Both Traditional Students and Working Professionals Acquire the Skills to Analyze Social Problems. Big Data and Social Science: A Practical Guide to Methods and Tools shows how to apply data science to real-world problems in both research and the practice. The book provides practical guidance on combining methods and tools from computer science, statistics, and social science. This concrete approach is illustrated throughout using an important national problem, the quantitative study of innovation. The text draws on the expertise of prominent leaders in statistics, the social sciences, data science, and computer science to teach students how to use modern social science research principles as well as the best analytical and computational tools. It uses a real-world challenge to introduce how these tools are used to identify and capture appropriate data, apply data science models and tools to that data, and recognize and respond to data errors and limitations. For more information, including sample chapters and news, please visit the author's website.

Big Data and Social Science: Data Science Methods and Tools for Research and Practice, Second Edition shows how to apply data science to real-world problems, covering all stages of a data-intensive social science or policy project. Prominent leaders in the social sciences, statistics, and computer science as well as the field of data science provide a unique perspective on how to apply modern social science research principles and current analytical and computational tools. The text teaches you how to identify and collect appropriate data, apply data science methods and tools to the data, and recognize and respond to data errors, biases, and limitations. Features: Takes an accessible, hands-on approach to handling new types of data in the social sciences Presents the key data science tools in a non-intimidating way to both social and data scientists while keeping the focus on research questions and purposes Illustrates social science and data science principles through real-world problems Links computer science concepts to practical social science research Promotes good scientific practice Provides freely available workbooks with data, code, and practical programming exercises, through Binder and GitHub New to the Second Edition: Increased use of examples from different areas of social sciences New chapter on dealing with Bias and Fairness in Machine Learning models Expanded chapters focusing on Machine Learning and Text Analysis Revamped hands-on Jupyter notebooks to reinforce concepts covered in each chapter This classroom-tested book fills a major gap in graduate- and professional-level data science and social science education. It can be used to train a new generation of social data scientists to tackle real-world problems and improve the skills and competencies of applied social scientists and public policy practitioners. It empowers you to use the massive and rapidly growing amounts of available data to interpret economic and social activities in a scientific and rigorous manner.

"Data analysis has become a necessary skill across the social sciences, and recent advancements in computing power have made knowledge of programming an essential component. Yet most data science books are intimidating and overwhelming to a non-specialist audience, including most undergraduates. This book will be a shorter, more focused and accessible version of Kosuke Imai's Quantitative Social Science book, which was published by Princeton in 2018 and has been adopted widely in graduate level courses of the same title. This book uses the same innovative approach as Quantitative Social Science , using real data and 'R' to answer a wide range of social science questions. It assumes no prior knowledge of statistics or coding. It starts with straightforward, simple data analysis and culminates with multivariate linear regression models, focusing more on the intuition of how the math works rather than the math itself. The book makes extensive use of data visualizations, diagrams, pictures, cartoons, etc., to help students understand and recall complex concepts, provides an easy to follow, step-by-step template of how to conduct data analysis from beginning to end, and will be accompanied by supplemental materials in the appendix and online for both students and instructors"--

A new era of innovation is enabled by the integration of social sciences and information systems research. In this context, the adoption of Big Data and analytics technology brings new insight to the social sciences. It also delivers new, flexible responses to crucial social problems and challenges. We are proud to deliver this edited volume on the social impact of big data research. It is one of the first initiatives worldwide analyzing of the impact of this kind of research on individuals and social issues. The organization of the relevant debate is arranged around three pillars: Section A: Big Data Research for Social Impact: • Big Data and Their Social Impact; • (Smart) Citizens from Data Providers to Decision-Makers; • Towards Sustainable Development of Online Communities; • Sentiment from Online Social Networks; • Big Data for Innovation. Section B. Techniques and Methods for Big Data driven research for Social Sciences and Social Impact: • Opinion Mining on Social Media; • Sentiment Analysis of User Preferences; • Sustainable Urban Communities; • Gender Based Check-In Behavior by Using Social Media Big Data; • Web Data-Mining Techniques; • Semantic Network Analysis of Legacy News Media Perception. Section C. Big Data Research Strategies: • Skill Needs for Early Career Researchers—A Text Mining Approach; • Pattern Recognition through Bibliometric Analysis; • Assessing an Organization’s Readiness to Adopt Big Data; • Machine Learning for Predicting Performance; • Analyzing Online Reviews Using Text Mining; • Context–Problem Network and Quantitative Method of Patent Analysis. Complementary social and technological factors including: • Big Social Networks on Sustainable Economic Development; Business Intelligence.

This book highlights that the capacity for gathering, analysing, and utilising vast amounts of digital (user) data raises significant ethical issues. Annika Richterich provides a systematic contemporary overview of the field of critical data studies that reflects on practices of digital data collection and analysis. The book assesses in detail one big data research area: biomedical studies, focused on epidemiological surveillance. Specific case studies explore how big data have been used in academic work. The Big Data Agenda concludes that the use of big data in research urgently needs to be considered from the vantage point of ethics and social justice. Drawing upon discourse ethics and critical data studies, Richterich argues that entanglements between big data research and technology/ internet corporations have emerged. In consequence, more opportunities for discussing and negotiating emerging research practices and their implications for societal values are needed.

From predictive policing to self-surveillance to private security, the potential uses to of big data in crime control pose serious legal and ethical challenges relating to privacy, discrimination, and the presumption of innocence. The book is about the impacts of the use of big data analytics on social and crime control and on fundamental liberties. Drawing on research from Europe and the US, this book identifies the various ways in which law and ethics intersect with the application of big data in social and crime control, considers potential challenges to human rights and democracy and recommends regulatory solutions and best practice. This book focuses on changes in knowledge production and the manifold sites of contemporary surveillance, ranging from self-surveillance to corporate and state surveillance. It tackles the implications of big data and predictive algorithmic analytics for social justice, social equality, and social power: concepts at the very core of crime and social control. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of criminology, sociology, politics and socio-legal studies.

This book presents recent developments on the theoretical, algorithmic, and application aspects of Big Data in Complex and Social Networks. The book consists of four parts, covering a wide range of topics. The first part of the book focuses on data storage and data processing. It explores how the efficient storage of data can fundamentally support intensive data access and queries, which enables sophisticated analysis. It also looks at how data processing and visualization help to communicate information clearly and efficiently. The second part of the book is devoted to the extraction of essential information and the prediction of web content. The book shows how Big Data analysis can be used to understand the interests, location, and search history of users and provide more accurate predictions of User Behavior. The latter two parts of the book cover the protection of privacy and security, and emergent applications of big data and social networks. It analyzes how to model rumor diffusion, identify misinformation from massive data, and design intervention strategies. Applications of big data and social networks in multilayer networks and multiparty systems are also covered in-depth.

The impact agenda is set to shape the way in which social scientists prioritise the work they choose to pursue, the research methods they use and how they publish their findings over the coming decade, but how much is currently known about how social science research has made a mark on society? Based on a three year research project studying the impact of 360 UK-based academics on business, government and civil society sectors, this groundbreaking new book undertakes the most thorough analysis yet of how academic research in the social sciences achieves public policy impacts, contributes to economic prosperity, and informs public understanding of policy issues as well as economic and social changes. The Impact of the Social Sciences addresses and engages with key issues, including: identifying ways to conceptualise and model impact in the social sciences developing more sophisticated ways to measure academic and external impacts of social science research explaining how impacts from individual academics, research units and universities can be improved. This book is essential reading for researchers, academics and anyone involved in discussions about how to improve the value and impact of funded research.

This state-of-the-art Research Handbook provides an overview of research into, and the scope of current thinking in, the field of big data analytics and the law. It contains a wealth of information to survey the issues surrounding big data analytics in legal settings, as well as legal issues concerning the application of big data techniques in different domains.

This book is designed to introduce doctoral and graduate students to the process of conducting scientific research in the social sciences, business, education, public health, and related disciplines. It is a one-stop, comprehensive, and compact source for foundational concepts in behavioral research, and can serve as a stand-alone text or as a supplement to research readings in any doctoral seminar or research methods class. This book is currently used as a research text at universities on six continents and will shortly be available in nine different languages.