SELS presented the research results at the GESIS Computational Social Science Winter Symposium
The SELS staff and students presented their reports at the GESIS CSS Winter Symposium, which was dedicated to computational social science. The symposium was taking place in Cologne (Germany) from the 1st to the 3rd of December 2015.
Denis Bulygin presented his project on adaptation of players in the online games. He had already presented the methods of his study at the CHI Play conference in London, and here he presented the obtained results. Dasha Kharkina presented her research on political polarization in the Russian social network Vkontakte. In her presentation, she talked about dividing of the news communities to pro-government and opposing ones, and about organizing the political views of Russians in the online environment. Viktor Karepin spoke about the migration flows of students that occur between various countries of the post-Soviet space. Even though the presentations had to be short, the students clearly and concisely described their projects.
Dasha Kharkina shared with us her impressions of this trip: “Over those three days of the conference, I was able to talk to lots of people, and some of them I will remember for a long time. Take, for example, Annerose Nisser from the University of Konstanz (Germany) and her husband: I discussed my research at length with both of them. Her and my research interests lie in the same area. Later this discussion turned into a series of questions and answers: they still were researchers, but I became their source of information about the Russian reality. It was a long chat. We might talk much more but I had to hurry up, it was time for me to move to Utrecht. I also met Taha Yasseri from the Oxford Internet Institute. He presented his project on music, and we had much to discuss. We talked about difficulties in collecting data, and discussed possibilities for further directions of his project. We agreed to keep in touch with each other.
”In addition to the main body of the conference, with presentations and poster sessions, the participants also could attend various workshops. The members of the SELS staff have attended one of them, “Combining Manual and Computational Text and Content Analysis”, which was organized by Cornelius Puschmann, a research fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG). The participants discussed possibilities of combining different approaches in the analysis of text documents. This method might be useful in sociological research as well.
Five second-year students of the Department of Sociology attended the conference as members of audience. They were asking questions, getting acquainted with the conference participants, and their student projects in an informal setting. The poster session was particularly convenient for this purpose, as they were able to get acquainted with various researchers. One of the students, Irina Krylova, got acquainted with Christof Wolf, the supervisor of the GESIS - Leibnitz Institute for the Social Sciences, and talked with him about the studies of urban space.
Maria Sergeeva told us about this trip: “At first, it was very hard to get out of your comfort zone and to start talking with people, about whom you know how successful they are in their research areas. But after a while you would realize that everyone around you wants to communicate, and I was pleasantly surprised to find out that they are especially attentive to the students who haven’t yet completed their bachelor’s degree. I was able to chat with Stefano Ugliano, a student of the Master's program in the University of Bonn (Germany). He kindly agreed to keep in touch with us on one of the future projects on gamification; he also said that he is inspired to see so many interested people from Russia, and this makes him think about visiting St. Petersburg.”
After Cologne, we all took a train to Utrecht (Holland). Daniel A. Alexandrov organized a meeting with Ineke Maas, the head of the Master's program on sociology and social research at the Utrecht University. At this meeting she talked about the program and the procedure for admission. The students asked a lot of questions. After that, they all went out for a stroll around the campus. It should be noted that the HSE students regularly participate in various schools organized by the Utrecht University. For example, in 2012, Professor Frank van Tubergen came with a visit to SELS. His research focus lies with migrational studies.
On the whole, this trip has left a lasting impression. The four- and five-year students, who were giving their presentations, received a valuable feedback and advice about their projects, and the younger students got valuable experience and a goal to strive for. Everyone made there useful contacts. And, of course, we enjoyed our walks around Utrecht, Amsterdam, and Cologne.
By Maria Sergeeva and Denis Bulygin