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MetAt - June 13, 2023 logbook

Share our methodological expertise and skills.

Event, Workshop

Sciences Po

Number of participants: 7 ; Number of supervisors: 10

Non-medialab supervisors: Yuma Ando (CEE, Sciences Po)

Visual network analysis with Gephi 

First support for a doctoral student in sociology who came to visualize meeting places for tax law experts using two databases. The coaching took the form of a detailed review of Gephi's functionalities, to provide the tools needed to explore the data independently and to refine his visual network analysis.

Comparison of available databases about Chinese investment in Africa

Support for a Master's student's dissertation on China's Belt & Road Initiative. The supervisor helped her explore existing online databases (AidData, Boston University database) and explore their content in Excel and Python. It was found that Boston University has two databases that can be used together, which AidData does not allow. The choice of database will depend on the research question, which has not yet been precisely formulated.

Scraping Twitter

Support for two PhD students wishing to collect Twitter data on an associative account, in particular the hashtags #saccageparis and #monpostpartum. Support took the form of training in the Minet, table2net and Nansi command line to scrape tweets. 

Quantitative and qualitative data analysis

Support for an intern from the Centre d'Écologie et des Sciences de la Conservation at the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle in analyzing comments in a database from a quantitative and qualitative perspective. The participant wished to deepen the analyses and better understand the relationships between the different categories. A correspondence analysis was carried out to see the association between the different categories, then the supervisor opened the discussion on other possible analyses, notably geographical and spatial.

Processing of open-ended questions for Sciences Po graduate survey

Support for a Sciences Po project manager in processing two open-ended questions in the questionnaire. The supervisor suggested using Rstudio and tidytext to process textual data. The session introduced the R functionalities required for the project, prepared the data, calculated the tf-idf and visualize them appropriately. 

Data extraction on Discord

First support for a PhD student wishing to carry out network analysis and collect data from Discord channels. A script in bash and a second one in Python were created during the session to extract messages from a Discord channel, using the site's internal API. It was not possible to retrieve the user IDs from the server, and thus extract information about them. The supervisors recommended making an RGPD declaration to their university's data protection officer.

What is METAT? 

METAT is a research methods support workshop: every month, a three-hour slot to help you resolve the methodological difficulties you encounter in the course of a scientific project.

Who is METAT for?

METAT is aimed at anyone needing occasional support in using a research tool or method. All profiles are welcome: students, doctoral students, researchers, research engineering professionals or others, inside and outside Sciences Po, without restriction of status or affiliation.

How to register?

Registration is compulsory via the form available on the METAT page.