Summer School
Since 2021 the Centre for Data, Culture, & Society has run an annual summer school focused on hands-on computational methods for data and text analysis.
These week-long intensive events have taken different shapes across the years but each version has focused on helping researchers from higher education institutions develop their digital and computational skills.
![Graphic mashup - Calton Hill, Edinburgh-8002418 [Chris Close]](/files/styles/large_16x9/public/2023-03/SummerSchool_Header_1.png?itok=lrqqI_BO)
Probably the most interesting and useful training course I have been on in my career. An incredible opportunity.
- Attendee, Summer School 2022
Audience & Prerequisites
Our summer schools are primarily aimed at researchers from Scottish higher education institutions with a marked interest in developing their digital and computational skills. We also consider Scotland-based professionals applications who are keen to upskill in digital methods.
The hands-on classes offered involve live coding either in R or Python. Depending on the stream, the courses will either require no previous knowledge or some general knowledge of software interfaces and coding.
Application Process
Thanks to the support of the Edinburgh Future Institute and the ongoing collaboration with the Scottish Graduate School of Social Sciences we have been able to keep attendance to the summer school free of charge to attendees. However, places are limited and will be allocated based on an application form, which is designed to identify the researchers that would most benefit from attending the course.
Timeline
- November - Organisation starts
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February/March - Call for applications opens
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April - Call for application closes
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Early May - Applicant selections
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June - Summer school takes place
2021
We held our first summer school in June 2021. Delivered online and with support from the Scottish Graduate School for Social Sciences, it was attended by academic researchers and professionals from across Scotland. Participants were able to choose between ten blocks of teaching, tailoring their own pathway, while also being given a choice between R and Python as coding languages. It was funded by the Data-Driven Innovation Initiative as part of their ‘Building Back Better’ open funding programme, and supported by the Scottish Funding Council Covid-19 Recovery funding to the University of Edinburgh.
Read more about the 2021 summer school
2022
After the success of our online summer school in 2021, we ran our first in-person summer schools. With support from the Scottish Graduate School for Social Sciences and EFI we were able to offer it for free to academic researchers and professionals from across Scotland and beyond. Participants benefitted from presentations and hands-on coding activities in R on the topics of OCR, text analysis, web scraping, sentiment analysis, descriptive statistics, null hypothesis testing, regression, mixed effects modelling, and data visualisation. We ended each day with a BYOD (bring your own data) activity where attendees had the opportunity to work on their own data and get support and feedback from others.
Read more about the 2022 summer school
![Graphic mashup - Calton Hill, Edinburgh-8002418 [Chris Close]](/files/styles/medium_16x9/public/2023-03/SummerSchool_Header_1.png?itok=xp2Ct1cs)
2023
In 2023 we expanded and developed the summer school to cater to a wider array of skill levels: we hosted two streams, one for for researchers with no prior knowledge of coding and data analysis, and another designed to help researchers with coding experience understand how data and text analysis projects are performed in a research environment. With a packed schedule covering all things data analysis and a variety of social events, attendees told us that the week was both invaluable and enjoyable.