Using "Topic Modeling" to Extract Themes from Texts

Topic modeling is a process of dividing and conquering a collection of texts in order to better understand the collection as a whole. Given a corpora of documents (books, articles, Web pages, etc.) from any discipline, topic modeling divides the corpora into sub-corpora, and each sub-corpora will be identified with a theme. This process is sometimes useful for identifying genres, authors, and/or subjects in a body of literature.

This hands-on workshop will demonstrate and facilitate the use of a free Java-based program called Topic Modeling Tool to do this work.

Participants are expected to bring their own computer, and the computer is expected to have Java already installed, which it probably does.