Digital lab for the social sciences

Digitalni laboratorij za družboslovce

Course credits:

6.00 ECTS / 60 (30 hours of lectures, 30 hours of exercises, 0 hours of seminars, 0 hours other forms of work)

Course holder:

izr. prof. dr. Vesna Dolničar

Lecturers:

• Tch. Asst. Dr. May Doušak
• Assoc. Prof. Andraž Petrovčič

Type:

Elective - expert

Language:

Slovenian

Semester:

Second semester

Study degree

1. level

Course execution:

• Undergraduate Programme of Communication studies - Marketing Communication and Public Relations
• Undergraduate Programme of Cultural studies - Studies of Culture and Creativity
• Undergraduate Programme of Defence Studies
• Undergraduate Programme of International Relations
• Undergraduate Programme of Journalism
• Undergraduate Programme of Media and Communication Studies
• Undergraduate Programme of Political Science - Public Policies and Sdministration
• Undergraduate Programme of Political Science - Studies of Politics and the State
• Undergraduate Programme of Sociology
• Undergraduate Programme of Sociology - Human Resources Management

Short content

The course will address the following topics: • Introduction to the technical functioning of the computers on the conceptual and practical level, whereby students will get to know concepts such as computer system, hardware, software and operating systems and will get familiar with the principles of managing file systems (including file protection and security). • Basic knowledge on internet protocols and services, domain name spaces, internet network architecture and web 2.0, internet of things and mobile internet. Basics of back-office and front-end systems and the main types of programming languages (mainly markup, scripting and high level). • Key differences in functionalities and content of different types of web sites and services (e.g. social networks, intranet), designed for different purposes of use (e.g. organizational collective action, social inclusion and political participation, production and cooperation, marketing). • Basic principles of legal and ethical ascpects of ICT usage: copyright, privacy, public information access. • Practical principles of effective use of the tools for virtual collaboration in the study process (e.g. selection of the service, file organization and construction of the archive, forms of communication, the principles of allocating users’ rights, reminders strategy etc.), including cloud services for storing and editing data and for group project work. • Functioning of search engines and browsers, searching strategies and assessment and critical evaluation of various categories of internet resources with regard to credibility, accuracy, reliability, objectivity, actuality, appropriateness and relevancy. • Knowledge and use of internet information databases, with particular emphasis on the bibliographic bases (Mrežnik NUK, Google Scholar, Research Gate) and publicly available online repositories of data in the field of social sciences (e.g. ADP, GGP, ESS, PEW). Based on the practical examples, students will learn about the principles of availability and data quality assessment and will be capable to autonomously retrieve and analyse the data using online tools and to export the data in the most common data file formats (e.g. dat, xls, csv). • Using the internet to collect and analyse social science data and knowledge of the tools to analyse quantitative and qualitative data. • Getting acquainted with the software for working with spreadsheets and use of statistical software packages to analyse and display the data.