Examples of using Big data sources in English and their translations into Malayalam
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Colloquial
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Ecclesiastic
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Ecclesiastic
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Computer
Big data sources can be loaded with junk and spam.
Table 2.3: Examples of natural experiments using big data sources.
Big data sources tend to have ten characteristics;
Table 2.1: Studies of unexpected events using always-on big data sources.
Big data sources are both found and designed;
Far from distinctive, many big data sources have information that is sensitive.
Big data sources do not mean the end of survey research. In fact, it is the opposite.
In particular, I will focus on big data sources created by companies and governments.
In the next section,we will consider the linkages between surveys and big data sources in greater detail.
In conclusion, the big data sources of today(and tomorrow) generally have ten characteristics.
Finally, I will describe two strategies for combining survey data and big data sources.
Many other big data sources also have information that is sensitive, which is part of the reason why they are often inaccessible.
Understanding these 10 general characteristicsis a helpful first step toward learning from big data sources.
Some researchers believe that big data sources, especially online sources, are pristine because they are collected automatically.
Thus, for those who are good atasking certain types of research questions, big data sources can be very fruitful.
Most big data sources are incomplete, in the sense that they don't have the information that you will want for your research.
For machine learning approaches thatattempt to automatically discover natural experiments inside of big data sources, see Jensen et al.
In some cases, big data sources enable you to do this counting relatively directly(as in the case of New York Taxis).
The sensitive nature of this information is part of the reason that big data sources are often inaccessible(described above).
Rather than thinking of big data sources as observing people in a natural setting, a more apt metaphor is observing people in a casino.
If true,this would seem to severely limit what can be learned from big data sources because many of them are nonrepresentative.
Some researchers believe that big data sources, especially those from online sources, are pristine because they are collected automatically.
Based on the ideas in this chapter,I think that there are three main ways that big data sources will be most valuable for social research.
Big data sources and surveys are complements not substitutes so as the amount of big data increases, I expect that the value of surveys will increases as well.
Social scientists call this match construct validity andit is a major challenge with using big data sources for social research(Lazer 2015).
Another way in which researchers can use big data sources in survey research is as a sampling frame for people with specific characteristics.
Most social scientists are already familiar with the process of cleaning large-scale social survey data, but cleaning big data sources seems to be more difficult.
First, I will argue that big data sources will not replace surveys and that the abundance of big data sources increases- not decreases- the value of surveys(section 3.2).
As I'm describing thesecharacteristics you will notice that they often arise because big data sources were not created for the purpose of research.
Nowcasting projects such as Google FluTrends also show what can happen if big data sources are combined with more traditional data that were created for the purposes of research.