OpenRefine Lesson

Leighton Pritchard

University of Strathclyde

2025-11-05

1. Summary and Setup

Software and files

University PC: use OpenRefine (Start Menu)
Own computer: Download and install OpenRefine
- https://openrefine.org/download
- Manual: https://docs.openrefine.org/

Important

You will need to download some files to follow this lesson
- https://datacarpentry.github.io/OpenRefine-ecology-lesson/data/Portal_rodents_19772002_simplified.csv
- Place this file on your desktop and unzip it

Figure 1: lesson data download

2. Exploring data

Challenge (3min)

Problem
Solution

Use faceting to answer these questions

How many years are represented in the census
Which years have the most and least observations
Is the year column formatted as Number, Date, or Text?

Use faceting to answer these questions

How many years are represented in the census
Which years have the most and least observations
Is the year column formatted as Number, Date, or Text?

Solution

16
Most: 1978 (237), least: 1993 (1)
Text