Web Science

Project group description

• 4 Southampton WebSci PhD students (Sociologist, Management scientist, Psychologist and Statistician

• 4 Tsinghua PhD students (all Computer scientists)• 1 KAIST PhD student (Computer scientist)

Project aim

• Problem: What are people online talking about regarding the IPhone 5S and it’s product specifications and how does this change up until the release date.

Methodological differences

• Issues with inferring interest from frequency of Twitter mentions

• Differing visions of what the goal is i.e. value to a company vs. social insight

• Planning stage became longer than anticipated

Skill Sets

• Project had to continually change in order to utilise the skills of each individual

• Required skill sets changed throughout the project

• Non CS students familiarity with CS helped a lot • To manage this effectively you need to have good

knowledge of group members’ skill sets• Skillset database is possible solution for future

projects

Conclusion

• Project was eventually successful but could have been made more efficient by:

1. Allowing for longer planning stage2. Forming a skillset database from the outset3. Helpful for social scientists in group to have

some tech knowledge