About a year ago, Sage Campus contacted me with an offer that I could not refuse! An opportunity to work with a professional team of designers and developers to produce an online course on Research Methods in Social Data Science.
I have been teaching different methods courses in the area of social data science over the past few years, and have been doing research myself in the same area for about a decade, but doing something is very different to teaching how to do that thing. I learnt it hard way!
Obviously, we do design and redesign and think how to frame and reframe our studies and research projects at various stages starting from writing the proposal, all the way to preparing the final publications. However teaching the same process, in a rather abstract medium, is rather challenging. Particularly in a field such as Social Data Science that has a yet forming identity.
I am glad that I accepted the challenge and being privileged to have the great support from Sage, finally managed to design, develop, and publish the course earlier this year.
Among many aspects of the interactive environment of the course, I particularly like the animations which give the course takers an overview of each module in a rather engaging and entertaining way.
The first Cohort of the course was launched in October and I must say the feedback I received from the course takers was very flattering and beyond my expectation! The next cohort is scheduled for March and I cannot wait!
Finally, if you promise not to tell anyone: the course is being turned into a book to be published by Sage next year, but more about that later!
Taha Yasseri 