University of Cape Town

June 17, 2019 - June 28, 2019 | University of Cape Town

Schedule & Materials

Sunday June 16, 2019

Opening Dinner

Monday June 17, 2019 - Introduction and Ethics

9:00-9:15 Logistics (No livestream)
9:15-10:00 Welcome
10:00-10:45 Logistics - Vissého Adjiwanou
10:45-11:00 Coffee Break
11:00-12:00 Introduction to Computational Social Science: an African perspective - Vissého Adjiwanou
12:00-1:00 Lunch
1:00-3:00 Guest speaker and discussion: Tom Moultrie
3:00-3:30 Logistics (No livestream)
3:30-4:00 Introduction to computational social science (livestream from Princeton)
4:00-4:30 Why SICSS? (livestream from Princeton)
4:30-4:45 Coffee Break
4:45-5:30 Ethics: Principles-based approach (livestream from Princeton)
5:30-6:15 Four areas of difficulty: informed consent, informational risk, privacy, and making decisions in the face of uncertainty (livestream from Princeton)
6:15-8:00 Dinner & discussion
8:00-10:00 Flash talk and tutorial : R Tidyverse (Optional)

Tuesday June 18, 2019 - Collecting Digital Trace Data

9:00-9:15 Logistics (No livestream)
9:15-10:45 Group Exercise on Ethics
10:45-11:00 Coffee Break
11:00-12:00 Group Exercise
12:00-1:00 Lunch
1:00-3:00 Guest speaker and discussion : Kyle Finlay
3:00-3:15 Coffee Break
3:15-3:30 What is digital trace data? (livestream from Princeton)
3:30-3:45 Strengths and weakness of digital trace data (livestream from Princeton)
3:45-4:15 Screen-Scraping (livestream from Princeton)
4:15-4:30 Coffee Break
4:30-5:00 Application Programming Interfaces (livestream from Princeton)
5:00-6:30 Building Apps and Bots for Social Science Research (livestream from Princeton)
6:30-8:00 Dinner & discussion
8:00-10:00 Flash talk and tutorial : R Markown (Optional)

Wednesday June 19, 2019 - Automated Text Analysis

9:00-9:15 Logistics (No livestream)
9:15-10:45 Group Exercise on Digital Trace Data
10:45-11:00 Coffee Break
11:00-12:00 Group Exercise on Digital Trace Data
12:00-1:00 Lunch
1:00-3:00 Guest Speaker and discussion : Hussein Suleman
3:00-3:15 Coffee Break
3:15-3:30 History of quantitative text analysis (livestream from Princeton)
3:30-3:45 Basic Text Analysis/GREP (livestream from Princeton)
3:45-4:00 Dictionary-Based Text Analysis (livestream from Princeton)
4:00-4:15 Coffee Break
4:15-5:15 Topic models / Structural Topic Models (livestream from Princeton)
5:20-6:30 Text Networks (livestream from Princeton)
6:30-8:00 Dinner & discussion
8:00-10:00 Flash talk and tutorial : Graphics in R with ggplot2 (Optional)

Thursday June 20, 2019 - Surveys in the Digital Age

9:00-9:15 Logistics (No livestream)
9:15-10:45 Group Exercise on Text Analysis
10:45-11:00 Coffee Break
11:00-12:00 Group Exercise on Text Analysis
12:00-1:00 Lunch
1:00-3:00 Guest Speaker and discussion : Marshiny Chetty
3:00-3:15 Coffee Break
3:15-3:45 Survey research in the digital age (livestream from Princeton)
3:45-4:15 Probability and non-probability sampling (livestream from Princeton)
4:15-4:30 Coffee break
4:30-5:00 Computer-administered interviews ans wiki surveys (livestream from Princeton)
5:00-6:30 Combining surveys and big data (livestream from Princeton)
6:30-8:00 Dinner & discussion
8:00-10:00 Flash talk and tutorial : Introduction to Python (Optional)

Friday June 21, 2019 - Machine learning

9:00-9:15 Logistics (No livestream)
9:15-10:45 Group Exercise on Surveys
10:45-11:00 Coffee Break
11:00-12:00 Group Exercise on Surveys
12:00-1:00 Lunch
1:00-3:00 Machine learning (Nick Feamster)
3:00-3:15 Coffee Break
3:15-4:45 Machine learning (Nick Feamster)
4:45-5:00 Coffee break
5:00-6:30 Machine learning (Nick Feamster)
6:30-8:00 Dinner & discussion
8:00-10:00 Flash talk and tutorial :

Saturday June 22, 2019 - Experiments

9:00-9:15 Logistics (No livestream)
9:15-10:45 Group Exercise on Machine learning
10:45-11:00 Coffee Break
11:00-12:00 Group Exercise on Machine learning
12:00-1:00 Lunch
1:00-3:00 Guest Speaker and discussion - Aldu Cornelissen
3:00-3:15 Coffee Break
3:15 - 3:45 What, why, and which experiments? (livestream from Princeton)
3:45 - 4:15 Moving beyond simple experiments (livestream from Princeton)
4:15 - 4:30 Coffee break
4:30 - 5:15 Four strategies for experiments (livestream from Princeton)
5:15 - 5:45 Zero variable cost data and musiclab (livestream from Princeton)
5:45 - 6:15 3 Rs (livestream from Princeton)
6:30-8:00 Dinner & discussion

Sunday June 23, 2019 - Day off

Monday June 24, 2019 - Work on group projects - With the presence of Vukosi Marivate

9:00-9:15 Logistics (No livestream)
9:15-10:30 Speed-dating and group formation
10:30-12:00 Group project
12:00-1:00 Lunch
1:00-2:00 Flash talks : Vukosi Marivate
2:00-2:15 Coffee Break
2:15-6:30 Group project
6:30-8:00 Dinner & discussion
8:00 - Group project

Tuesday June 25, 2019 - Work on group projects

9:00-9:15 Logistics (No livestream)
9:15-12:00 Group project
12:00-1:00 Lunch
1:00-2:00 Flash talks
2:00-2:15 Coffee Break
2:15-6:30 Group project
6:30-8:00 Dinner & discussion
8:00 - Group project

Wednesday June 26, 2019 - Work on group projects

9:00-9:15 Logistics (No livestream)
9:15-12:00 Group project
12:00-1:00 Lunch
1:00-2:00 Flash talks
2:00-2:15 Coffee Break
2:15-6:30 Group project
6:30-8:00 Dinner & discussion
8:00 - Group project

Thursday June 27, 2019 - Work on group projects

9:00-9:15 Logistics (No livestream)
9:15-12:00 Group project
12:00-1:00 Lunch
1:00-2:00 Flash talks
2:00-2:15 Coffee Break
2:15-6:30 Group project
6:30-8:00 Dinner & discussion
8:00 - Group project

Friday June 28, 2019 - Work on group projects

9:00-9:15 Logistics (No livestream)
9:15-12:00 Presentation of group projects
12:00-1:00 Lunch
1:00-2:00 Presentation of group projects
2:00-2:15 Coffee Break
2:15-5:00 Presentation of group projects and conclusion
5:00-8:00 Closing dinner

Saturday June 29, 2019

Students depart

Host a Location

You can host a partner location of the Summer Institutes of Computational Social Science (SICSS) at your university, company, NGO, or government agency.