training in high performance computing and parallel programming using the University of Chicago's Midway supercomputing cluster. This training will be presented by Simon Scheidegger and translates well to projects on any large-scale cluster or cloud computing platform.

The director of the OSE Lab is Dr. Richard W. Evans, Associate Director and Senior Lecturer in the M.A. Program in Computational Social Science at the University of Chicago and steering committee member of QuantEcon. This year's Boot Camp is Co-Organized by Richard Evans and Dr. Simon Scheidegger. Simon is Assistant Professor in the Department of Finance at HEC Lausanne.

And finally, as a new addition to the OSE Lab Boot Camp curriculum, we are pleased to announce that this year's Boot Camp will be the first of the next three years of summer camps to include the Econometric Society's Dynamic Structural Economics Workshop during the second week of the OSE Lab Boot Camp, July 8-12. The Dynamic Structural Economics Workshop week is primarily organized by John Rust (Georgetown University), Bertel Schjerning (University of Copenhagen), and Fedor Iskhakov (Australia National University), Sanjog Misra (University of Chicago, Booth), and Gunter Hitsch (University of Chicago, Booth). All OSE Lab students will get to participate in the curriculum instruction during the first half of that week, which will include discrete choice dynamic programming, structural estimation, and dynamic games. Then the students will get to participate in the conference that will take place in the last part of the week.

Instructors for this summer's Boot Camp will include:

Lars Hansen, University of Chicago
Felix Kubler, University of Zurich
John Rust, Georgetown University
Anthony Smith, Jr., Yale University
[Put other ES-week instructors here.]

The deadline to apply is March 8, 2019.
[Put green "Begin Application" button here to application portal]

More sources of information

To read comments from students who completed the OSE Lab Boot Camp in past years, click here [link to Comments page].

To read a list of answers to frequently asked questions, click here [link to FAQ page].

If the FAQ section does not answer your questions, you can direct any questions to Richard Evans or Simon Scheidegger.

@asmockler

[rickecon]

Here are the updated images. I have Adobe Illustrator (.ai), .eps, .pdf, .jpg, and .png versions of each of these.

Small Simple Logo

Horizontal Logo

Vertical Logo

@asmockler