Exam requirements
Jointly with your group, implement the group project that you developed during the workshop day and that was approved by the instructors. Your project must meet the following criteria:
- Apply at least one of the tools introduced in one of the lectures for data extraction from at least one Internet platform (e.g., Wikipedia, Twitter, Reddit, Youtube) and/or traditional websites,
- Include the use of network visualisation software (e.g., Gephi),
- Use at least one of the text mining devices introduced during the course (e.g., Voyant Tools).
- Discuss at least one theoretical and one ethical issue related to the project.
Collaboratively write a group paper describing your project, methods and findings.
Practical information about the assignment
- The paper has a maximum word count that depends on the size of your group:
- 4 students – maximum 3500 words +/- 500 words pr. person
- 5 students – maximum 4000 words +/- 500 words pr. person
- 6 students – maximum 4500 words +/- 500 words pr. person
- Your paper should be consistently referenced, using class material.
- For guidelines about use of sources, see: 'An introduction to writing of assignments in sociology'
- The list of references must conclude with the sentence: "All sources that have been used in this paper have been listed". - With this sentence you confirm that you have listed all the literature, you have used in your term paper, in the list of references.
- There are no specific formatting requirements, but we recommend a 12 pt font and 1.5 line spacing.
- In addition to the paper, each student should fill out an ungraded group work evaluation form (available in Inspera). Please use your group members’ exam IDs (candidate numbers) when completing this form.
Information about submitting the exam paper as a group
Since this is a group exam, it is important that you inform your course instructor of who is in your group.
Each individual student has to submit their group’s paper on Inspera. That means that multiple students will submit the same identical exam paper.
Your submission should contain three components, all compiled into one pdf file:
- A cover sheet containing the exam IDs (candidate numbers) of ALL group members
- The group paper
- The individual student’s group work evaluation form.
How will the paper be assessed?
The group papers will be judged on the basis of an overall assessment, including the following criteria:
- Is the chosen phenomenon mentioned in the research question sufficiently introduced and contoured? Is it clear what the paper is about?
- Has the group identified and successfully collected online data that is appropriate and sufficient to answer their research question?
- How sophisticated is the use of the tools chosen for data collection and analysis
- How many online sources/platforms are integrated (relative to group size)?
- How well are the different parts – e.g., work with Wikipedia and Twitter – of the analysis integrated?
- How well is the interactive dimension covered (the network analysis dimension)?
- How well is the semantic (textual) dimension covered?
- How well are the semantic and the network functions integrated?
- Are theoretical-conceptual issues (e.g., representativity, online/offline grounding) sufficiently reflected?
- Are ethical issues sufficiently addressed and/or implemented (e.g., the anonymization of data subjects)?
- Does the paper draw on the curriculum literature when discussing theoretical, analytical or methodological concepts? Does it use these concepts correctly?
- Is the actual operationalisation working well in relation to the research question? Does the analysis sufficiently answer the questions posed? Do the students differentiate between central and more peripheral aspects? How differentiated and nuanced is the analysis?
- Formalities: Is the students’ text understandable? Does it progress in orderly fashion; is it well-structured? Do the different parts of the paper cohere? Is it possible to follow the students’ thoughts or argument through their text? Does the paper respect the word limit?
Paper structure
Your paper can be structured in many different ways, and below we indicate one possibility. A good paper, receiving and average note or above, will (somewhat) mirror the following paper structure and entail (many of) the following elements:
Introduction (around 500 words)
- Describe the issue/phenomenon you are interested in, why it is interesting and how it can be observed online.
- Formulate a clear research question.
- Briefly point out which conceptual or ethical issues are relevant for this project.
- Roadmap for the paper.
Methods (Around 750 words)
- Describe the digital methods you deployed in some detail, e.g., specifying not just the tool, but the specific functions of the tool, your search terms, search period, etc.
- Describe the data you collected (possibly multiple data sets).
- Describe your analytic process.
- Address any measures you took (or believe would be required) to address ethical concerns.
- Draw on class concepts and literature to justify your methodological choices.
Analysis/Results 1 (Main part of the paper, around 1000 words)
-
Describe your findings regarding your first analytic tool/approach (e.g., Twitter data analysis – mention networks).
-
Include visualization of your results (networks).
-
Discuss limitations and insights.
-
Possibly describe what part of your findings was used for the second part of your analysis (textmining etc).
Analysis/Results 2 (Can be mixed with the previous section) (Main part of the paper)
- Describe your findings regarding your second analytic tool/approach (textmining, semantic networks, sentiment analysis, …).
- Include visualizations if useful.
- Discuss limitations.
Integration/Discussion/Conclusion (Around 750 words)
- Discuss how the different parts of your analysis relate to each other.
- Reflect representativity issues (Could some of the findings be due to a certain 'profile' (economic background, political opinions) of users using that particular medium or platform).
- What larger findings can you generate by combining your approaches?
- How do your findings relate to the class readings?
- Did you learn anything new, e.g., regarding the ethical challenges of digital research.
- Discuss why this analysis would not have been possible with non-digital methods.
Usefull links