REU Site: Broadening Access to Text Analytics for Social Scientists

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This project is funded from the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Sites program in the Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences. It has both scientific and societal benefits, and integrates research and education. This summer residential experience provides mentorship, research methods training, and data sets for groups of undergraduates from diverse academic and social backgrounds and from a range of U.S colleges and universities. The site educates students on computerized methods for analyzing large data sets of text obtained from the internet and other sources. The site provides opportunities for students to test their new skills on active research projects. The site activities occur at Syracuse University's School of Information Studies which has excelled for more than 25 years at providing education for students interested in technology and its impacts on industry, education, and other sectors. Learning activities for the students in this REU site include research methods workshops, data ethics seminars, training on several software applications, and professional development opportunities. Students ask and answer impactful research questions using data sets provided by their faculty mentors. Students present their own research results in the final week. Every student is encouraged to submit their research to an appropriate research conference after completion of the experience. Students from prior summers continue their involvement through participation in a supportive online community to obtain peer and mentor support.Students achieve their learning goals in this REU site by affiliating themselves with active research projects being conducted by Syracuse University faculty members and their doctoral mentees. School of Information Studies faculty members conduct research on human language technologies, computational social science, social media, disinformation, human-centered computing, and a variety of related topics. These research projects typically offer voluminous data sets that REU students can explore as they develop their technical skills with programming languages, data mining methods, statistics, linguistics, and deep learning. A key goal of the REU site lies in encouraging students to sustain their research interests in the context of their subsequent educational activities upon return to their home institutions. The project contributes to the development of a capable STEM workforce for the U.S., insofar as the ability to analyze natural language text with computers has become a mission-critical skill in many sectors. Some students may also progress to research careers where they develop insights into internet-related social phenomena that impact many people’s lives. Upon return to their home institutions, students can demonstrate the new methods and tools they have learned and inspire others to try them. This site is supported by the Department of Defense ASSURE Program in partnership with the NSF REU Program.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.