Oxford

June 16 - June 27, 2019 | Oxford University

Schedule & Materials

Sunday June 16, 2019 - Participants arrive
  • 6:30pm

    Informal opening dinner (Junior Common Room, Nuffield College)

Monday June 17, 2019 - Introduction and Ethics (Department of Sociology, 42-43 Park End Street)
  • 9:00am

    Intro to SICSS Oxford by Ridhi Kashyap

  • 9:20am

    Opening remarks by Christiaan Monden, Head of Department of Sociology

  • 9:30am

    Introductions by participants (Flashtalks)

  • 11:15am

    Coffee break

  • 11:30am

    Introductions by participants (Flashtalks)

  • 12:30pm

    Tales from previous SICSS by Francesco Rampazzo (University of Southampton)

  • 1:00pm

    Lunch (Nuffield College)

  • 2:30pm

    Introduction to Computational Social Science Livestream by Matt Salganik and Chris Bail

  • 3:15pm

    Tea break

  • 3:30pm

    Research Ethics: Principles-based approach Livestream by Matt Salganik

  • 6:00pm

    Dinner (Nuffield College)

Tuesday June 18, 2019 - Collecting Digital Trace Data (Department of Sociology)
  • 9:00am

    Housekeeping announcements

  • 9:15am

    Group exercise, Research Ethics
    Case Study 1, Case Study 2

  • 11:15am

    Coffee Break

  • 11:30am

    Talk by Nick Ruktanonchai Livestream
    ‘Mapping human populations and mobility in low and middle income countries for malaria elimination’
    Slides, Data

  • 1:00pm

    Lunch (Nuffield College)

  • 2:00pm

    Digital trace data by Ridhi Kashyap, Livestream
    What is digital trace data? Pros and cons of digital trace data. Research designs involving digital data.
    Slides

  • 3:30pm

    Tea break

  • 3:45pm

    Digital trace data by Ridhi Kashyap, Livestream
    Tools and techniques for working with digital trace data. Challenges of ethics and access with digital traces.
    Slides, Tutorial

  • 6:00pm

    Dinner and discussion (Nuffield College)

Wednesday June 19, 2019 - Computational Text Analysis (Department of Sociology)
  • 9:00am

    Housekeeping announcements

  • 9:15am

    Group exercise on Digital Trace Data

  • 11:15am

    Coffee Break

  • 11:30am

    Talk by Mariarosaria Taddeo Livestream
    ‘Ethical challenges of AI’

  • 1:00pm

    Lunch (Nuffield College)

  • 2:00pm

    Computational Text Analysis by Taylor Brown, Livestream
    History of text analysis, and sources of data in the modern age.
    Slides

  • 3:15pm

    Tea break

  • 3:30pm

    Computational Text Analysis by Taylor Brown, Livestream
    Three methods to large-scale text analysis–how they work and what they can(‘t) do.
    Slides

  • 6:00pm

    Dinner (Nuffield College)

Thursday June 20, 2019 - Surveys in the Digital Age (Department of Sociology)
  • 9:00am

    Housekeeping announcements

  • 9:15am

    Group exercise on Automated text analysis

  • 11:15am

    Coffee Break

  • 11:30am

    Talk by Scott Hale Livestream
    ‘Demographic Inference and Representative Population Estimates from Multilingual Social Media Data’
    Slides

  • 1:00pm

    Lunch (Nuffield College)

  • 2:00pm

    Survey research in the digital age, Livestream by Matt Salganik
    Demographic Inference and Representative Population Estimates from Multilingual Social Media Data

  • 3:15pm

    Break

  • 4:00pm

    Unconference

  • 6:00pm

    Dinner and discussion (Nuffield College)

Friday June 21, 2019 - Non-probability Surveys and Machine Learning (Department of Sociology)
  • 9:00am

    Housekeeping announcements

  • 9:15am

    Workshop on non-probability surveys, by Roberto Cerina Livestream
    Probabilistic linkage; Mixing census and big surveys; Multilevel Regression and Poststratification; ML and Bayesian approaches Material

  • 11:15am

    Coffee Break

  • 11:30am

    Exercise on non-probability surveys, by Roberto Cerina

  • 1:00pm

    Lunch (Nuffield College)

  • 2:00pm

    Workshop on Machine Learning, by Charles Rahal Livestream
    General form of learning problems, conceptual differences between inference and prediction, supervised and unsupervised prediction, linear model selection and regularization, tree-based methods and SVMs, followed by two examples.
    Materials

  • 4:00pm

    Tea break

  • 4:15pm

    Kaggle style prediction competition, by Charles Rahal Livestream
    A Kaggle style prediction (classification) competition using healthcare data.

  • 4:55pm

    Winners announced, script/kernels shared

  • 5:00pm

    Talk by Neave O’Clery Livestream, without archive
    ‘Using data science to develop policy tools for local economic development’

  • 6:30pm

    Dinner and discussion (Nuffield College)

Saturday June 22, 2019 - Experiments (Department of Sociology)
  • 9:00am

    Housekeeping announcements

  • 9:15am

    Workshop on Experiments, by Sonke Ehret Livestream
    Basic concepts on experiments; Literature on experiments (scale and complexity; classifiers and treatment; bots and platforms); computational approaches to experiments

  • 11:15am

    Coffee Break

  • 11:30am

    Talk by Ray Duch Livestream
    ‘Advances in Computational and Experimental Social Sciences’
    Slides

  • 1:00pm

    Lunch (Nuffield College)

  • 2:00pm

    Tutorial on Experiments

  • 3:00pm

    Tea Break

  • 3:15pm

    Tutorial on Experiments

  • 4:00pm

    Talk by Sonja Vogt
    ‘Eliciting Data in Challenging Intercultural Settings’

Sunday June 23, 2019 - Day off
Monday June 24, 2019 - Group projects (Department of Sociology)
  • 9:00am

    Housekeeping announcements

  • 9:15am

    Group formation

  • 11:15am

    Coffee Break

  • 11:30am

    Talk by Pablo Barberà
    ‘Political polarization in the digital age’

  • 1:00pm

    Lunch (Nuffield College)

  • 2:00pm

    Groups work on project

  • 3:15pm

    Tea break

  • 3:30pm

    Groups work on project

  • 4:30pm

    Talk by Melinda Mills Livestream
    ‘The genetic data revolution: Potential and pitfalls’

  • 6:00pm

    Dinner and discussion with Daniela Duca (SAGE) (Fellows’ Dining Room, Nuffield College)

Tuesday June 25, 2019 - Group projects (Department of Sociology)
  • 9:00am

    Housekeeping announcements

  • 9:15am

    Groups work on project

  • 11:30am

    Talk by David Cox Livestream
    ‘Statistical concepts: A framework for research’

  • 1:00pm

    Lunch (Nuffield College)

  • 2:00pm

    Groups work on project

  • 6:00pm

    Dinner and discussion (Nuffield College)

Wednesday June 26, 2019 - Group projects (Department of Sociology)
  • 9:00am

    Housekeeping announcements

  • 9:15am

    Groups work on project

  • 11:30am

    Talk by Xiaowen Dong Livestream

  • 1:00pm

    Lunch (Nuffield College)

  • 2:00pm

    Groups work on project

  • 6:00pm

    Dinner and discussion (Nuffield College)

Thursday June 27, 2019 - Group presentations
  • 9:15am

    Groups finalise projects

  • 1:00pm

    Lunch (Nuffield College)

  • 2:00pm

    Groups presentations

  • 7:00pm

    Closing dinner (Dining Hall, Nuffield College)

Friday June 28, 2019 - Participants depart

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