Conference: Big Data Meets Survey Science

Research Triangle Institute, Durham NC

Investigators

Abstract

This award provides partial support for an international conference titled "Big Data Meets Survey Science (BigSurv18)." The conference is organized by the European Survey Research Association and will be held in Barcelona, Spain in late October 2018. In this context, the term "big data" refers to data that are too large and complex for data collection and/or analysis with traditional methods. The rise of big data and data science is changing how data are collected and used. Survey methodologies must continue to evolve to keep pace with these trends. This conference will serve as a meeting place for researchers and practitioners from around the world working at the intersection of the social sciences and computer and data science. The conference will emphasize the combination of approaches from different disciplines for the collection, processing, and analysis of data. The professional growth and cross-disciplinary training of researchers in the fields of data science and survey methodology, particularly graduate students and recent graduates, will be a key focus of the conference. The conference will enhance the infrastructure for education and research by providing cross-disciplinary training and understanding to early-career researchers. The conference will disseminate knowledge across disciplines and to a wider audience, encourage large-scale cross-fertilizing research agendas, and will help build sustainable communities across disciplines. Conference materials will be made available in a publicly accessible archive, and an edited volume and a special issue in Social Science Computer Review will be published and disseminated worldwide. To be relevant, the future of survey science must include big data, but the integration of survey research and data science is happening very slowly, if at all. This conference will focus on methods and applications for combining survey data with big data for population estimation, projection, and inference. Conference organizers will seek a balanced representation of speakers and participants from the computer and data science communities and the survey research community. Special effort will be made to recruit researchers from academia, government, multiple international communities and locations, and underrepresented groups. The conference program will include paper sessions, poster sessions, short courses, and a kick-off data challenge. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.