For the past few years in June, the Summer Institutes in Computational Social Science (SICSS) have seen students gather across the world at partner locations and in the designated primary location to begin a two-week program of collaboration, workshops, lectures, and participant-led research projects in computational social science (CSS). The strange times of COVID have somewhat altered these plans with some partner locations postponing until 2021 and some opting to move online. Whether virtual or postponed the fourth iteration of SICSS set a new record for partner locations—a total of 22 locations signed up to take part. Founders Matt Salganik and Chris Bail, allow participants to only attend once but as attendance has grown so have graduates returning to their institutions and setting up new partner locations.

There’s a lot of uncertainty about how higher education will be taught in the age of COVID-19. How should professors and instructors of qualitative methods courses re-think their curriculums for online classrooms or cohorts? How can students conduct observations if they’re sheltered at home? How will students work in teams to analyze data if they’re distributed across the world? Here are some tips for alternative data collection methods, and collaborative tools for remote analysis.