FORS and the Swiss National Data and Service Center for the Humanities DaSCH have launched a new series of free online data management webinars for researchers in the humanities and social sciences.

The third online webinar of the FORS-DaSCH series about Data Management for the Social Sciences and Humanities will take place on May 28, 2025 (2:00-3:30PM).

It is devoted to authority data, standards and metadata. Rita Gautschy (DaSCH) will introduce you to the advantages of using authority data and standards in the humanities which ensure consistency, interoperability and discoverability across datasets. By providing unique and standardized identifiers for entities such as persons, places, and works, authority data facilitates metadata linking and prevents ambiguities. Standards such as the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) for images and the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) for the encoding of texts enhance digital scholarship by enabling structured representation, annotation, and seamless integration of images and texts. The combination of authority data and standards ensures long-term data sustainability, machine readability and enhanced scholarly collaboration across disciplines.

Auriane Marmier (FORS) will focus on metadata in the social sciences and present an overview of widely used social science metadata standards, including the Data Documentation Initiative (DDI). She will highlight the specific features of DDI that make it particularly suitable for documenting social science data and present some of the products developed by DDI, such as the DDI Codebook and the DDI Lifecycle. The presentation will then introduce controlled vocabularies and thesauri commonly used in the social sciences (e.g., ISCO for occupations, ISCED for educational levels, and ELSST for social science concepts), and explain how they contribute to semantic clarity, data harmonization, and interoperability.

The webinar will conclude with a brief comparison of metadata practices in the humanities and social sciences, highlighting both common challenges and complementary approaches.

Registration

Register here for this webinar.

Further information on the series

This semester’s last FORS Lunch Seminar will be held on Tuesday, June 10, from 12:45 to 13:45 in Room 5621 – Geopolis building.

Meret Hildebrandt, Data service expert at FORS will talk about the FORS Replication Service

The FORS Replication Service is a free platform designed to support transparency and reproducibility in the social sciences. It enables researchers to share replication materials such as code, syntax, and metadata linked to published journal articles. Managed by FORS, this service complements the SWISSUbase data archive.

This presentation will introduce the FORS replication service and briefly reflect on the role of replication in advancing robust social science research.

In the discussion following the talk, we want to hear your opinion on using replication material, experiences on the deposit of replication material or hesitations to use the service for your own published articles.

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

Do you have questions about managing and sharing your social science research data? We’ve got answers!

Join Data Live, our new interactive monthly Q&A session hosted by the FORS Data Management and Archiving Services (DMAS) team. Whether you are facing challenges with your Data Management Plan, unsure about anonymisation, or wondering how and where to share your data, our experts are here to help – in real time.

When? Every second Thursday of the month, 13:00–14:00 CET
Where? Online via Zoom: https://unil.zoom.us/my/datalive
Language: English
No registration required

What can you ask?

Our DMAS team offers guidance tailored to social science researchers, with expertise across fields such as sociology, political science, education, psychology, economics, social work, and human geography. Ask us about:

• How to complete a Data Management Plan (DMP)
• What to include in a consent form
• Anonymisation: when and how
• Sharing data with personal information
• Best practices in data documentation
• Depositing your data with SWISSUbase
• Managing access to your datasets

If any of these questions sound familiar, don’t miss our upcoming sessions!

You will find further information on Data Live on this webpage

Planned sessions

• 12 June 2025
• 10 July 2025
• 14 August 2025
• 11 September 2025
• 9 October 2025
• 13 November 2025
• 11 December 2025

Whether you are a doctoral student, experienced researcher, or practitioner, the program caters to all levels and backgrounds. With a wide selection of courses covering diverse methodologies, participants can refresh, deepen, and expand their analytical toolkit.

Experts from FORS at the Summer School

This year, five FORS collaborators will be teaching the following courses:

📌 Introduction to STATA
📌 Survey Design and Implementation
📌 Longitudinal Analysis with Panel Data 

Register now and secure your spot: https://www.usi.ch/it/formazione/apprendimento-permanente/summer-winter-school/ssm/ssm

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.

Fourth edition: “Sampling in Challenging Circumstances: Strategies and Opportunities”

13th of May 2025, 15:00-16:30 (UTC/GMT +2)

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/

The next FORS Lunch Seminar will be held on Tuesday, April 8, from 12:45 to 13:45 in Room 5621 – Geopolis building.

Elie Michel PhD, Senior Researcher (FORS and UNIL) and Lukas Lauener (FORS, UNIL) will present the following research:

Title: Neutral to the shock? The relevance of the war in Ukraine during the 2023 Swiss Federal elections 

Abstract: The outbreak of the war in Ukraine in 2022, along with its economic and energy-related repercussions, shaped the political debate in Switzerland ahead of the 2023 National Elections. Yet, the electoral consequences of this multifaceted crisis remain understudied. This study examines how international crises, or “external shocks,” influence electoral behavior, a topic of ongoing debate with uncertain and sometimes contradictory findings. Crises can affect voter support for incumbents in two opposing ways. They may trigger a “rally-around-the-flag” effect, boosting support for the government due to heightened uncertainty and fear. However, this effect is often short-lived. Alternatively, retrospective voting theory suggests that voters assess government performance during crises and may punish incumbents for perceived mismanagement. The Swiss case presents a unique puzzle: all four major parties are represented in government, meaning they collectively hold power during crises. While voters can evaluate their overall performance, political responsibility is diffused, making it difficult to attribute success or failure to any single party. This article assesses whether the war in Ukraine and its economic and energy consequences influenced voter support in the 2023 Swiss elections. Did these crises decisively impact voter preferences? Did specific parties benefit from them? To address these questions, this study draws on data from the 2019–2023 Selects Panel Survey, which tracks a large, representative sample of citizens across multiple waves. Crucially, the panel surveys respondents both before and after the war in Ukraine and the energy crisis, allowing for a causal analysis of their effects on electoral behavior. By mitigating reverse causality and endogeneity risks, this study offers new insights into how external shocks shape electoral choices, contributing to broader debates on crisis politics and electoral accountability in modern democracies.

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

Upcoming FORS lunch seminar

May 13, 2025 with Christina Bornatici, Max Felder, Lavinia Gianettoni, Roxane Mordasini, Stephanie Steinmetz. The present the following research: Gender indicators in population surveys: Measuring assigned sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, and gender expression.

June 10, 2025 Meret Hildebrandt, Data service expert at FORS, will present the FORS Replication services.

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

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 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.

The registration is now closed.

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)

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

The 12th International Conference of Panel Data Users in Switzerland will take place on June 14-15, 2023 at the University of Lausanne.

This edition will include thematic sessions covering a wide variety of topics, such as health and well-being, education and labour market, families, gender, ethnic minorities and migration, politics and attitudes, survey methodology, and longitudinal methods. The program also includes a session on TREE data and one on health literacy using SHARE data.

Consult the scientific programme: https://forscenter.ch/12th-international-conference-of-panel-data-users-in-switzerland/

The registrations are now closed.

On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the law on advance directives (ADs) in the Swiss Civil Code (2013), the Advance Care Planning (ACP) Dialogue Workshop aims to examine the development, implementation, and use of ACP and ADs in Switzerland over the last ten years by adopting a public health approach. Academic experts from different fields (e.g., medicine, ethics, sociology, psychology, law, economics), professionals involved in ACP promotion and completion, and policy and public health stakeholders are invited to engage in a multidisciplinary exchange of views on the uptake of ACP and ADs in Switzerland, as well as their vision for the future. The workshop will result in a multidisciplinary, holistic, and multilevel picture of the past and current situation of ACP and ADs in Switzerland and the related challenges and recommendations for the future advancement of ACP practice and research. We organize the ACP Dialogue Workshop in collaboration with ACP-Swiss.

Workshop program

Concept

Register for the workshop

This is a public event but the number of places available is limited. Attendees are, therefore, asked to register for the event here:

https://wp.unil.ch/soins-anticipes/registration-form/

Dear colleagues,

The next FORS Lunch Seminar will take place on Tuesday, March 14, from 12:45 to 13:45 in Room 5899.

During the seminar the winners of the FORS Data Re-use Award 2022 Rita Schmutz (first prize) and Mengling Cheng (second prize) will present their work and receive their awards.

Rita Schmutz (LIVES, University of Lausanne) will present the following project:

Inequality of Educational Opportunity in Switzerland: Exploring Regional Differences and Institutional Factors

Abstract

This study provides estimates of inequality of educational opportunity (IEOp) in compulsory education in Switzerland using the 2016 Swiss large-scale assessments of basic competencies (ÜGK – COFO – VeCoF) dataset. IEOp measures the share of inequality in the distribution of educational performance that can only be attributed to students’ characteristics beyond their control (circumstances), such as their family socioeconomic status (SES), parental education, gender, and immigrant status. By employing a parametric ex-ante estimation approach, I estimate that IEOp in Switzerland is 21%, with considerable heterogeneity across cantons and the German-speaking region showing higher levels of unfair educational inequalities. The IEOp estimates are decomposed to identify the contributions of different circumstances and to develop a better understanding of the observed inequality. Socioeconomic status, parental education, and occupation are the most relevant circumstances in most cantons. Inequality of educational opportunity is associated with the institutional structure of cantonal education systems. Educational inputs in primary school explained most of the cross-canton variation in IEOp, followed by the level of stratification in secondary school.

********************************************************************************************

Mengling Cheng (LIVES, University of Lausanne) will present the following project:

Evolution of the income-related gap in health with old age: Evidence from 20 countries in European and Chinese panel datasets

(joint work with Nicolas Sommet, Daniela Jopp and Dario Spini)

Abstract

Background: Some studies show that the protective effect of higher income on health weakens with old age (the age-as-leveler pattern), whereas others show that it strengthens with old age (the cumulative advantage/disadvantage pattern). Existing studies are limited in that they use single-country and/or single-timepoint designs. To overcome these limitations, we used cross-national and longitudinal data to clarify how the income-related gap in health evolves with old age.

Methods: We used the longest-running European and Chinese panel datasets, namely, SHARE (2004-2019, 73,407 European participants from 19 countries) and CHARLS (2011-2018, 10,067 Chinese participants). We operationalised health using multimorbidity and three alternative indicators (functional disability, mobility disability, and memory). We performed Poisson growth curve modeling to capture the between-participant effects of age and the within-participant effects of aging.

Results: We obtained three consistent findings for both Europe (the effect was observed in most countries) and China. First, the protective effect of higher income on multimorbidity, functional disability, and mobility disability was weaker for older than for younger adults (between-participant age-as-leveler effects). Second, only the protective effect of higher income on mobility disability weakened over the later life course (within-participant age-as-leveler effects). Third, the protective effect of higher income on memory was stronger for older than for younger adults and strengthened over the later life course of the individual (both between-participant and within-participant cumulative advantage/disadvantage effects).

Conclusion: Our results suggest that the income-related gap in physical health (i.e., multimorbidity, functional disability, and mobility disability)—but not in cognitive health (i.e., memory)—narrows in old age for both Europe and China.

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

Register for the free online webinar

Introduction to LaRS-SWISSUbase for the Linguistics Community”, that takes place on February 14, 2023 from 15:00-16:00 (CET).

In this webinar, you will learn about the SWISSUbase archiving platform for the linguistics community and the services provided to researchers including data curation, archiving and publishing of your linguistics data.

The session will include a demonstration of the platform and time for questions and answers.

https://newsletter.forscenter.ch/newsletter/index.php/lists/bl638lk4r7ce7/subscribe