Large-scale data and computationally complex methods for understanding human behavior are accessible like never before with the emergence of vast archives of passive data collection, online experimentation, and innovative uses of simulation. Digital traces of our daily lives our increasingly recorded, aggregated, analyzed, and used to shape our future experience. These data and methods offer the potential for rich insights into society, while simultaneously introducing new ethical and infrastructural challenges.
In this practicum we will (1) practice programming skills you using applied examples drawn from the social sciences and humanities, and (2) will read about how these methods are impacting the social science and humanities disciplines, to encourage a computational social science imagination. Class time will be a combination of discussion and reactions to short readings, and hands-on tutorials that practice the skills you learned in lecture. Your grade will be based on your reading reflections, programming exercises, a project proposal, and a final project and presentation.
Most weeks, you will be asked to complete an exercise practicing the skills for that week. Exercises will become more difficult as the semester progresses.