11ICSSM Traning courses and Workshops
Literature Synthesis and Bibliometric Analysis: A Hands-On Workshop (Aria, Spano, Cuccurullo)
Training Course
The growing volume of scientific publications is expanding at an unprecedented pace, rendering it increasingly difficult for researchers to stay abreast of developments across disciplines. Additionally, the prevailing emphasis on empirical contributions often leads to fragmented knowledge production, thereby hindering cumulative scientific progress. In this context, stand-alone research reviews play a pivotal role in synthesizing prior findings, consolidating the knowledge base, and informing future research trajectories and practices through evidence-based insights.
To address these challenges, researchers employ diverse methods of research synthesis, encompassing both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Among these, bibliometric techniques have emerged as particularly valuable, offering systematic, objective, transparent, and reproducible means to map and analyze large bodies of literature. Bibliometric analyses are especially suited for the structured examination of extensive datasets.
This workshop pursues two core objectives: first, to familiarize participants with the principal sources of scientific metadata and their specific characteristics; second, to demonstrate and apply bibliometric techniques for research synthesis. In this regard, the workshop will integrate the use of Bibliometrix and its user-friendly web interface, Biblioshiny, as well as the TALL (Text Analysis for All) software for enhanced textual analysis. Participants will be guided through the entire process—from data retrieval and preprocessing to advanced analysis and visualization—culminating in the production of a bibliometric research report on a selected topic. A particular emphasis will be placed on literature synthesis supported by these tools, thereby equipping participants with practical and methodological competencies for conducting rigorous and impactful research reviews.
Keywords: Research Synthesis, Literature Review, Bibliometrix, TALL – Text Analysis for All
Massimo Aria, University of Naples Federico II, massimo.aria@unina.it, Italy
Maria Spano, University of Naples Federico II, maria.spano@unina.it, Italy
Corrado Cuccurullo, University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, cuccurullocorrado@gmail.com, Italy
Sociological Engagements with Large Language Models (Carr, Ogden)
Training Course
Since the launch of Chat GPT in November 2022, large language models (LLMs) have proliferated and rapidly become embedded in a range of everyday applications from search engines to media content creation and business functions. More specifically, LLMs feature increasingly on the sociological research landscape, formally embedded in bespoke tools (e.g. for bibliographic management or free text analysis) and informally used for literature reviews, writing abstracts, book reviews and even journal articles. As research agencies become actively interested in LLMs as a means increase ‘value for money’ in social science research, questions about their longer term implications for research funding become pressing.
It is essential that sociologists develop an in-depth, evidence based assessment of LLMs as a research tool and their position within the sociological methods repertoire.
This training session takes a critical sociological perspective on the uses, abuses and potentials of LLMs as a research tool. It will begin with an introductory overview of some of the methodological challenges that LLMs pose for sociological research (30 minutes). The remainder of the session (90 minutes) will offer a curated and supported hands-on session to develop skills for critical engagement and practical experimentation with the use of an LLM as a sociological phenomenon and a sociological method. “
Keywords: Large Language Models/Chatbots, critical interrogation, practical skills
Leslie Carr, University of Southampton, lac@ecs.soton.ac.uk, UK
Jessica Ogden, University of Bristol, jessica.ogden@bristol.ac.uk, UK
Hearing Silences in Qualitative Interview (Hsiung)
Ph.D. Workshop
When conducting qualitative interviews, researchers are ready to hear informants’ narratives that align with common assumptions, idiosyncratic concepts, or their own theoretical frameworks. Accounts falling outside these pre-existing boundaries become inaudible and overlooked. This PhD workshop will illustrate strategies I’ve developed to help students recognize the mechanisms of silencing and hear these silenced accounts.
Keywords: qualitative interview, hearing silences
Ping-Chun Hsiung, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, pc.hsiung@utoronto.ca, Canada
Research Data Management in the social sciences: from theory to practice (Pisano)
Ph.D. Workshop
This workshop provides an introduction to Research Data Management (RDM) in the social sciences, focusing on best practices to ensure that empirical data are well organised, well structured, high quality and FAIR. The first objective of the workshop is to provide participants with sufficient knowledge of the main aspects related to appropriate research data management: technical, legal and ethical aspects, secure storage of materials, documentation and metadata, sharing of research data, reuse of data shared by others and more. Secondly, the workshop will enable participants to learn how to plan and make informed decisions about how to manage data, both during and after the end of the research project.
The PhD workshop will be organised in two parts: a theoretical introduction, presenting the main aspects of research data management, the FAIR principles and some examples of supporting research infrastructures; a practical and interactive section, organised in groups, in which participants will create a draft Data Management Plan (DMP) for their own research project, discussing the most problematic or controversial issues.
Keywords: Research Data Management; FAIR; Data Management Plan; Data Sharing
Carlo Pisano University of Milano-Bicocca carlo.pisano@unimib.it