17. Methodological Playgrounds
I first heard the term methodological playground in 2014, from Institute for Education’s Professor Carey Jewitt. She was talking about her work with digital artists and social researchers, synthesizing methods to open up different perspectives, generate imaginative research questions, and create a wider range of research tools. Around that time I was working on an […]
12. Back to reading, Bit by Bit
I paused efforts on an introductory course on machine learning and statistical inference after finding Professor Matthew J. Salganik’s draft book, Bit by Bit: social research in the digital age, which has been available for open peer review since summer 2016 (click on the book title to access it, and here to learn about the […]
5. What about administrative data?
Along with these new types of data big data I started to wonder about sources of what I used to think of as big data – national surveys and longitudinal studies and administrative data collected by Government. What Will Parry refers to as big(ish) data (in this handy post on relatively simple approaches for reducing […]
4. Examples of big data in social research
Despite the challenges, there are many interesting examples where social research communities in the UK are engaging with big data. The social research institute NatCen leads a network for people using or seeking to use social media in social science research. Researchers contribute to a blog about methods and practice, with some very practical insights. […]