Summary:
This Postgraduate Certificate is aimed at commissioners, coordinators and users of digital research in business, policy-making and the third sector, including digital marketing and analytical services officers. The PGCert comprises a suite of courses that together provide the critical understanding and skills needed to make best use of digital research findings, with a particular focus on social media research, web 2.0 data and their synergies with publicly available ‘open’ administrative datasets. Based on the latest research into the social and economic influences on how digital research is being developed and used, this PGCert is designed both for novices and for more experienced professionals who need to maintain a critical appreciation of the fast moving field of digital research.
- Teacher: Gian Marco Campagnolo
- Teacher: Benjamin Koeck
- Teacher: James Stewart
- Teacher: Robin Williams
Course Convenor: James Stewart (STIS/SSPS)
Course Description:
The course will enable students to understand new emerging models of professional practice in business and policy making developing and deploying digital research methods and results. This will include collecting, curating, exchanging and analyzing of digitally-derived data, the use of research from digital environments, and the way this is leveraged turning this data into tools for active use and behaviour change. This module will equip students with a sufficient understanding appropriate to work in areas of professional practice where increasing use is being made of digital research tools, and where domain experts are expected to work with technical research experts. It will explore the methodological, ethical, legal, and practical issues of digital research, and the roles and interests of the actors shaping the practice and institutions.
This course will address the development of transferable insights in managing cross-institutional and citizen collaboration in digital data collection and analysis. This course is meant to provide students with basic skills and knowledge to (i) work in interdisciplinary digital research teams including different information professionals; (ii) organize open data projects using that both analyse and produce tools ; (iii) understand emerging use of digital resources to engage stakeholders in research, and move beyond conventional ‘expert’ analysis to interactive use of data by stakeholders- (iv) address barriers and enablers to adoption of digital and open models of research, and (v) organize the procurement of services to match the need of their organization.
- Teacher: James Stewart
Course Convenor: James Stewart (STIS/SSPS)
Course Description:
Research techniques and methods have been developed and deployed to explore ‘digital life’ since the earliest days of computing and online communication. In this course we will address the opportunities and challenges of a range of traditional and emerging digital research approaches and techniques focusing on the relevance of their applications from a user perspective. It will cover ethical, practical, legal, methodological and economic issues in practice. The students will explore practice and knowledge in the field of research on email use, forums, SMS; internet use derived data sets; use of web analytics in engaging with consumers and citizens; opportunities and challenges of clickstream data & scraping data from internet services ; use of crowdsourcing for data collection, analysis and stakeholder engagement; use of behavioural data from IT systems, such as smart meters, GPS etc; using digital games and simulations to engage decision makers, customers and citizens, and in research on behaviour; deriving indicators from and the use of open administrative data in Policy Making 2.0.
By reviewing a number of existing projects at the forefront of digital research, the student will develop skills to assess the relevance of digital research. By learning from how advanced digital research tools have been applied to inform practice in a number of different domains, the student will be able to anticipate further developments in the field. This course has three main aims: (i) to review case studies from experimental digital research projects; (ii) to provide students with knowledge about the existence of a number of data collection and analytics services developed in research environments and (iii) to provide students with tools to assess digital research approaches and findings, including issues of ethics and risk.
- Teacher: James Stewart
- Teacher: Robin Williams
Course Convenor: Robin Williams (STIS/SSPS)
Course Description:
Between data collection technologies and professional users of digital research data lies a massive assembly of computational and analytical resources that together constitute information infrastructure and promise to revolutionize analytical practice. This course provides an understanding of the possible outcomes of the adoption of digital research in business & policy-making, based on evidence gathered from other disciplines that have been early adopters of eScience as well as other fields whose practices have been modified by engagement with information infrastructure. In particular, the course will provide a theoretical framework for understanding the functioning of the ‘human infrastructure’ (e.g. technicians and scientific users) that is required to sustain digital research tools and methods. By analyzing the building of information infrastructure as a process that involves the alignment and realignment of people, processes, and tools, the course will provide an understanding of information infrastructure as it appears from the perspective of those who are creating and using it.
- Teacher: Benjamin Koeck
- Teacher: Robin Williams
Course Convenor: Robin Williams (STIS/SSPS)
Course Description:
TCPs have been defined as distributed, networked, inter-operable, digital innovations that facilitate the open discovery and sharing of information and the organisation of individuals for collective action. The focus of this course is on understanding the current and potential uses of new TCPs by citizens and policy-makers in responding to mundane, everyday threats to social resilience (e.g. street crime, problems with community service delivery, environment, health, etc.), and appreciating how these activities (e.g. monitoring, informing, reporting) are linked to everyday life in the community. Through access to participants of the “Reading the Riots Project”, an in-depth case study will be developed to explore how the police, other organisations and individuals used Twitter as they responded to this event. The course also includes delivery of a hands-on tutorial on use of Remote Event Analysis (mapping conflicts, disasters, elections and other events) with Online and Social Media Data.
This 10 credits course provides students with skills to (1) compare and interpret different visions (optimistic and critical) on technologies of civic participation; (2) understand in detail the difference in their use when put to the service of citizen or adopted by policy makers (3) monitor social media data streams by using social media monitoring tools.
- Teacher: Gian Marco Campagnolo
- Teacher: Benjamin Koeck
- Teacher: James Stewart
- Teacher: Robin Williams
- Teacher: Tsun Wong
Course Convenor: Gian Marco Campagnolo (STIS/SSPS)
Course Description:
One of the most impactful effects of easier access to a larger proportion of data on an increasing number of phenomena is the use of rankings to assess all aspects of the performance of products and organizations based on customer feedback. This 10 credits course provides students with skills to (1) develop a comprehensive understanding of the making of organizational reputation indices; (2) compare different methods to collect data on digital influence; (3) capture the effects of rankings on organizations; (4) manage reputation risk in the light of new social media-based ranking systems. Our analysis will start from media ranking and progressively extend to automated ranking systems. The course also offers a tutorial on Using NodeXL as a tool for Measuring online Influence.
- Teacher: Gian Marco Campagnolo
- Teacher: Benjamin Koeck
- Teacher: Tsun Wong
Course Convenor: Gian Marco Campagnolo (STIS/SSPS)
Course Description:
Internetworked digital technologies generate, store and elaborate vast quantities of data. This raises questions about how best to make sense of such voluminous and potentially fast-changing information, especially when data is used to take real-time decisions (about investments, policies, trades and new markets) or it needs to be presented to wider audiences.
The use of data visualization is increasing in the digital age where much information is consumed via full color displays. Consequently, we are experiencing a period of rapid innovation in new data visualization techniques intended to serve this purpose. In this course, we examine the visual aspects of data analytics and the emerging professional practices of turning ‘numbers into pictures’ or, more specifically, into ‘screen realities’. Hosting contributions from key experts in the field, the course will provide students will skills to critically interpret the most popular data visualization techniques used by major information provider firms such as Bloomberg, Gartner, Reuter or Telerate. Questions addressed in this course include: What are the benefits and limitations of popular data visualization formats (e.g. lists, 2x2 matrixes, pie charts, bar charts)? What are the most advanced digital data visualization techniques and software tools? What are the different steps through which raw data become amenable to be represented in graphics? What is lost and what is gained in the process of preparing data for visual display?
- Teacher: Gian Marco Campagnolo