From 8 to 26 June 2020, the Department of Information Science at Stellenbosch University will host a Virtual Summer Institute in Computational Social Science. The purpose of the Summer Institute is to bring together postgraduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and beginning faculty interested in computational social science. The Summer Institute is for both social scientists (broadly conceived) and data scientists (broadly conceived).
The instructional program will involve lectures, group problem sets, and participant-led research projects. There will also be outside speakers who conduct computational social science research in a variety of settings, such as academia, industry, and government. Topics covered include the R programming language, text as data, website scraping, digital field experiments, non-probability sampling, mass collaboration, and ethics. There will be ample opportunities for students to discuss their ideas and research with the organizers, other participants, and visiting speakers. Because we are committed to open and reproducible research, all materials created by faculty and students for the Summer Institute will be released open source.
Participation is restricted to Masters and Doctoral students and junior academic staff who have not yet completed a PhD. The programme is offered without cost, but participants should have reliable access to a computer and the Internet for the duration of the programme. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds and fields of study, especially applicants from groups currently under-represented in computational social science. Approximately 15 participants will be invited, and participants are expected to fully participate in the entire three-week program.