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...

Mark Carrigan is a sociologist and academic technologist and first wrote this blog post for his blog http://markcarrigan.net/ . Contact Mark on Twitter @mark_carrigan Earlier this week, NatCen Social Research hosted a meeting between myself, Chris Gilson ( USApp , @ ChrisHJGilson ), Cristina Costa and Mark Murphy ( Social Theory Applied , @christinacost & @ socialtrampos ), Donna Peach ( PhD Forum ,Donna_Peach) and Kelsey Beninger ( NSMNSS , @KBeninger) to discuss possible collaborations between social science bloggers in the UK and share experiences about developing and sustaining social science blogs over time. We didn’t do as much of the latter as I expected, though I personally found it valuable simply to voice a few concerns I’d had in mind about the direction of academic blogging that I’d heretofore been keeping to myself for a variety of reasons. The manner in which the audience for Sociological Imagination seems to have stopped growing over the las...

Hannah is a researcher at NatCen Social Research, a non-political charity that specialises in social policy research. Before joining NatCen as a graduate research trainee in September 2012, she worked as an Employment Adviser to the long-term unemployed. Hannah is now based in NatCen’s Income and Work team and is involved in survey maintenance and smaller scale qualitative projects. Her research interests lie in poverty and disadvantage, and also now in social media use! You can follow Hannah on Twitter by searching @h_silvester. Last year I was one of eleven lucky graduates taken on by UK based NatCen Social Research. To get hands on experience –and to make mistakes in a controlled environment! -we were given a year to develop and run a study with only minimal guidance from senior staff. Now nearing the end (we’re writing our report), we’d like to share some learning points. As well as specializing in independent social policy research, NatCen has always prided itself on methodologica...

Are you a PhD student or Early Career Researcher doing work in digital sociology? The BSA Digital Sociology Group has organised a PhD/ECR Workshop where a  limited  number of participants can get feedback on their work from peers and established academics in a supportive environment. The event will take place between  11am to 4pm on February 19th at Goldsmiths College in South London . Confirmed academic respondents are Emma Uprichard (Warwick) and Noortje Marres (Goldsmiths) with one or two more TBC soon. If you would like to register then please e-mail mark@markcarrigan.net with a short bio and 200 to 300 word abstract. The exact format of the day hasn’t been finalised yet but the intention will be to allow substantial time for discussion of each presentation so places will be extremely limited.

The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) is working in partnership with ESRC, EPSRC, Dstl and CPNI, to commission new research to develop a greater understanding of how empathy and trust are developed, maintained, transformed and lost in social media interactions. A five–day intensive workshop will be held on 6-10 January 2014 at Cranage Hall in Cheshire, and they are currently inviting expressions of interest for people to attend.  To find further information about this event visit the AHRC website at the following link: http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/Funding- Opportunities/Pages/Empathy- and-Trust-In-Communicating- Online-(EMoTICON)-Sandpit.aspx

I've been NSMNSS twitter manager for a few weeks now. It's a fantastic opportunity to extend my network, to understand how social media is shaping social science, and to champion the use of social media within teaching, learning, research and engagement.  Whilst it's been an enjoyable few weeks, my voice alone is not doing justice to the diversity and wealth of research and interest in this area. There are so many different perspectives on the impact of social media within the NSMNSS community and beyond. Therefore we want to open up the account by inviting social scientists using social media and/or carrying out research in this area to become NSMNSS curators.  Each curator will take over the Twitter account for the week and share content and thoughts of interest to our followers. If you would like to curate the NSMNSS account, I would love to hear from you. Please contact me by email:  j.m.condie@salford.ac. uk  or twitter @nsmnss @jennacondie.