10th RC33 Conference on Social Science Methodology
7th-10th September 2021
Nicosia, Cyprus
Session: Repurposing: what social scientists can learn from data designed by others?
Chair: Biagio Aragona (aragona@unina.it), University of Naples Federico II
CALL FOR ABSTRACTS: New Deadline 31st January 2021
Dear colleague,
I want to invite you to an abstract proposal to the session Repurposing: what social scientists can learn from data designed by others? of the 10th International Conference on Social Science Methodology.
The session welcomes papers which critically discuss the opportunities and the threats of repurposing, the practice of readdressing data that are designed by others to new objectives.
The opportunities of repurposing data have increased sharply. First of all -thanks also to the development of digital methods – there is an increasing availability of data created for purposes others than research. For example, search engine data and social networks’ data have been employed in much social research with somehow impressive results. This is also the case for data scaled-up in data infrastructures, which come from a variety of sources (i.e. registers, administrative processes, etc.) and are made available at different levels of detail and customization. A further boost to repurposing is given by open data initiatives that are developing within institutions and governments. Moreover, secondary data analysis on survey data has been encouraged by open data committees worldwide. Nevertheless, repurposing data to new objectives is not an easy task, and it rises several methodological concerns. Coverage biases, lack of validity, access constraints are just some of the research problems that may be envisaged, and that have to be assessed.
The session specifically appreciates contributions that analyze data produced with aims others than research, as well as secondary analyses of data specifically designed for research.
Contributions that address the methodological challenges that are related to repurposing will also be very welcome. Anyone interested in presenting a paper should submit by 31st January 2021 an abstract by following the procedure at this webpage:
http://cyprusconferences.org/rc33/submission/