This edition of the National Institute of Science and Technology in Digital Democracy (INCT.DD) Summer School will offer seven courses in digital research methods from February 10 to 21, 2025.
The courses are R, Machine Learning, Python, Orange, Iramuteq, Content Analysis, and Interviewing. All courses are fully online and require no previous training in the subjects. Participants can register here. Fees range from R$75.00 to R$150.00 per course, depending on the number of teaching hours. Certificates will be issued.
The Summer School is organized by INCT.DD in partnership with the Brazilian Association of Researchers in Communication and Politics (Compolítica). The project began in 2019 and has trained more than 500 students.
The Summer School offers full scholarships to members of the organizing institutions. To apply, complete this form.
Details:
What: 7 courses in digital research methods.
When: February 10–21, 2025.
Where: Online via Google Meet.
Who: Open to all; no previous training in the subjects is required.
How: Register here.
Questions: contato@inctdd.org
See the full schedule and course descriptions:
Iramuteq (February 10–12, 9 a.m.–noon)
Professor Lucy Oliveira, PhD (UFSCar)
This course introduces textual and content analysis using Iramuteq (Interface de R pour les Analyses Multidimensionnelles de Textes et de Questionnaires). It covers the differences between content analysis and textual analysis and how they can be combined; use of Iramuteq and the statistical foundations of its analyses; and Iramuteq as a computational tool for text and content analysis. Sessions include theory and practice.
Content Analysis (February 10–12, 6–8 p.m.)
Professor Rafael Cardoso Sampaio, PhD (UFPR)
The course introduces students to scientific quantitative content analysis. It presents the main rules for developing codes and analytical categories, including a suitable codebook. It then covers good practices for training coders. Finally, it addresses the importance of intercoder reliability testing and introductory ways to conduct it according to international standards. The course briefly examines the foundations of the method’s scientific character, including replicability, reliability, and validity.
Introduction to Data Analysis with Orange (February 12–14, 3–5 p.m.)
Professor Eduardo Grizenti (UFBA)
We face an unprecedented volume of information. Social sciences benefit from the variety and easy availability of data, but must also find collection and analysis methods that can handle this large volume. The course introduces Orange, a program that uses Python and provides an intuitive way to perform unsupervised analyses of different corpora through text mining. It covers importing, preparing, and exploring a corpus using word frequencies and word clouds, concordances, topic modeling, and proximity.
Introduction to Python (February 17–21, 9–11 a.m.)
Professor Sivaldo Pereira, PhD (UnB)
The course is for humanities researchers with no programming experience. It provides an introduction to data science and programming for research through Python algorithms, with a focus on the Pandas library. Practical work will use open government datasets. The course considers the social use and reuse of structured data for public transparency, the design of academic research, reports and studies with data visualization, and the foundations of application development.
Introduction to Machine Learning (February 17–19, 3–5 p.m.)
Professor Alexandre Teles (INCT.DD)
The course covers machine learning and artificial intelligence, focusing on practical applications using large language models (LLMs). Students will learn about synthetic data generation, including structured JSON data and validation with LLMs. The course also covers text classification models, including zero-shot and few-shot classification, Sentence Transformers, and SetFit for binary and multiclass classification. Finally, it explores techniques for training LLMs, distinguishing base models from instruction-fine-tuned models, and preparing data in ShareGPT format.
R for Text Analysis (February 17–21, 6–9 p.m.)
Professor Crysttian Arantes Paixão, PhD (UFBA)
R is one of the most versatile programming languages and is used for many different tasks. The course covers its main commands and the installation and configuration of the working environment. It also introduces the main R packages, their key commands, and their applications. Text processing uses several techniques to extract knowledge, some of which require a programming language. R has many resources to help with text processing. The course presents some of these resources and applies them to different texts to extract knowledge.
Interviewing: Theory and Practice (February 19–21, 3–5 p.m.)
Professor Valquíria Michela John, PhD (UFPR)
The course discusses interviewing as a research technique, covering types, concepts, and applications. It addresses ethical, theoretical, and methodological challenges in the use of interviews, as well as techniques for interview analysis.
Questions and suggestions: contato@inctdd.org