Social Data Science PhD Seminar

PhD seminars are an important venue to develop competences essential for researchers. Typically, contact teaching events are organized to develop these competencies. Social data science instead believes that this competence development takes place during our everyday interactions with supervisors, peers and research groups.

Skill 1: Exposure to new perspectives

How can we understand current trends shaping social data science and other social science fields?

To achieve this, you're expected to participate in five events where new trends in research methods or substance areas are discussed.

These may include events such as:

Guest lectures organized at the Faculty of Social Sciences or if suitable for your research topics, other faculties, and units.
Research days and other activities organized by CSDS.
Brown bag seminars, talks and workshops organized by HSSH.
For SOST-9152: attending at least one other PhD defenses at the Faculty of Social Sciences.

For each event, write a brief note in your learning diary where you summarize the content of the event and consider how it shapes your own plans for studying. Examples include new methods, theories, or data you want to explore, or directions that now appear less relevant for your own study plan.

For PhD defenses, please write observations on ideas or practices you’d like to incorporate in your own defense.

Skill 2: Discussing and refining research

It is easy to get lost in ones own work. That is why discussions with peers and colleagues improves research outcomes by allowing actionable feedback on manuscripts and a greater exploration of ones own ideas.

To fulfill this, you're expected to bring one manuscript yourself for discussion and comments and comment on four others.

This can take place in events such as

Research group meetings or offsite days.
Research days and similar activities organized by CSDS.
Early-career scholar workshops or doctoral consortiums.

Meetings with your supervisor or your thesis committee is not suitable to fulfill this requirement. The goal is to get feedback from those who don't already know your work.

For each manuscript, briefly summarize your experiences to the learning diary.

Planning your learning experience

Draw up a plan for scheduling these activities and agree with your supervisor(s). Once you’ve finished these activities and filled in your learning diary, contact your supervisor, and review the learning diary together. After this review, the supervisor registers the credits for SOST-9151 or SOST-9152.