HELPING PEOPLE'S

Curtis Jessop  is a Senior Researcher at NatCen Social Research and is the Network Lead for the NSMNSS network On Wednesday 29 th June I attended a roundtable hosted by our network partners SAGE on using big data to solve social science problems. It was a great day, with contributions from leading researchers and lots of discussion of some of the key issues of working with big data in social science. Jane Elliott began with an overview of the ESRC’s Big Data Network. She identified the difficulties with data access that earlier phases had faced, but also highlighted key challenges that big data social science currently faces: 1. Methodological Can we apply the same qualitative techniques/statistical inferences we have in the past? Are social scientists (falling) behind in using machine learning & algorithms? What are the implications of these methods? 2. Relevance of research Making sure we use big data to answer pertinent social science questions, and not just focus on meth...

Ivett Ayodele is an undergraduate student at the University of Salford studying BSc (Hons) Psychology and Counselling. She tweets as @ivettayo and @salfordpcy1 and blogs here .   I have accepted the challenge to review Qualitative Online Interviews by Dr Janet Salmons (2015) because I believe that as part of the next generation of psychologists, it is a great opportunity to familiarise myself   with the emerging methods of online interviews, which will surely become popular in the future. It is also a great chance to extend my knowledge of qualitative methods generally, while writing this post helps to develop my academic writing skills. My task is to give a student perspective on the book since a lecturer’s perspective has already been explored (see here ). Qualitative Online Interviews by Dr Janet Salmons (2015) guides researchers and students through the process of extending their research into various online settings and it gives guidance on ethical issues that can arise d...

Wow, we've been blown away by the response to our call for contributors , please see our previous post for the background to this crowdsourced project. If you've already read that and are keen to get going then here are your next steps: Step 1 - email us at: nsmnss@natcen.ac.uk we will then send you a link to access the contributors spreadsheet. Step 2 - complete the Google Doc spreadsheet with your basic information and any ideas or suggestions you have for the book, we can then send you a log in for the platform we'll be using to publish the book. Step 3 - get writing! Step 3a . - ( optional ) send it to us if you would like the editorial support group to provide some constructive feedback. Step 4 -  upload it - you're done!  Are we uploading content ourselves then? Ideally yes, it would be really helpful if, once you have written your blog, you could upload it yourself. We are a small team & the network is currently unfunded so we have chosen a process w...

Janet Salmons is a network member and a contributing expert to the online team.  There are nearly as many kinds of research approaches as there are questions to study. While it is the task of the researcher to match approach to question, it is clear that some researchers simply prefer one approach over another, and select types of questions that permit them to carry out the inquiry in the preferred way. I admit it, I am guilty. While I see the value in all sorts of studies, I would not be content to crunch Big Data, even if it meant I could generate impressive maps and diagrams. I want to learn about their experiences first hand. I want to know why. Why did you make that choice and not another, why was it important to you, why do you plan to do things differently in the future? I cannot ask an extant mountain of Big Data to tell me more. Online interviews allow researchers to pose questions in a variety of ways with participants anywhere, at any time. In synchronous interviews we ...

In 2011 then Census Director Robert Groves  wrote  on the Census Director’s Blog about the burgeoning volume of “organic data”—data that, as opposed to “designed data,” have no meaning until they are used (surveys are a primary example of the latter). He noted that finding ways to combine these two types of data to increase the “information-to-data ratio” was a challenge, but also represented the future of surveys. Using terms identified as “big data descriptors” in Groves’ piece, as well as a few other terms I think qualify, I put together the graph below to show the number of AAPOR presentation titles between 2010 and 2013 that contain a big data descriptor. 1,2 One take away is the increased interest researchers have shown in big data over the past few years. An equally important lesson is that almost all of the attention big data has received from AAPOR members—at least measured by the number of presentations they’ve done—has been on social networking sites (SNS). I f...

This post was first published on Survey Post on Feb. 3rd, 2014. Recently, I attended two statistical events in the Washington, DC, area: one was the 23rd   Morris Hansen Lecture   on “Envisioning the 2030 U.S. Census”; the other was the   SAMSI workshop   on “Computational Methods for Censuses and Surveys.” “Big data” was a popular keyword at both events and stirred up discussions on how to utilize it (such as from administrative records and online data sources) for current government statistics, especially when combining big data with  traditional survey data. Statisticians are exploring new ways in which big data can be used. The US Census has initiated investigations on  using administrative records in the 2020 Census . The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) has identified some  research opportunities combining multiple data sources . University-based researchers  have launched studies on the use of Google trends and other online da...

Over the last 40 years SAGE has become world famous for publishing the highest-quality and most cutting-edge books on research methods.  Yet research methods – the “how” of doing research – is still commonly considered a dry and abstract subject.  SAGE needs your help to change that!   Launching in May 2014, SAGE Research Methods Cases is an innovative and exciting  new  collection of hundreds of real-life research projects distilled into accessible , peer-reviewed case studies.  Our goal is to bring methodological concepts and problems to life   in a fully- comprehensive resource .   The collection with be published online on the award winning SAGE Research Methods platform. Get Involved! We plan to commission cases for SAGE Research Methods Cases on an ongoing basis ,  so  we are  still looking for  case authors .    Have you undertaken a research project? Can you discuss your methodological choices and challenges i...

We held a small event on Friday 21st February 2014, our goal was to have a series of focused discussions around the ethical dimensions of social media research and to come up with a series of action points for the network to take forward. The day also included two presentations of related research by network members. You can read a a storify of the day  -  sfy.co/rPSZ   W e will post more about the outcomes and discussions shortly but we want to kick off by sharing links to the two reports and presentations.  A team from NatCen has been researching the views of social media users on how their posted data should be handled by researchers. The findings are illuminating and will help to inform how we consider we should work with social media data in the future. You can read a post by the research team here , and then the findings here . Now Janet Salmons introduces the research she has undertaken on what researchers need to help support their ethical practice when condu...