![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsi\/files\/2019\/09\/Image-from-CW-blog-300x169.jpg\")
<\/p>\nIn the social sciences, I use statistical techniques to uncover data trails of human behaviour. I look for some really hidden behaviours \u2013 ones that no-one is going to admit to in a survey, like \u2018Did you cheat or guess the answers in your exam?\u2019 We use probability based measures and look at error terms to make our judgments. It doesn\u2019t sound wildly different from the work of people who prefer to use the title \u2018data scientist\u2019. Yet it\u2019s taken me the best part of 4 years full time study to make sense of what my computer science colleagues are up to. Educational assessment data analysis is, in principle, a similar process, whether you came to it via years of classroom teaching or after studying COMPSCI 501, but there\u2019s one huge difference. We don\u2019t have the same rule book, and that\u2019s the wonderful thing that Web Science does.<\/p>\n
What does the rule book look like in my subject of educational assessment? Well, for a start, I would be very, very careful what I put in the data collection process. That rule book goes on forever. Some are obvious:<\/p>\n
Others take a while to process:<\/p>\n
I would trial the data collection process, experiment with different assumptions, about the distribution of the trait in the population, agonise over how I\u2019ve modelled missing data, and rigorously remove anything from the data collection process that looked a little suspect. I\u2019d still be deeply worried at the end of that process that perhaps I hadn\u2019t done enough. And, most importantly, it would never, ever occur to me to suggest that a solely statistical decision was adequate. Reading computer science papers, I can never tell really what assumptions they\u2019ve made, but there seem to be an awful lot.<\/p>\n
The GDPR is a universal rule book for all, when it comes to data matters. We all know now, at a basic legal level, what rules we are meant to be following. Nearing the end of my studies with the Web Science CDT, I\u2019m still looking forward to attending the Web Science Summer School as though it was the first week. There\u2019s still so much we need to learn from each other. And for me, that is what Web Science has really been about. It\u2019s about working together to create one rule book for all.<\/p>\n
Clare Walsh is a final year student on the iPhD programme and will be attending the Web Science Summer School the week of the 8th<\/sup> \u2013 13th<\/sup> September.<\/p>\n *The reason for this is rather sad, but obvious once you\u2019ve seen it. Around the same time that we ask children to take stressful major school leaving exams, many will be experiencing the loss of one or more grandparent. They\u2019re at that age, and exam rooms are already highly emotionally charged environments. It would be grossly unfair to remind them of their recent loss and sadness.<\/p>\n Written by Clare Walsh<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the social sciences, I use statistical techniques to uncover data trails of human behaviour. I look for some really hidden behaviours \u2013 ones that no-one is going to admit to in a survey, like \u2018Did you cheat or guess the answers in your exam?\u2019 We use probability based measures and look at error terms to make our judgments. It …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84146,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","column","threecol"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p44UOk-1mR","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5261"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5272,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5261\/revisions\/5272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}