Big Data and the Human and Social Sciences

Dear Colleagues,

From our perspective, sociologists, historians, political scientists, economists, philosophers and anthropologists are well placed to deal with the big data movement. At the present time, social and human scientists have at their disposal a wide volume and variety of data, including massively-growing public archival data. This allows to extend the geographical and longitudinal scope of analyses on a new scale. However, first and foremost it gives social and human scientists the opportunity to show their strong competence on contextual knowledge, the capacity to historically situate objects of analyses and discuss meanings and vast textual corpora. Still, the strategies for storing and analyzing such data are complex and not without difficulties.

This Special Issue aims to discuss the challenges and opportunities in applying computational methods to massive textual and historical data, the potential change in standards of evidence, as well as the impact of such methods on qualitative-based research approaches. It also seeks to build bridges with formal, applied and natural scientists, exploring how new methods can actually lead to new discoveries in the social sciences.

Dr. Ivo Veiga
Dr. Ana Paula Pires
Dr. Inês Queiroz
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Social Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.