The next FORS Lunch Seminar will be held on Tuesday, February 11, from 12:45 to 13:45 in Room 5621 of the Geopolis building.

Auriane Marmier, Ph.D. Senior Researcher at FORS will present the following research

Title: Open Government Data: Holy Grail or Pandora’s Box ?

Abstract: With the recent rise of social media, ever faster developments in information technology and the race for innovation, the volume of data is constantly increasing. While digital-native giants such as Facebook and Uber have built their fortunes on collecting and processing data, the daily activities of businesses and governments also generate, collect and store vast amounts of data. In recent years, public organisations have become by far one of the richest data holders, holding archives of historical and current data. In light of this, since 2008, many governments have launched OGD platforms. By 2013, more than 280 OGD catalogues had been created and more than one million datasets had been published on OGD platforms. However, despite this increase in platforms, OGD are still little known to researchers and other potential stakeholders.

Therefore, this presentation aims to explore the Swiss OGD landscape and its benefits. After defining what OGD is – and what it is not – the presentation will focus on key issues, including the historical context of OGD, examining national policies, legal frameworks and their impact on federal institutions, and presenting some concrete applications of OGD reuse. The presentation will also highlight the opportunities and challenges that OGD presents to data-driven centers such as FORS. While OGD offers new opportunities to enrich research and foster collaboration, it also highlights the need for advanced data management strategies to address interoperability and discoverability issues. The presentation will conclude with a discussion of the challenges that OGD has met and continues to face.

There will be coffee and tea as well as a bit of dessert. Please bring your cup and join us a few minutes before the start of the seminar to get your drink!

Upcoming FORS lunch seminars:

• Save April 8 for the FORS lunch seminar with Elie Michel, PhD, Research Associate at FORS and the University of Lausanne
• May 13, with Christina Bornatici, Max Felder, Lavinia Gianettoni, Roxane Mordasini, Stephanie Steinmetz
• May 27, with Meret Hildebrandt, Data service expert at FORS

 To stay up to date concerning the FORS Lunch Seminars, check our website: https://forscenter.ch/events-training/fors-lunch-seminars/

The Love Data Week is a global event dedicated to highlighting the importance of research data and research data management (RDM). Since 2021, several higher education institutions in Switzerland have participated in Love Data Week, offering workshops, talks, and events—primarily online. These activities aim to raise awareness about RDM, promote tools and best practices, and provide guidance for researchers and research support personnel in effectively managing research data.

FORS is pleased to contribute to this year’s Love Data Week with the following free online presentations:

Advancing Open Science: Replication Challenges and the FORS Replication Service
Monday, 10 February 2025
13:30–13:45
Digital
This session addresses the challenges of replication, its role in scientific transparency, and the FORS Replication Service—a tool dedicated to sharing replication materials.
More information: https://www.researchdatasupport.ch/node/226

How to Deposit Your Data on SWISSUbase
Monday, 10 February 2025
09:30–10:15
Digital
A live demonstration on how to use SWISSUbase for data sharing and preservation, including an introduction to the platform and a Q&A session.
More information: https://www.researchdatasupport.ch/node/242

Services Offered by FORS for Data Sharing, Preservation, and Re-Use
Tuesday, 11 February 2025
14:00–14:30
Digital
Discover the comprehensive services offered by FORS and SWISSUbase to support data sharing and re-use, with hands-on advice tailored to researchers’ needs.
More Information: https://www.researchdatasupport.ch/node/241

All Love Data Week events can be found here:
https://www.researchdatasupport.ch/lovedata

FORS und DaSCH (Swiss National Data and Service Center for the Humanities) bieten eine neue Reihe kostenloser Online-Webinare zum Datenmanagement für Forschende in den Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften an.

Das zweite Webinar, FAIR & CARE Principles, findet am 5. Februar 2025 (14:00–15:30 Uhr) statt und wird von Noemi Villars (DaSCH) und Meret Hildebrandt (FORS) geleitet. Es behandelt zunächst die Theorie hinter den FAIR- und CARE-Prinzipien, bevor ihre praktische Anwendung anhand von zwei Fallstudien veranschaulicht wird. Das Webinar endet mit einer 30-minütigen Diskussion.

Zur Anmeldung

Weitere Informationen

The next Lunch Seminar will be held on February 4, 2025 with the winner of the FORS Data Re-use Award Dr. Nathalie Vigna.

Location: UNIL, Géopolis, Room 5621, from 12:45 to 13:45.

Nathalie Vigna PhD, post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Milan, will present her paper entitled Who is ready to pay for protecting the environment? Social and spatial divides in Europe.

In her research, based on two large-scale comparative surveys from FORS, the ISSP 2020 and ESS 2016,  Nathalie Vigna analyses the relationship between spatial and social stratification and willingness to pay for environmental policies. She shows consistent differences between socioeconomic groups and types of places from 13 European countries. Based on several indicators of socioeconomic position – education, class, household income – Nathalie Vigna’s research points to the fact that the least privileged groups of society are much less willing to pay higher taxes to protect the environment or mitigate climate change. This finding is observed for all the countries studied. It is also visible when using an alternative dependent variable based on a question asking people whether they would pay higher prices to protect the environment.

Furthermore, Nathalie Vigna highlights the intersection of social and spatial inequalities: willingness to pay is highest among upper-middle-class residents of urban centers, while residents of peripheral regions display lower levels of support.

Nathalie Vigna’s research further contributes to the knowledge of environmental policy support by showing that these differences are only partially explained by the different levels of environmental concern or different beliefs about climate change across the social hierarchy. Her research has important implications for public policy, as raising awareness of climate change is not enough to make the most vulnerable people willing to contribute through personal costs. Environmental policy-makers can only seek public consensus by addressing social inequalities or providing progressive compensation.

The data underlying their research is available on SWISSUbase:
–https://www.swissubase.ch/en/catalogue/studies/13102/latest/datasets/929/1396/overview
–https://www.swissubase.ch/en/catalogue/studies/13953/latest/datasets/1232/2079/overview

To stay up to date concerning the FORS Lunch Seminars, check our website: https://forscenter.ch/events-training/fors-lunch-seminars/

Dear all,

We are pleased to invite you to the next Methods and Research Meeting organized by FORS and SSP/UNIL. It will take place in room 5779 at Géopolis building, University of Lausanne on Tuesday 26th November 2024 from 12:15 to 13:30.

We welcome Joshua Yang from the Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences. Computational Social Science at ETH Zurich.

He will give a presentation on the following topic:

LLM Voting: Human Choices and AI Collective Decision-Making

Abstract

AI is increasingly shaping our democratic decisions. While AI-generated content can mislead voters, there are also efforts to explore whether AI can support human decision-making, such as through summarisation, recommendation, or compensating for human biases. Our research, here at the Computational Social Science lab in ETH Zurich, delves into this reality from a social choice perspective, exploring how incorporating large language models (LLM) like GPT-4 into our democratic process could influence democracy. The methodologies used in this research include participatory budgeting experiments in which human participants and AI models were asked to allocate resources using various voting methods, such as approval voting, ranked voting, and cumulative voting. Additionally, persona construction and chain-of-thought prompting were employed to understand how AI models like GPT-4 make decisions under different contextual influences.
The results provide insights into the dynamics of how LLM interacts with voting methods, affects representation, and even risks narrowing democratic diversity. AI holds promise for supporting decision-making and improving voter engagement, but how can we ensure that AI contributes positively to democratic values? What role should it play as we continue to navigate its impact on our society? These are questions we must address before we can harness AI’s potential in democratic processes.

We look forward to this presentation.

The organizing committee:

Jacques-Antoine Gauthier 

Oliver Lipps

Davide Morselli

Stephanie Steinmetz

https://forscenter.ch/events-training/methods-and-research-meetings/

Advanced skills for research data management and open science in the social sciences

Elevate your research in today’s data-driven world by gaining critical skills in Research Data Management (RDM) and Open Science. This program, led by experts from the Università della Svizzera italiana, the University of Lausanne and FORS, offers two options to fit your needs:

On the campus of Lugano: Immerse yourself in a dynamic learning environment (25th-29th November 2024, Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano).
Online: This course already took place between the 26th-30th August 2024  and on the 9th September 2024.

Gain the knowledge and tools to:

• Manage your research data effectively throughout its lifecycle.
• Understand and apply FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) for data quality and sharing.
• Develop a robust Data Management Plan (DMP) tailored to your research project.
• Navigate data ethics and privacy considerations to ensure responsible research practices.
• Implement data security measures and explore long-term storage solutions.
• Leverage data sharing and open science practices to maximise research impact and collaboration.
• Foster reproducible research through best practices in data documentation and citation.

This immersive experience goes beyond theory, providing practical exercises and workshops to directly apply your learnings to your ongoing research. Bring your own data (or research ideas) and actively engage with instructors and peers (on-campus) or fellow online participants.

Gain a competitive edge by enhancing your research efficiency, publication potential, and collaboration skills.

Course fee: CHF 500.-

Limited spots available!

More information and registration

The CNES Seminar Series casts a spotlight on different National Election Studies that share their experiences in designing and conducting election studies.

Participation is free and open to everyone interested in the practices and methodological aspects of electoral research.

Third edition: “Online Panels in National Election Studies: Opportunities and Challenges”

12th of November 2024, 16:00-17:30 (UTC/GMT +1)

PROGRAMME

Chair: Ana Espirito-Santo, Portuguese Electoral Behaviour Programme (CEP)

Participation is free but registration is mandatory. The deadline for registration is November 8, 2024.
Howerer you can  register here.

Further information on CNES: https://www.cnes.community/

We are looking forward to welcoming you for two weeks of learning in August at the beautiful campus of Università della Svizzera italiana in Lugano!

The next SHP workshop will take place in Lausanne between June 4^th and June 7^th, 2024.

On June 4^th, 2024, the SHP-team will give an introduction to the Swiss Household Panel study and data management with SPSS. We will present the structure of the SHP and the organization of the SHP data files. In hands-on sessions, we will construct several data files that will help analyze SHP data.
Participation in this workshop is free of charge.

Between June 5^th and 7^th, 2024, Prof. Matthias Studer, Prof. Emer. Gilbert Ritschard and Dr. Kevin Emery from the University of Geneva will give a course on sequence data analysis. Participation in this workshop costs 250.- CHF.

You will find more information and the prerequisites here.

Please register here.

Note that the number of participants is limited to guarantee optimal learning and teaching conditions. The application deadline is May 27^th, 2024.

Am 4. & 5. September 2024 findet das 10. Schweizer Methodenfestival für qualitative Forschungsmethoden in St. Gallen statt. In insgesamt 15 Forschungsateliers können sich Interessierte über den aktuellen Stand verschiedener Methoden informieren und ihre Fragen sowie teilweise auch ihre eigenen Projekte mit ausgewiesenen Expertinnen und Experten diskutieren.

Am Methodenfestival sind qualitative Sozialforschende aus der Schweiz als auch aus dem Ausland willkommen.

In insgesamt 15 Forschungsateliers können sich Interessierte über den aktuellen Stand verschiedener Methoden informieren und ihre Fragen sowie teilweise auch ihre eigenen Projekte mit ausgewiesenen Expertinnen und Experten diskutieren. Am Methodenfestival sind qualitative Sozialforschende aus der Schweiz als auch aus dem Ausland willkommen.

Mit einer Keynote und zwei Forschungsateliers bildet «künstliche Intelligenz» in der qualitativen Sozialforschung dieses Jahr einen besonderen Schwerpunkt.

Programm und weitere Informationen: 

https://qualitative-research.ch/10-schweizer-methodenfestival/

Anmeldung: unter https://forms.gle/Ffof7zzxtjiSFrTW7

Anmeldungsschluss: 26. Mai 2024 (Mitternacht)

Die Eidgenössischen Jugendbefragungen ch-x sind eine Institution des Eidgenössischen Departements für Verteidigung, Bevölkerungsschutz und Sport (VBS). Sie geben seit 1971 in wissenschaftlicher Form Aufschluss über die Lage der jungen Erwachsenen in der Schweiz hinsichtlich

• Bildung, Ausbildung, Berufseinstieg,
• Wertvorstellungen, Lebensziele, allgemeine Lebensbedingungen sowie politische Kompetenzen und Einstellungen,
• Gesundheit und Sport.

Die ch-x führen jedes Jahr schweizweit repräsentative Erhebungen bei jungen Erwachsenen beiderlei Geschlechts durch. Ihre Erhebungen werden in der Regel von Hochschulinstitutionen durchgeführt. Die Projekte erstrecken sich über zwei Jahre und erfassen alle stellungspflichtigen jungen Männer der Schweiz (Alter: überwiegend 19) sowie eine grosse Frauenstichprobe (ca. 12’000 Frauen pro Jahr) von nichtdienstpflichtigen 19-jährigen Frauen, zusammen bis zu 80’000 Personen pro Jahr.

Für die Erhebung 2026/2027 suchen die ch-x eine Forscherin bzw. einen Forscher, die/der das Projekt auf der Grundlage eines von ihr/ihm entwickelten Konzeptes innerhalb der Vorgaben ch-x durchführt.

Eingabefrist: 15. April 2024

Detaillierte Informationen zum Projekt und zur Einreichung.

We are delighted to inform you about a series of dedicated sessions scheduled for the Love Data Week Switzerland, taking place from the 12th to the 16th of February 2024.

In the Love Data Week Switzerland, we are eager to highlight specific workshops that offer valuable insights into data management practices. These sessions are meticulously curated to address the needs of researchers seeking to enhance their understanding of data publication and sharing.

All talks: https://www.zhbluzern.ch/love-data-week

Tuesday, 13 February

How to Publish Data on the Language Repository of Switzerland (LaRS)
09:30 – 10:00 CET
Zoom, Talk in English
This event introduces the Language Repository of Switzerland (LaRS), powered by SWISSUbase. It is aimed at researchers in the field of Linguistics who would like to learn in a short tutorial how to publish their data on the repository in a few simple steps.
-Stefanie Strebel, University of Zurich

Wednesday, 14 February

Publier ses données de recherche sur SWISSUbase en 15 minutes
12:30 – 12:45 CET
Teams, Workshop in French
Destiné aux chercheur.euse de l’Université de Lausanne et de l’Université de Neuchâtel, cet atelier propose une démonstration en ligne du processus de dépôt de données dans SWISSUbase. En fin de démonstration, un temps sera consacré aux questions/réponses.
-Carmen Jambé / Quentin Gallis, Université de Lausanne / Université de Neuchâtel

Sharing social science research data via SWISSUbase
14:00 – 14:30 CET
Zoom, Workshop in English
You love your social science data and plan to share them with researchers but don’t know exactly how that works? Do you want to learn more about sharing sensitive data? Do you have other questions about sharing your social science research data? If so, our mini-workshop is for you. In this mini-workshop, we will give an overview of the services FORS offers and then provide you with a short demonstration of how to deposit social science data via SWISSUbase. In the second part, you will get the chance to ask questions related to sharing your own data and get hands-on advice. If you want to get familiar with SWISSUbase for social science data before, we recommend you watch this video.
-Meret Hildebrandt / Marielle Kappeler / Marieke Heers (FORS

Thursday, 15 February

Discover DataGo: a tool for assessing the shareability of personal and sensitive data
9:30 – 9:45 CET
Zoom (Passcode: 67874682), Workshop in English
DataGo is a new tool for assessing the shareability of personal and sensitive data through an archive. The presentation is targeting social science researchers who have already collected their data as well as anyone involved in the provision of data management support (i.e. data stewards, data librarians, research consultants).
-Pablo Diaz / Alexandra Stam (University of Lausanne / FORS)

International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) and 3D
10:00 – 10:45 CET
Zoom, Talk in English
The use of open standards removes unnecessary barriers and allows for interoperability. IIIF is a set of open standards for delivering digital objects such as images, audios, videos, and 3D data. In this talk I will present the advantages of the IIIF standard and the attempts to define a IIIF standard for 3D objects.
-Rita Gautschy (DaSCH)

The next SSP-FORS Methods and Research Seminar will take place on Tuesday 30th of January 2024 (room 5799 Geopolis 12:15 to 13:30). 

Florian Keusch from the University of Mannheim,will give a presentation on the following topic:

Quality of Digital Behavioral Data

Digital behavioral data that stem from people’s interactions with online systems such as web sites, apps, and wearables are increasingly used in the social sciences to supplement or even substitute traditional survey data. While the hope is that these new type of data provides more detailed information that is less influendes by human social-psychological mechanisms involved in self-reporting, there is still little systematic researcher on their error properties. In this talk, I will present the results of a recent experimental study in Germany that explores the data quality of digital behavioral data from web trackers, apps, and data donation vis a vis survey self-reports.

Florian Keusch is Professor of Social Data Science and Methodology in the Sociology Department, School of Social Sciences at the University of Mannheim, and Adjunct Research Professor in the Joint Program in Survey Methodology at the University of Maryland. He studies the quality of digital behavioral data from wearbales, apps, and sensors and how they can complement survey data to better measure attitudes, behaviors, and social interactions.

We look forward to your participation.

The organizing committee:

Jacques-Antoine Gauthier 

Oliver Lipps

Davide Morselli

Stephanie Steinmetz

https://forscenter.ch/events-training/methods-and-research-meetings/

Are you involved in the provision of data management support to social science researchers in Swiss research institutions? Do researchers ask you for advice on how to comply with open data requirements? Are you dealing with questions such as:

• “Do my research materials include personal data?”
• “Can research materials including personal data be shared with other researchers or for teaching?”
• “What are the conditions for sharing research materials including personal data in a data repository?”
• “What are the different options for complying with open data requirements?”

Format: Presentations by FORS and Unil staff members + Q&A sessions
Audience: Support staff, data stewards, librarians, research consultants, anyone involved in the provision of data management support

During this half-day event, the FORS data management support team, in collaboration with the research office of the University of Lausanne, will provide you with practical guidance on how to assess the shareability of research data, including personal and sensitive data, both quantitative and qualitative. The focus of the workshop will be on data that have already been collected, and which are intended to be shared in a data repository, such as SWISSUbase.

Detailed information and registration:  https://forscenter.ch/sharing-personal-data-through-a-data-repository/

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS: ISSP USER CONFERENCE ON ENVIRONMENT

The International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) is delighted to announce its second ISSP User Conference, scheduled to be held online on December 4, 2023, and focusing on the topic of Environment. The Call for Abstracts is currently open, with a submission deadline set for October 20, 2023.

Access the call here: Call-for-Abstracts_ISSP-User-Conference.pdf.

For more information about the ISSP, please visit: www.issp.org