SAGE Publishing launches online data science courses for social scientists

London, UK. Today’s researchers need a range of new skills to embrace the data revolution. To support social science researchers and equip them with these skills, SAGE Publishing has launched SAGE Campus, a new series of online data science courses.

“SAGE is passionate about social science research and we believe a major shift is taking place as a result of the increasing availability of data and the advances in tools and methods for analyzing massive datasets. SAGE Campus courses are one of the ways that SAGE is responding to these changes – by offering social scientists who want to learn data science skills courses tailored to their needs”, commented Katie Metzler, Head of Methods Innovation at SAGE.

In 2016, SAGE and the University of Essex conducted a survey of over 9,000 academics with the aim of learning more about how big data is being used in social science research. The survey revealed that although there was a considerable appetite among researchers to work with big data, a number of barriers stood in their way, including a lack of skills.  This is where SAGE Campus comes in; created in partnership with world-leading institutions, and with expert learning support from instructors available throughout, the online courses offer social scientists the key data science and programming skills they need to take advantage of the opportunities big data presents.

Launched in September, the first set of courses include:

• Introduction to Applied Data Science Methods for Social Scientists, in association with the Social Science Data Lab (D-Lab) at the University of California, Berkeley
• Introduction to Python for Social Scientists, in association with the Royal Statistical Society
• Practical Data Management with R for Social Scientists
• Interactive Visualization with R for Social Scientists, in association with the Royal Statistical Society
• Fundamentals of Quantitative Text Analysis for Social Scientists, in association with Essex Summer School of Social Science Data Analysis, University of Essex

Martha Sedgwick, Executive Director of Product Management, additionally remarked:

“As a key methods publisher for more than four decades, it is our firm belief at SAGE that supporting the development of research methodology is vital to making a positive, lasting impact on societal issues and challenges. As the practice of both teaching and conducting research continues to evolve, our aim is to provide the expert guidance and publishing innovations which will support researchers well into the future. The launch of SAGE Campus is a major step towards this goal and we look forward to seeing the impact that the courses have on the development of future social science research.”

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Find out more about SAGE Campus.

Read the SAGE whitepaper ‘Who is Doing Computational Social Science: Trends in Big Data Research’.

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Sara Miller McCune founded SAGE Publishing in 1965 to support the dissemination of usable knowledge and educate a global community. SAGE is a leading international provider of innovative, high-quality content publishing more than 1,000 journals and over 800 new books each year, spanning a wide range of subject areas. Our growing selection of library products includes archives, data, case studies and video. SAGE remains majority owned by our founder and after her lifetime will become owned by a charitable trust that secures the company’s continued independence. Principal offices are located in Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore, Washington DC and Melbourne. www.sagepublishing.com