Queensland University of Technology have just started a free FutureLearn course on ‘Social Media Analytics: Using Data to Understand Public Conversations’. The course is described as:
From the personal to the political, social media conversations are at the heart of cultural and social change. In this course you will be introduced to digital methods to analyse social media data on Twitter. You will learn from leading researchers, engage in hands-on activities and confront issues in social media data.
The course is broken into 3 weeks, each week address each of these in turn:
- week 1 – understanding and gathering
- week 2 – analysing
- week 3 – visualising
The tools used in each week are TAGS, Tableau and Gephi. Needless to say I’m thrilled that TAGS is being promoted in this way, I’m also pleased with the way it’s been pitched:
We uncover the anatomy of a tweet and the cultural politics of Twitter. You will decide what you want to analyse: a company hashtag? A campaign hashtag? A cultural reference? You will learn to use TAGS, a free and open framework for accessing the data you need, and discuss the implications of accessing these data. What are the restrictions? What about user privacy and ethics?
The course is using #FLsocmed as a tag and it would be rude for me not to have a look at the conversation.
I’ve enrolled on the course myself and hopefully you can join me