Programme Overview:
- Duration:
- 1 Years / 2 Years
- Attendance:
- Full Time / Part Time
- Mode of Delivery:
- Face-to-Face
- Next Intake:
- 2024/2025 September
- Contact Name:
- Lucia Suchorova
- Contact Number:
- 017168674
- Fees:
- Fee Information
The MSc in Social Data Science is a one year taught programme with strong interdisciplinary features and components across social and computational sciences. It equips students with a range of social scientific, computational, informational, statistical, and visualisation skills, for curation and analysis of large or complex data that arise from human activities and interactions in the digital world. Students will receive training in sociological analysis, as well as core coding and programming skills, allowing them to avail of emergent computational methods and technologies to tackle real-world societal challenges, and inform decision making processes. Students may opt to complete an internship as part of their studies. The MSc in Social Data Science is suitable for graduates of social science or computer science programmes.
A wide range of different organizations including government departments, semi-state bodies, private companies in IT, finance and consultancy, as well as sectors such as education, health and social welfare are now exploring the benefits of combining large and complex data resources, including administrative data, for decision making and resource use. The MSc in Social Data Science at the UCD is ideal for graduates who want to upskill and avail of these excellent employment opportunities. It is designed to enable individuals to combine their social science and/or cognate training with strong technical and analytical skills, and to exploit the wide range of digitised and digital data now accessible by public and private sector organisations.
Curricular information is subject to change
Full Time option suitable for:
Domestic(EEA) applicants: Yes
International (Non EEA) applicants currently residing outside of the EEA Region. Yes
Part Time option suitable for:
Domestic(EEA) applicants: Yes
International (Non EEA) applicants currently residing outside of the EEA Region. No
Applicants will be required to hold a 2.1 Honours degree or equivalent in a computational science discipline, and to show evidence for strong interest in social science research; Or to hold a 2.1 Honours degree or equivalent in social science disciplines and to show evidence for strong interest in obtaining, or existing computational skills. Additionally, excellent academic references are required.
This degree programme includes modules from Computer Science, which involves logical understanding and reasoning and therefore applicants must be able to demonstrate good evidence of algorithmic thinking.
Nearly every aspect of our lives today leave digital traces. Leveraging this massive sea of information, requires both a judicious understanding of how substantive and social scientific questions drive the data analysis and the skill and training to use scalable data science tools.
On successful completion, the student should be able to:
● Demonstrate a core knowledge and understanding of the fundamentals of social data science, data requirements and techniques
● Construct, synthesize, evaluate, interpret, and report theories and evidence in an open, analytical and critical manner.
● Apply problem solving skills in a variety of different contexts.
● Apply appropriate data science techniques to address domain specific research problems,
● Discuss, present and communicate their research ideas, data and results within a group setting and in one-to-one communication.
Core modules include:
Students must also choose one of the following options:
Optional Modules Include:
Following consultation with MSc in Social Data Science Programme Director, a student may be able to substitute more advanced modules for specific core modules where the student can demonstrate sufficient prior learning in those areas.
MSc Social Data Science (W559) Full Time
EU fee per year - € 9100
nonEU fee per year - € 22600
MSc Social Data Science (W560) Part Time
EU fee per year - € 5460
nonEU fee per year - € 11300
***Fees are subject to change
Fee information is available at www.ucd.ie/fees
Please note that UCD offers a number of graduate scholarships for full-time, self-funding international students, holding an offer of a place on a UCD graduate degree programme. For more information see http://www.ucd.ie/international
Applicants will be required to hold a 2.1 Honours degree or equivalent in a computational science discipline, and to show evidence for strong interest in social science research; Or to hold a 2.1 Honours degree or equivalent in a social science disciplines and to show evidence for strong interest in obtaining, or existing computational skills. Additionally, excellent academic references are required.
This degree programme includes modules from Computer Science, which involves logical understanding and reasoning and therefore applicants must be able to demonstrate good evidence of algorithmic thinking.
All applicants will be assessed on a case-by-case basis and relevant work experience will be taken into account, so that in certain cases an award at a 2.2 classification may be considered.
Students whose first language is not English will need a recognised English language qualification. On the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) students will need to achieve an average score of 6.5 over all components and a minimum of 6.0 in each band on the Academic Version. More details are available through the UCD International Office at http://www.ucd.ie/international/study-at-ucd-global/ucdenglishlanguagerequirements/
These are the minimum entry requirements – additional criteria may be requested for some programmes
Killian McLoughlin
MSc in Social Data Analytics
“Coming from a background in psychology, I chose to do the MSc in Social Data Analytics because I wanted to develop my social research and methodology skills in ways that incorporate new and exciting technologies emerging in the field of ‘big data’. I feel that in providing for this, the course is unique. During my time at UCD, I have been exposed to a variety of computer science techniques for data analysis which I have been able to apply in complementary social science modules.
To my pleasant surprise, skills like programming have all been taught at a reassuring pace for a novice like myself. By the close of the first semester, I was already being called for interviews in well-known firms in sectors and for positions that would have been closed to me before embarking on the course.
I highly recommend the MSc to anyone who is interested in using technology to do social science in entirely new ways. ”
The following entry routes are available:
* Courses will remain open until such time as all places have been filled, therefore early application is advised