News
On Seminar AttendanceWritten on 29.11.25 by Till Koebe Dear students, I'd like to raise a few points on the topic of seminar attendance: 1) Be mindful of the presenting students, so please ensure you are on time. We already start 15 past, so there should be enough time to get here. 2) If you come more than 15 min late to class, it is counted as… Read more Dear students, I'd like to raise a few points on the topic of seminar attendance: 1) Be mindful of the presenting students, so please ensure you are on time. We already start 15 past, so there should be enough time to get here. 2) If you come more than 15 min late to class, it is counted as missing the class. Coming late affects your grade in class participation. Also, if you come late frequently, we consider counting it as an unexcused absence. 3) More than two unexcused absences will result in failing the seminar. Valid excuses are unforeseeable events that make attendance impossible, including sickness or unforeseeable family events. Please let us know as early as possible and provide proof, if possible. Job interviews, travels or other plannable/foreseeable events are not considered to be valid excuses. Also, please note that more than four absences (whether excused or not) will also result in failing the seminar. All the best and looking forward to seeing you all again next week,
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Reminder: Register in LSF by tomorrow!Written on 27.11.25 by Till Koebe Dear students, please ensure you **register in the LSF by tomorrow** latest for the seminar. This is a prerequisite to be credited for the seminar. See you tomorrow,
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Reminder: Pick your group!Written on 03.11.25 by Till Koebe Dear DAS students, team registration on CMS is now open. Please get together in groups of three and create a group by this Thursday, Nov 6th, end of day. If you do not have a team, please use the forum to find one and/or let us know so we can use the Friday's seminar to finalise team… Read more Dear DAS students, team registration on CMS is now open. Please get together in groups of three and create a group by this Thursday, Nov 6th, end of day. If you do not have a team, please use the forum to find one and/or let us know so we can use the Friday's seminar to finalise team formation. See you on Friday,
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Reminder: Pick your PaperWritten on 29.10.25 by Annika Hass Dear students, This is just a reminder to choose your paper for the paper presentations as a tutorial in CMS. Please do this today or tomorrow. See you all on Friday! Best, Annika
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Data and Society
From finding a mate, to booking a holiday, our lives are increasingly mediated by online platforms. Digital traces left by these interactions provide opportunities to study societal phenomena while creating challenges around the responsible use of data. In this seminar, students will learn how computational methods and machine learning can be applied to study society through such data.
The first part of the seminar will familiarize students with existing work in computational social science with each week focused on a topic such as “Digital Democracy” or “Gender Gaps” and methods to quantify it. The second part of the seminar will be about projects in which students are asked to quantify a societal phenomenon of their choice using computational methods. Here, students can both propose topics or choose from topics defined by the lecturers.
The overall course performance will be based on (i) overall course participation, (ii) assigned paper presentations, (iii) literature review and “project pitch” (prior to in-depth work) and (iv) the written project report.
Apart from learning about interdisciplinary research and applications of machine learning, students will also learn research skills such as how to read and discuss papers, how to plan a project, how to present their work, how to write a scientific paper, and how to work in teams.
Students can take this course as a seminar.
Requirements: Msc students only – the project-based element of the seminar will require some Python programming and data analysis experience. An interest beyond foundations of CS, and caring about societal problems is a must.