Big Data Analysis for Social Scientists masterclass

Description:

Overview

This course, presented by Robert Ackland, introduces participants to the collection and analysis of socially-generated 'big data' using the R statistical software, VOSON (for collecting WWW hyperlinks and text content) and Gephi network visualisation software. The main emphasis is on applying social network analysis and quantitative text analysis to data from social media and the WWW. The course will also provide an opportunity for participants to learn how these data and techniques are being used in social science research.

Course objectives

The course will cover:

• R and RStudio refresher
• Collecting YouTube video comment data, Facebook fan page data, and Twitter data with SocialMediaLab R package
• Basic social network analysis in R/igraph (graph visualisation, core node- and network-level metrics, network clustering, constructing two-mode networks)
• Basic text analysis in R (building a corpus, descriptive analysis, wordclouds)
• Collecting WWW hyperlink and website text content with VOSON
• Introduction to Gephi for network visualisation

Course presenter

The masterclass will be presented by Robert Ackland.

Assoc. Prof. Robert Ackland has a joint appointment in the School of Sociology and the Centre for Social Research and Methods at the Australian National University (ANU). He was awarded his PhD in economics from the ANU in 2001, and he has been researching online social and organisational networks since 2002. He leads the Virtual Observatory for the Study of Online Networks Lab (http://vosonlab.net) which was established in 2005 and is advancing the social science of the Internet by conducting research, developing research tools, and providing research training. Robert established the Social Science of the Internet specialisation in the ANU's Master of Social Research in 2008, and his book Web Social Science: Concepts, Data and Tools for Social Scientists in the Digital Age (SAGE) was published in July 2013. He created the VOSON software for hyperlink network construction and analysis, which has been publicly available since 2006 and has been used by around 2500 researchers worldwide.

Prior or recommended knowledge/reading/skills:

It is preferable that students have had some exposure to social network analysis and quantitative text analysis. Experience with R or other programming languages is also desirable, but the course includes a brief R and RStudio 'refresher'.

Cost:

£60

Website and registration:

http://methods.manchester.ac.uk/connect/events/summer-school/courses/

Region:

North West

Keywords:

Quantitative Software, R, big data , data analysis , rstudio , voson , gephi

Related publications and presentations:

Quantitative Software
R

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