Skills, Teaching Methods Chris Burnage Skills, Teaching Methods Chris Burnage

Summer Institutes in Computational Social Science launch online festival open to all

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.

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Communicating Research Communicating Research

How Can Smart Use of Graphics Cut Through the Complexity of COVID-19?

To try and cut through the tangles of complexity wrought by a global pandemic, I’ve been working with Peter Evans (and his multi-talented daughter, Hamsi Evans) to put together some picture ‘explainers’ to help frame thinking. These are helping communicate around the complex problems we’re all facing and how to use social science research to tackle these.

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Tools & Technology, Skills, Teaching Methods, Data Collection Chris Burnage Tools & Technology, Skills, Teaching Methods, Data Collection Chris Burnage

Adapting your qualitative methods course for online learning

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.

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Tools & Technology, Skills, Data Collection Chris Burnage Tools & Technology, Skills, Data Collection Chris Burnage

Moving your behavioral research online

COVID-19 has affected research all over the world. With universities closing their campuses and governments issuing restrictions on social gatherings, behavioral research in the lab has ground to a halt. This situation is urgent. Ongoing studies have been disrupted and upcoming studies cannot begin until they are adapted to the new reality. At Volunteer Science, we’re helping researchers around the world navigate these changes. In this post, I’ll condense the most important recommendations we’re giving to researchers for translating their studies into an online format and recruiting virtual participants.

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