SICSS-Istanbul

June 01 to June 25, 2021 | Kadir Has University | Virtual event

Schedule & Materials

All times are local Istanbul Time and All program will be Zoom-based.
Sunday May 30, 2021 - Welcome Event
  • 18:00-19:00 Zoom Welcome session and the commencement of the pre-SICSS period

Pre-SICSS Period: Completing a whole data project
  • Why we have a Pre-SICSS Period?
    This 2-week pre-SICSS period will feature a number of essential computational social science readings, along with programming foundation modules to bridge everyone’s diverse skill set. Even if you have excellent programming skills, please go along with us through this period, so that when the actual SICSS begins, you’ll already have a good sense of common problems and skill sets, so that you can get an understanding of who to partner with during the second week of SICSS, where groups will come up with their own research questions and work on it for an entire week.

  • What are Pre-SICSS Tasks?
    Pre-SICSS tasks provide you with practical experience of SICSS Boot Camp, Day 2 (Collecting Digital Trace Data), and Day 3(Automated Text Analysis) of SICSS Lecture Materials. We extended Day 2 and 3 exercises and provided more time to finish them individually (or in a group setting), considering different learning curves in our cohort. We believe that learning to code is a unique process for everyone. However, some would see a benefit in solving tasks in a group setting. Therefore, we are leaving the decision of doing our tasks individually or in a group setting to you.

  • What are Code Walkthrough Sessions?
    While working on Pre-SICSS tasks, coding walkthrough sessions will be held on our tasks. Thus, participants will have a chance to replicate the codes on their desks to improve their coding experience.

Monday May 31, 2021 - Code Walkthrough: Collecting Digital Trace Data-1
  • 19:30-20:00 Networking on Wonder

  • 20:00-21:00 Getting data via APIs (Twitter)

  • 21:00-21:10 Short Break

  • 21:10-22:00 Getting data via Screen Scraping(Facebook,Instagram, Eksisozluk)

  • 22:00-22:30 Networking on Wonder

Wednesday June 2, 2021 - Code Walkthrough: Collecting Digital Trace Data-2
  • 19:30-20:00 Networking on Wonder

  • 20:00-21:00 Getting data from YouTube and Reddit

  • 21:00-21:10 Short Break

  • 21:10-22:00 Q&A on Collecting Digital Trace Data

  • 22:00-22:30 Networking on Wonder

Tuesday June 8, 2021 - Code Walkthrough: Data Wrangling
Wednesday June 9, 2021 - Code Walkthrough: Automated Text Analysis-1
Thursday June 10, 2021 - Code Walkthrough: Automated Text Analysis-2
Friday June 11, 2021 - Code Walkthrough: Data Visualization and Reporting
First Week of ‘Real SICSS’
  • Research Talks and Group Discussions
    This week will be full of research talks and small group discussions. We already covered some of the SICSS curriculum during Pre-SICSS period. By completing Pre-SICSS tasks, you had a hands-on-experience on how to collect data from the web and how to process your data. We will have small group discussions on Ethics first. Then, we will host eminent scholars of computational social science to see not only state-of-the-art methods in the field but also applications of those methods in multiple disciplines. Some of the talks have premilinary readings. Having look at those readings will be benefit of you to follow the talk. You will also have research dating sessions to establish your group for the second week program and you are expected to report your group members and a short description of your group project at the end of the week.

Monday June 14, 2021 - Introduction and Ethics
Tuesday June 15, 2021 - Research Dating
  • 16:00-18:00 Research Dating on Gather

Wednesday June 16, 2021 - Research Talk and Research Dating
  • 16:00-17:00 Research Dating on Gather

  • 17:00-20:00 Microgeography of Ethnic Enclaves by Özge Öner

Thursday June 17, 2021 - Research Talk and Research Dating
  • 16:00-17:00 Research Dating on Gather

  • 17:00-20:00 Characterizing the Nature of Online Political Conversations at Scale by Ceren Budak

Friday June 18, 2021 - Research Talk and Research Dating
Saturday June 19, 2021 - Off Day
Sunday June 20, 2021 - Last day for declaring group members and short project proposals
Second Week of ‘Real SICSS’
  • Guest Talks
    We believe that social science research and industry will collaborate more in the future. Computational social science methods allows academic researchers to work closely with industry compared to the past. Therefore, we will organize an industry talk with an eminent figure in Turkish innovation industry to see other side of the coin. We will also host an eminent figure of Turkish Natural Language Processing to learn the state-of-the-art NLP applications in social sciences. Additionally, we will have an alumni talk to discuss on an ongoing research started at the last year of SICSS.

  • Work on Group Projects and Flash Talks
    This week will be mainly focused on group work projects. Up until this date, you should have an idea of which participants you’d like to team up with and the research question that you’ll work on. Teams that people built in previous SICSS_Istanbul events have flourished into full-fledged research groups, presenting their SICSS papers at APSA, ASA and beyond!

Monday June 21, 2021 - Industry Talk and Work on Group Projects
  • 16:00-17:00 Office Hour and Flash Talks of Group Projects

  • 17:00-20:00 Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics Ecosystem in the MENA Region by Doğuş Kuran

Tuesday June 22, 2021 - Method Talk and Work on Group Projects
  • 16:00-17:00 Office Hour and Flash Talks of Group Projects

  • 17:00-20:00 Natural Language Processing and Applications to Computational Social Science by Kemal Oflazer

  • Description: This talk will introduce the participants to basic concepts and techniques of Natural Language Processing in an interactive fashion and will highlight aspect to Turkish that make it a challenge. It will then provide an overview of NLP applications in social sciences.

Wednesday June 23, 2021 - Research Talk and Work on Group Projects
Thursday June 24, 2021 - Alumni Talk and Work on Group Projects
  • 16:00-17:00 Office Hour and Flash Talks of Group Projects

  • 17:00-18:00 COVID-19 Twitter Database: Turkish Sample by Burak Ozturan - Abstract

  • 18:00-19:00 Using mixed-methods to study Twitter activism-The case of Persian Twitter by Hossein Kermani -Abstract

Friday June 25, 2021 - Group Projects Presentations and Alumni Event
  • 17:00-19:00 Group Projects Presentations

  • 19:00-20:00 SICSS-Istanbul Alumni Event

Group Projects

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.

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