The World Wide Web is only around 20 years old, but it has become central to our economic, political and social lives. This course will provide students with thorough training in online research methods for social science Internet research. While "obtrusive" social research methods (e.g. online surveys and focus groups) will be covered, there is greater emphasis on unobstrusive research methods, e.g. quantitative analysis of Internet trace data from websites, blogsites, microblogs (Twitter) and social networking sites such as Facebook.
The course has a mixture of lectures and practical sessions. Practical sessions will be focused on unobtrusive online research and will involve the use of the VOSON System (collection/analysis of hyperlink networks), VOSON-sns (collection/analysis of social network service data) and NodeXL (Microsoft Excel 2007 template for social network analysis).
By taking this course, students will acquire important skills necessary for conducting empirical social science Internet research both in academic and industry settings. Students will learn:
· What online research methods are best suited for researching various economic, political and social phenomena on the Internet, and how do these differ from methods traditionally used by social scientists?
· What are the available tools and data for online research?
· How to collect and analyse data from the Internet?
· How to design and implement a research project that uses online research methods?
· What are the ethical implications of the various online research methods?
A detailed online user guide will be provided.
Participants are strongly advised to have taken the ACSPRI course Introduction to Social Network Research and Network Analysis.
The course assumes participants have good familiarity with using computers, in particular web applications. This course is aimed at two types of participants:
l Those who are familiar with social science statistics (e.g. cross tabulations, descriptive statistics), have some experience with software such as SPSS/Stata/SAS, and some exposure to social network analysis (SNA), but who have never studied the web or used online research methods.
l Those who do not necessarily have a background in empirical social science, but are technically oriented, with good computer skills and an existing interest/experience in the web as an object of/medium for empirical research.
The course assumes participants have good familiarity with using computers, in particular web applications. This course is aimed at two types of participants:
1. Those who are familiar with social science statistics (e.g. cross tabulations, descriptive statistics), have some experience with software such as SPSS/Stata/SAS, and (possibly) some exposure to social network analysis (SNA), but who have never studied the web or used online research methods.
2. Those who do not necessarily have a background in empirical social science, but are technically oriented, with good computer skills and an existing interest/experience in the web as an object of/medium for empirical research.
Detailed course notes will be provided, including selected chapters from D. Hansen, B. Shneiderman and M. Smith (eds), Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL: Insights from a connected world. Morgan-Kaufmann (forthcoming).
See http://voson.anu.edu.au for information on the VOSON System and VOSON-sns and http://nodexl.codeplex.com for information on NodeXL.
