The World Wide Web is only around 20 years old, but it has transformed the way we work, collaborate, engage in commerce, participate in the political process and interact socially. This course will provide students with thorough training in online research methods for social science Internet research.  While "obtrusive" social research methods (e.g. online surveys and focus groups) will be covered, there will be greater emphasis on unobstrusive research methods, e.g. quantitative (statistical) analysis of Internet trace data from emails, websites, blogsites and social networking sites such as Facebook.

By taking this course, students will acquire important skills necessary for conducting empirical social science Internet research both in academic and industry settings.  Students will learn:

• What online research methods are best suited for researching various economic, political and social phenomena on the Internet, and how do these differ from methods traditionally used by social scientists? 
  
• What are the available tools and data for online research?
• How to collect and analyse data from the Internet?
• How to design and implement a research project that uses online research methods? 
• What are the ethical implications of the various online research methods?

Students undertaking the "Social Science of the Internet" stream of the Master of Social Research must take this course and DEMO8086 Social Science of the Internet.

Students undertaking the "Social Research Methods" stream of the Master of Social Research can select this as one of two compulsory courses.  The other eligible courses are: DEMO8014 Survey Data Analysis, DEMO8020 Qualitative Research Methods, DEMO8083 Introduction to Longitudinal Methods and DEMO8084 Advanced Longitudinal Analysis.

This course is available via distance learning.