The large-scale digitization of social life is providing new opportunities and research directions for social scientists. In this course, we will discuss how social scientists, and sociologists in particular, are using advances in computational techniques to further our knowledge of society. Some of the topics we will survey include online experiments, massive online social networks, large-scale text analysis, and geographical information systems. Students will learn principles of research design in addition to fundamental programming and data analysis techniques. By the end of the course they should be able to produce computational social science research of their own.
4 units · Letter or Credit/No Credit
The large-scale digitization of social life is providing new opportunities and research directions for social scientists. In this course, we will discuss how social scientists, and sociologists in particular, are using advances in computational techniques to further our knowledge of society. Some of the topics we will survey include online experiments, massive online social networks, large-scale text analysis, and geographical information systems. Students will learn principles of research design in addition to fundamental programming and data analysis techniques. By the end of the course they should be able to produce computational social science research of their own.
Offered in Spring 2026 at Stanford University.