diff --git a/oselab/static/css/global.css b/oselab/static/css/global.css index d024e13..be6b826 100644 --- a/oselab/static/css/global.css +++ b/oselab/static/css/global.css @@ -4,6 +4,10 @@ body { font-family: Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans; } +ol { + list-style-type: upper-alpha; +} + .text-chicago { color: #75140C; transition: color 0.3s; diff --git a/oselab/static/css/home/about.css b/oselab/static/css/home/about.css index 6ee7e01..0ce56f3 100644 --- a/oselab/static/css/home/about.css +++ b/oselab/static/css/home/about.css @@ -1,3 +1,3 @@ .about__text-container { - max-width: 600px; + max-width: 750px; } diff --git a/oselab/templates/home/about.html b/oselab/templates/home/about.html index f2521f0..5304b6b 100644 --- a/oselab/templates/home/about.html +++ b/oselab/templates/home/about.html @@ -1,23 +1,128 @@ -{% extends "layout.html" %} - -{% block body %} +{% extends "layout.html" %} {% block body %} {{ page_heading( - title="About OSM Lab" + title="About OSE Lab" ) }}
-

- The Open Source Macroeconomics Laboratory (OSM Lab) at the University of Chicago provides - training and supports macroeconomic research and open source methods. -

+

+ 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. +

+ +
    +
  1. Create open access training material for computational economics
    2. +
  2. + Support open source research that is collaborative, transparent, and + replicable +
    3. +
  3. Support policy-relevant open source applications
    4. +
  4. Support open source dynamic visualization tools
    5. +
  5. Support web apps for economic models
    6. +
+ +

+ 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.

- Lorem ipsum, dolor sit amet consectetur adipisicing elit. Explicabo, ducimus? Saepe cupiditate - porro voluptatibus nisi ex tenetur, reiciendis corporis culpa nostrum repudiandae minima optio - enim nulla ducimus nesciunt officiis molestias. + 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.