Don't Just Build It, They Probably Won't Come: Data Sharing and the Social Life of Data in the Historical Quantitative Social Sciences

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Mostern ◽  
Marieka Arksey
Keyword(s):  
Data Sharing ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Critical Mass ◽  
Analysis Data ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Data Repositories ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
The Social ◽  
Collaborative Analysis

Historians and historical quantitative social scientists, motivated by a renewed interest in quantitative history and by sophisticated tools for digital infrastructure, are developing data repositories for global-scale and collaborative analysis. However, their archives have been slow to grow. This article is directed toward historians who are contemplating such projects. Repository development is very valuable. On the other hand, studies show that repository projects that rely upon voluntary contribution from numerous researchers seldom reach critical mass. Our surveys and our study of the Collaborative for Historical Information and Analysis Data Hoover Project confirm this assessment. We conclude that historical data repositories remain poorly aligned with present day scholarly practices and are unlikely to realize their promise until the social life of data becomes a part of the profession. Because we believe that this is possible we introduce four strategies, each one backed by a successful project, that will help to make data sharing a part of professional practice. These suggestions are: 1) hiring ‘data hoovers’ to solicit and curate data, 2) appealing to close-knit communities and networking their domain-specific archives, 3) rightsizing crowdsourcing tasks, and 4) incorporating peer review.

THE SOCIAL LIFE OF ACADEMIC DISCOURSE: REFLECTIONS ON THE ANALYSIS OF PIETY POLITICS

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 395-415
Author(s):  
Dunya D. Cakir
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Muslim Women ◽  
Academic Discourse ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Women Intellectuals ◽  
The Social ◽  
Scientific Discourses ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Intellectual Activism

AbstractExamining the writings of prominent Islamist women intellectuals in Turkey, including Fatma Barbarosoğlu, Cihan Aktaş, Yıldız Ramazanoğlu, and Nazife Şişman, this article explores the repercussions of their intellectual activism for how scholars understand and study piety politics. These Islamist women intellectuals, whose discourse and subjectivities have been translated into analytical categories by scholars of piety politics, contest the terms of their encounters with academics and, more broadly, the conversion of Muslim women into objects of research. Their writings shed light on the complex interpretative interplay between academic and lay discourse when the objects of scholarly study speak back to social scientists. I argue that these kinds of critical engagements between Islamist women intellectuals and social scientific discourses attest to the mobility and circularity of social scientific categories, which have infused and reconstituted Islamist debates in Turkey. Rather than uncritically endorse or dispute these intellectuals’ interpretations of social scientific accounts, I leverage their claims to underscore the social life of academic discourse and to promote an enriched vision of piety politics and reflexive methodology.

Globalizations

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jürgen Osterhammel
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
World History ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Characteristic Features

The revival of world history towards the end of the twentieth century was intimately connected with the rise of a new master concept in the social sciences: globalization. Historians and social scientists responded to the same generational experience that the interconnectedness of social life on the planet had arrived at a new level of intensity. The conclusions drawn from this insight in the various academic disciplines diverged considerably. The early theorists of globalization in sociology, political science, and economics disdained a historical perspective. The new concept seemed ideally suited to grasp the characteristic features of contemporary society. It helped to pinpoint the very essence of present-day modernity. Globalization opened up a way towards the social science mainstream, provided elements of a fresh terminology to a field that had suffered for a long time from an excess of descriptive simplicity.

scholarly journals Ferdinand Tönnies és a korai társadalomtudományok, I. rész

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (21) ◽  
pp. 232-241
Author(s):  
Endre Kiss
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
New Science ◽  
The Social ◽  
Community Theory ◽  
Open Relationship ◽  
Clear Idea ◽  
Relationship Structure ◽  
The Right

The theory of society-community stands in the centre of the „social” life. It however also stands in the centre of Tönnies’s positive work itself. This potentiation gives this theory a vitality that is looking for its equivalent and to which little is changed if its presence is not perceived accordingly in every corresponding context. Tönnies is one of the first most important social scientists, who was primarily concerned with being able to investigate society with a strictly scientific character. So he was already therefore much more interested in the optimal way of knowledge than in the diverse concrete results or even in the theoretical possibility of generalization of these results. The society-community theory is an epochal achievement, its result one of the bases of the social existence. It is certainly there, that the rare „open relationship structure” of both these categories is playing. Like many others, we decide to campaign against the political instrumentalization of the society-community theory, there is by no means any denying the fact, that it has extremely deeply secured this dichotomy in the structure-building principles of the political discourse. We see the force of the debate on the ideal level: diabolization and idealization are alternating in symmetrical order obvious. The first social scientists were in multiple paradoxical situations. The first paradox consisted in the fact, that had a very clear idea of a „science” of the society. Because however, such a „science” was not yet existing, they were constrained to make „philosophically” the first steps, but of course not how the „right” philosophers would have done them. The other paradox and eternally opened question are why the „society” as the object remained temporally so much behind the „nature” as an object. It is also hardly less interesting, why the new social sciences did not already emerge in Marx’s environment. The historically belated social science experiences in the medium of this situation a vocation to become a pioneer. Simmel also adheres consistently to his often formulated youth insight that a „new science” will emerge in any case around the society.

scholarly journals Pedagogical Values of Renaissance Travels

2015 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 185-191
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Katarzyna Gębora
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Educational Development ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Foreign Languages ◽  
New Model ◽  
Culture Area ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Social

The time of the Renaissance created the new model of the man-humanist. European patterns stimulated to the cultural or educational development of different fields of the social life. A bloom of the education took place, a thirst for knowledge, an interest in learning, world, travels, getting new experiences. A man educated, being good at foreign languages, opened for changes was appreciated. Geographical discoveries and their effects forever changed the image of the earth. Sixteenth-century peregrinations contributed to the development of states, economic and civilization expansion, and the bloom of culture area. Pedagogic meaning of Renaissance journeys is indisputable. Experience from voyages all over world, extending ranges, the permeation of cultures, the learning of foreign languages, the increase in the knowledge, the development of learning, education and artistic fields bear fruit to this day in the global scale.

scholarly journals A Pragmatist's Guide to Prediction in the Social Sciences

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark D. Verhagen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Simple Technique ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Philosophical Debate ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
Out Of Sample ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The Many

Making out-of-sample predictions is an under-utilised tool in the social sciences, often for the wrong reasons. Many social scientists confuse prediction with unnecessarily complicated methods, or narrowly predicting the future. This is unfortunate, because prediction understood as the simple process of evaluating a model outside of the sample used for estimation is a much more general, and disarmingly simple technique that brings a host of benefits to our empirical workflow. One needn't use complicated methods or be solely concerned with predicting the future to use prediction, nor is it necessary to resolve the centuries-old philosophical debate between prediction and explanation to appreciate its benefits. Prediction can and should be used as a simple complement to the rich methodological tradition in the social sciences, and is equally applicable across a vast multitude of modelling approaches, owing to its simplicity and intuitive nature. For all its simplicity, the value of prediction should not be underestimated. Prediction can address some of the most enduring sources of criticism plaguing the social sciences, like lack of external validity and the use of overly simplistic models to capture social life. In this paper, I illustrate these benefits with a host of empirical examples that merely skim the surface of the many and varied ways in which prediction can be applied, staking the claim that prediction is one of those illustrious `free lunches' that can greatly benefit the empirical social sciences.

scholarly journals Introduction

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-77
Author(s):  
Ronald S. Stade
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Creative Thinking ◽  
Political Correctness ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Social Lives ◽  
Political Conflicts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Temporal And Spatial ◽  
The Military

Concepts have cultural biographies and social lives. Some concepts become social and political keywords that can be both indicative of and instrumental in social and political conflicts. (It might even be possible to speak of conceptual violence.) But they are not just contentious; they also tend to be contested. Contentious and contested concepts have been studied by historians and social scientists from varying temporal and spatial horizons. It is a research area that lends itself to cross-disciplinary approaches, as is demonstrated in the three contributions to this section, the first of which investigates the Russian obsession with the concept of “Europe.” The second contribution to the section explores the military roots of the concept of “creative thinking,” and the final contribution examines the social life of “political correctness” as a fighting word.

scholarly journals The social life of time and methods: Studying London’s temporal architectures

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 604-631
Author(s):  
Ella Harris ◽  
Rebecca Coleman
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Built Environment ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Space Time ◽  
Social Worlds ◽  
Temporal Logics ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Rhythms

This paper contributes to work on the social life of time. It focuses on how time is doubled; produced by, and productive of, the relations and processes it operates through. In particular, it explores the methodological implications of this conception of time for how social scientists may study the doubledness of time. It draws on an allied move within the social sciences to see methods as themselves doubled, as both emerging from and constitutive of the social worlds that they seek to understand. We detail our own very different methodological experiments with studying the social life of time in London, engaging interactive documentary to elucidate nonlinear imaginaries of space-time in London’s pop-up culture (Ella Harris) and encountering time on a series of walks along a particular stretch of road in south east London (Beckie Coleman). While clearly different projects in terms of their content, ambition and scope, in bringing these projects together, we show the ability of our methods to grasp and perform from multiple angles and scales what Sharma (2014) calls ‘temporal architectures’. Temporal architectures, composed of elements including the built environment, commodities, services, technologies and labour, are infrastructures that enable social rhythms and temporal logics and that can entail a politicized valuing of the time of certain groups over others. We aim to contribute to an expanded and enriched conceptualisation of methods for exploring time, considering what our studies might offer to work on the doubled social life of time and methods, and highlighting in particular their implications for an engagement with a politics of time and temporality.

Reconsidering Race

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry Louis Gates, Jr
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social Dimension ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Age Of Discovery ◽  
The Way

Race is one of the most elusive phenomena of social life. While we generally know it when we see it, it's not an easy concept to define. Social science literature has argued that race is a Western, sociopolitical concept that emerged with the birth of modern imperialism, whether in the sixteenth century (the Age of Discovery) or the eighteenth century (the Age of Enlightenment). This book points out that there is a disjuncture between the way race is conceptualized in the social science and medical literature: some of the modern sciences employ racial and ethnic categories. As such, race has a physical, as opposed to a purely social, dimension. The book argues that in order to more fully understand what we mean by race, social scientists need to engage genetics, medicine, and health. To be sure, the long shadow of eugenics and the Nazi use of scientific racism have cast a pall over the effort to understand this complicated relationship between social science and race. But while the text rejects pseudoscience and hierarchical ways of looking at race, it makes the claim that it is time to reassess the Western-based, social construction paradigm. The chapters in this book consider three fundamental tensions in thinking about race: one between theories that see race as fixed or malleable; a second between the idea that race is a universal but modern Western concept and the idea that it has a deeper and more complicated cultural history; and a third between sociopolitical and biological/biomedical concepts of race. Arguing that race is not merely socially constructed, the chapters offer a collection of views on the way that social scientists must reconsider the idea of race in the age of genomics.

Digital Literacy Training

2022 ◽  
pp. 185-199
Author(s):  
Fatma Ince
Keyword(s):  
Digital Literacy ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Business And Society ◽  
Communication Tool ◽  
New Information ◽  
The Social ◽  
Information Awareness

The new information age technologies influence and shape the social and business life of individuals. Technological changes and their impact on business and society are also seen in cities, countries, and even on a global scale to use resources efficiently and to increase social welfare. As the internet is a fast and convenient communication tool, it is important to make correct decisions by distinguishing functional information while adapting to this change. In the process of digitalization, it is necessary to cooperate with libraries and other memory institutions to interact with digital cultural heritage in obsolete or inaccessible formats. From this point of view, the smart cities are seen as the reflections of digitalization on social life; then the difficulties and opportunities encountered in the process are mentioned in this chapter. In this way, information awareness which can directly affect the level of the ability to use information effectively is expected to increase in the digitalization process.

scholarly journals A Data-Driven Approach to Appraisal and Selection at a Domain Data Repository

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy M Pienta ◽  
Dharma Akmon ◽  
Justin Noble ◽  
Lynette Hoelter ◽  
Susan Jekielek
Keyword(s):  
Data Driven ◽  
Data Repository ◽  
Search Activity ◽  
Process Data ◽  
Science Data ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Data Repositories ◽  
The Social ◽  
Data Driven Approach ◽  
User Demand

Social scientists are producing an ever-expanding volume of data, leading to questions about appraisal and selection of content given finite resources to process data for reuse. We analyze users’ search activity in an established social science data repository to better understand demand for data and more effectively guide collection development. By applying a data-driven approach, we aim to ensure curation resources are applied to make the most valuable data findable, understandable, accessible, and usable. We analyze data from a domain repository for the social sciences that includes over 500,000 annual searches in 2014 and 2015 to better understand trends in user search behavior. Using a newly created search-to-study ratio technique, we identified gaps in the domain data repository’s holdings and leveraged this analysis to inform our collection and curation practices and policies. The evaluative technique we propose in this paper will serve as a baseline for future studies looking at trends in user demand over time at the domain data repository being studied with broader implications for other data repositories.

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