Section outline

  • Course Overview

    Utilizing big data is becoming increasingly important in social research, but it brings an array of ethical challenges and research design elements to consider. On this course, you’ll gain an understanding of the emerging field of social data science and take your first steps into the big data-driven approach to research, learning from recent examples of social data science publications and projects.

    Learning Outcomes

    This course will help you to:

    1. Grasp the relationship between empirical research, theory generation and testing
    2. Define and formulate research problems, questions and hypotheses to be tested
    3. Comprehend the rationale for using qualitative, quantitative, and computational research methods
    4. Recognize different forms of sampling, sampling error, and case selection, and their potential implications when interpreting findings
    5. Apply concepts of generalisability, validity, reliability, and replicability
    6. Appreciate ethical aspects of social data science and how to cope with them

    • Course Instructor: Professor Taha Yasseri

      • Professor Taha Yasseri

        Professor Taha Yasseri is an Associate Professor at the School of Sociology and a Geary Fellow at the Geary Institute for Public Policy at University College Dublin, Ireland. Formerly, he was a Senior Research Fellow in Computational Social Science at the University of Oxford, a Turing Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, and a Research Fellow in Humanities and Social Sciences at Wolfson College. Taha Yasseri has a PhD in Complex Systems Physics from the University of Göttingen, Germany.

        View Bio for Professor Taha Yasseri

      • Video Transcripts

        You can access all video transcripts here.

      • Pre-Course Self Assessment

        Before you dive into this course, spend a few moments reflecting on your familiarity with the topic and your current level of skills confidence. 

        You will then re-visit the same questions in our Post-Course Self Assessment and reflect on how the course has helped you develop in confidence and grow your skills. 

        • Module One: What Is Social Data Science?

          This module will help you to:

          1. Get introduced to social data science and be familiarized with both social data science and scientific methods

        • Module Two: How to Determine the Design Elements and Data Sources of a Research Project?

          This module will help you to:

          1. Determine the main parameters of a research project including boundaries, scale and time resolution of your research, what big data is, how it differs to traditional data collection and what consent refers to

        • Module Three: What Methods Can We Use in Social Data Science?

          This module will help you to:

          1. Become familiarized with the toolset of social data science, covering both quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods

        • Module Four: What Can be Learned From Your Research?

          This module will help you to:

          1. Develop research questions and hypotheses, be familiarized with validity, reproducibility, replicability and generalizability

        • Module Five: What Is Ethical Social Data Science?

          This module will help you to:

          1. Get familiarized with the main ethical challenges in social data science and how to cope with them

        • Post-Course Self Assessment

          Now you’ve completed the course, spend a few moments reflecting on where your familiarity with the topics and your confidence skills levels are at now. 

          Has the course helped you develop new skills and grow your confidence?

          You'll need to complete the Post-Course Self Assessment in order to download your certificate. If you didn't do the Pre-Course Self Assessment before starting the course, please go to the top of the page and reflect on your familiarity with the topic and your level of skills confidence before you started the course.

          • Completion: Certificate

            Completing all modules (plus the pre and post-course assessments) will unlock the course certificate, which you can then download here. Your course certificate will only be made available once you have completed all these sections.

            If you have difficulty accessing your certificate, please contact the Sage support team at: onlinesupport@sagepub.co.uk. You can also check out this FAQ page which may be helpful.

            • Give Feedback About This Course

              Did you enjoy the course? Please take two minutes to share your feedback. We use learner feedback in future course updates and developments to provide an excellent learning experience.

            • Accessibility

              We have high standards of accessibility on Sage Campus and as of May/June 2024 all activities within this course are keyboard and screen reader compatible. For more details on accessibility standards, please see the Sage Campus Accessibility Guide.

              For those using assistive technology, please note that within this course:

              • Tab components: JAWS and NVDA behave slightly differently. For NVDA to keep reading, it is best to exit focus mode and go back to browse mode. 
              • Matching: JAWS does not read out question label on dropdown focus.