ASDK20010U Data Collection, Processing and Analysis (30 ECTS)

Volume 2021/2022
Education

Elective course offered by 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.

 

Students can enrol in this course for either 15 or 30 ECTS credits.

Content

The purpose of this course is to provide students with an opportunity for collecting and working with data that is relevant in relation to the Master’s thesis. The course consists in participating in a data collection project such as running an experiment or scraping data from the internet. This includes preliminary processing and basic analysis.


Students are only allowed to pass this course once in the course of the Master’s degree programme.

Learning Outcome

Learning outcome 15 ECTS:

At the end of the course, students are able to:

Knowledge

  • Describe the choice of method for doing research within social data science and the knowledge it produces.
  • Define theoretical terms and research themes that can be used to understand relevant social data science problems within an empirical material.

 

Skills

  • Carry out a smaller data collection, taking point of departure in an independent problem formulation.
  • Organize the empirical material systematically, taking into consideration research ethics.

 

Competencies

  • Reflect critically on the methodological and analytical process of collecting data.
  • Assess problem statement and research questions in relation to the empirical material.

 

Learning outcome 30 ECTS:

At the end of the course, students are able to:

Knowledge

  • Describe the use of different methods for doing research within social data science and the knowledge they produce.
  • Define of theoretical terms and research themes that can be used to understand relevant social data science problems within an empirical material.

 

Skills

  • Design large scale data collection process taking a point of departure in an independent problem formulation.
  • Independently and critically collect relevant empirical material.
  • Adjust the problem statement and research question and academically account for the adjustments.
  • Systematically organize and structure the empirical material in accordance with research ethics.
  • Document the collected data and account for how it has been structured.

 

Competencies

  • Assess problem statement and research questions in relation to the empirical material from different perspectives.
  • Discuss ethical implications in regard to the data collection.
  • Contemplate and assess the potential for applying the data for commercial and/or political purposes.
  • Reflect critically on the methodological and analytical process of collecting data and applying it for and research purposes.
This course is conducted primarily as an independent study. At the beginning of the semester, the Head of Studies assigns students into supervision clusters.

In the course of the semester students must participate in workshops, organised by the cluster supervisor, focusing on presenting their social data science material and analysis. The output from the workshops are portfolio items.
  • Category
  • Hours
  • Guidance
  • 12
  • Exam Preparation
  • 812
  • Total
  • 824
Continuous feedback during the course of the semester
Credit
15 ECTS
Type of assessment
Portfolio
Written exam (portfolio) submitted individually or in groups. Students in the same group must be enrolled for the same number of ECTS. The portfolio exam must contain all the portfolio assignments handed in during the course and an overview of the collected data material.
- For 15 ECTS credits, the written portfolio assignment must be no longer than 10 pages when written by 1 student and 15 pages when written by two students, who write together.
- For 30 ECTS credits, the written portfolio assignment must be no longer than 20 pages when written by 1 student and 30 pages when written by two students, who write together.
Exam registration requirements

To be eligible for exam, the projects must be pre-approved by course responsible(s) at the start of the third semester. In addition, participation in the workshops is compulsory. The number and type of workshops depends on the scope of ECTS credits taken.

Aid
All aids allowed
Marking scale
7-point grading scale
Censorship form
No external censorship
Re-exam

The second and third examination attempts are conducted in the same manner as the ordinary examination.

Criteria for exam assesment

The exam will be assessed on the basis of the learning outcome (knowledge, skills and competencies) for the course.