Zooming in the time of Covid-19: 2020 Big Data Summer School successfully goes virtual

Since 2016, the UK Data Service has run its annual ‘Encounters with big data: introduction for social scientists’ week-long summer school, co-ordinated by Louise Corti of the UK Data Service. The aim of the course is to introduce some of the critical issues around the use of new and emerging forms of data for social research, and to establish both confidence and a firm grounding in the art of approaching and exploiting data of this nature. The course complements the ever-expanding amount of training provision available on coding and data analytics with some of the more fundamental aspects; engendering awareness of potential challenges, from ethical and legal to methodological and practical, and an appreciation of undertaking reproducible research, Up to now, these have been run in person, with no more than 20 people. The small group element provides a comfortable and supportive learning environment, and lends itself to group work and mutual support between students. With the COVID-19 pandemic preventing usual face-to-face residential courses, Louise and the tutors agreed to run the course online in the summer of July 2020.