Social Data Science Base Camp
Course content
This course introduces students to the interdisciplinary degree programme of Social Data Science. In the first week, students are introduced to the group-based learning and working practices, which are core elements of the degree programme. For the rest of the term, students are introduced to the fundamentals of programming, data collection, and data analysis in Python including regression analysis. This will be combined with lectures and exercises that focus on elementary statistical modelling techniques and integrated quali-quant methods. Overall, the course will teach students the basic skills to program, collect and process data from a variety of online sources and structure them into a dataset, and to conduct basic analyses on that dataset.
Mandatory course on MSc programme in Social Data Science at University of Copenhagen. The course is only open for students enrolled in the MSc programme in Social Data Science.
After completing the course, the student is expected to be able to:
Knowledge:
- Define and explain how to use basic concepts within programming, including variables and data structures, control flow, and functions
- Account for use cases of key Python libraries for data collection and analysis, including Pandas and MatPlotlib
- Define basic concepts within statistics and underlying mathematics
- Account for advantages and disadvantages of different quantitative approaches, in particular basic machine learning and regression
Skills:
- Perform elementary programming tasks in Python drawing on basic programming concepts
- Navigate and draw on online and offline resources to debug Python programs
- Use the basic toolkit to use Application Programming Interfaces for data collection and processing
- Set up basic Python scripts for scraping and adjust them to various online sources
- Flexibly structure, merge, and reformat data coming from various sources and in different forms, including quantitative and qualitative data
- Conduct exploratory data analysis using descriptive statistics, visualization methods, and content analysis
- Estimate regression models and explain the output
Competences:
- Work with and analyse data in interdisciplinary teams
- Critically assess and reflect on their own and others’ coding practices
- Communicate social data science insights using basic data visualization and appropriate statistical methods to relevant audiences
- Integrate a netnographic approach with computational data collection
Lectures, seminars, group work, exercises, coding tutorials and methods workshops.
The course will use one central textbook and supplementary readings as suitable. The weekly reading load will be 80-130 pages. Readings will be provided by the instructors.
Students will be registered by the student administration.
When registered you will be signed up for exam.
- Full-degree students – sign up at Selfservice on KUnet
The dates for the exams are found here Exams – Faculty of Social Sciences - University of Copenhagen (ku.dk)
Please note that it is your own responsibility to check for overlapping exam dates.
- ECTS
- 15 ECTS
- Type of assessment
-
Home assignment
- Type of assessment details
- Individual written home assignment. The assignment will consist of submitting code to collect and process data in order to produce a dataset of the student’s choosing, along with a description and reflection on how they constructed the dataset. The code must be in the form of a Jupyter Notebook. Within the Notebook, students will also be required to conduct a basic analysis on that dataset in accordance with the Learning Outcomes.
- Examination prerequisites
-
To be eligible for the ordinary exam in Social Data Science Base Camp, it is a requirement that students have completed and submitted 28 out of the 28 exercise assignments via Absalon prior to the exam start date.
Each class-day will have an associated exercise assignment (max. 28 Jupyter Notebooks).
- Aid
- All aids allowed
ChatGPT and other large language model tools are permitted as a dedicated source, meaning text copied verbatim needs to be quoted, the tool cited, and generally the specific use made of them needs to be described in the submitted exam.
- Marking scale
- passed/not passed
- Censorship form
- No external censorship
- Exam period
-
Exam information:
The examination date can be found in the exam schedule here
The exact time and place will be available in Digital Exam from the middle of the semester.
- Re-exam
-
The second and third examination attempts are conducted in the same manner as the ordinary examination.
Reexamination registration requirements
To be eligible for the reexamination in Social Data Science Base Camp, it is a requirement that students have completed and submitted 28 out of the 28 exercise assignments via Absalon prior to the deadline for the reexamination registration period.
Criteria for exam assessment
Students are assessed on the extent to which they master the learning outcome for the course.
- Category
- Hours
- Lectures
- 56
- Class Instruction
- 84
- Preparation
- 140
- Project work
- 132
- English
- 412
Kursusinformation
- Language
- English
- Course number
- ASDK20001U
- ECTS
- 15 ECTS
- Programme level
- Full Degree Master
- Duration
-
1 semester
- Placement
- Autumn
- Studyboard
- Social Data Science
Contracting department
- Social Data Science
Contracting faculty
- Faculty of Social Sciences
Course Coordinator
- Gregory Eady (12-6d786b6d75787f346b676a7f466f6c7934717b346a71)
Timetable
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Courseinformation of students