[UCR_DataScience] Webinar [LOGOS] Nov 20 2pm, David Lazier, The National Internet Observatory

[Vassilis Tsotras]

Colleagues,
next Wednesday Nov. 20th, at 2pm there is an interesting webinar from 
the LOGOS group; they are hosting Prof. David Lazer from Northeastern 
who will be speaking about his new project called the National Internet 
Observatory. The NIO is a collaborative project that gives researchers 
access to valuable internet data. I believe this will be of broad 
interest. Please find details (time, Zoom link) below.

best,
V. Tsotras




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Sent: Monday, November 11, 2024 3:06 PM
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Subject: [LOGOS] Nov 20 2pm, David Lazier, The National Internet 
Observatory




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SPEAKER
Prof. David Lazer, Northeastern University

TITLE
The National Internet Observatory

WHEN/WHERE
Wed, Nov 20
Bourns A171, or
https://ucr.zoom.us/j/93797597205?pwd=k14o0hy6qk0HnLB99yYCOXCgSlMbrl.1

ABSTRACT
The National Internet Observatory (NIO) is a novel, NSF-funded, data 
infrastructure, whose objective is to enable multi-platform, behavioral 
research on the internet. It involves:  (1) collecting data from a 
substantial (about 7000 during the 2024 election) sample of participants 
over an extended period of time; and (2) providing analytic access to 
third party researchers in a privacy-preserving fashion. Participants 
install a browser extension and/or mobile apps to donate their online 
activity data along with comprehensive survey responses. The 
infrastructure offers approved researchers access to a suite of 
structured, parsed content data for selected domains to enable analyses 
and understanding of Internet use in the US. This is all conducted 
within a robust research ethics framework, emphasizing ongoing informed 
consent and multiple layers, technical and legal, of interventions to 
protect the values at stake in data collection, data access, and 
research. This presentation will provide a brief overview of the NIO 
infrastructure, the data collected, the participants, and the researcher 
intake process.

BIO
David Lazer is a University Distinguished Professor of Political Science 
and Computer Sciences, Northeastern University, and Co-Director, NULab 
for Digital Humanities and Computational Social Science. Prior to coming 
to Northeastern University, he was on the faculty at the Harvard Kennedy 
School (1998-2009). In 2019, he was elected a fellow to the National 
Academy of Public Administration. His research has been published in 
such journals as Science, Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of 
Science, the American Political Science Review, Organization Science, 
and the Administrative Science Quarterly, and has received extensive 
coverage in the media, including the New York Times, NPR, the Washington 
Post, the Wall Street Journal, and CBS Evening News.
He is among the leading scholars in the world on misinformation and 
computational social science and has served in multiple leadership and 
editorial positions, including as a board member for the International 
Network of Social Network Analysts (INSNA), reviewing editor for 
Science, associate editor of Social Networks and Network Science, 
numerous other editorial boards and program committees.