From 20 June to 8 July, 2022, The Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS) and The Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation (IPATC) sponsored the Summer Institute in Computational Social Science, held at JIAS in a hybrid format. The purpose of the Summer Institute was to bring together postgraduate students and postdoctoral researchers interested in critical computational social science. The Summer Institute was for both social scientists (broadly conceived) and data scientists (broadly conceived).
The SICSS-JIAS/IPATC instructional programme involved lectures, group problem sets and participant-led research projects. Topics covered include text as data, website scraping, digital field experiments, machine learning and ethics. There also were outside speakers who conduct computational social science research in a variety of settings and contexts. Speakers touched on topics such as artificial intelligence in Africa, equity, ethics, decolonisation and algorithmic justice. There were ample opportunities for participants to discuss their ideas and research with the organisers, 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 have been released open source.
Participation was restricted to registered masters and doctoral students, postdoctoral researchers and researchers working outside of academia. We welcomed applicants from all backgrounds and fields of study, especially applicants from groups currently under-represented in computational social science. 15 participants have been invited, and participants were expected to fully attend and participate in the entire three-week programme.
Application materials were due 11:59pm SAST (GMT+2) on Thursday, 31 March, 2022
Monday, 4 April, 2022.
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The first two weeks took place online. The third week combined remote and in-person participation. Limited transport and accommodation grants were available for participants outside of Johannesburg.