• Date: February 5th, Wednesday, 2020 14:00-17:00
• Location: Room 220, SNUAC (Bldg. 101)

Korea Social Science Data Archive (KOSSDA) is holding the 8th Data Fair with under the topic, ‘Understanding and Using Election Data’ on February 5th.

There will be the 21st parliamentary elections this year, and many public opinion poll results will be reported. Though there are much criticism and concern for the opinion polls conducted in Korea, opinion poll is a useful tool for probing the values and opinions that members of society hold. Thus we need a means to thoroughly understand and properly use the data from opinion polls. Moreover, we would like to share opinions on discovering, collecting and utilizing various types of aggregate data that are needed for expanding the horizons of research in election data.

In section 1, we will introduce election data produced at home and abroad and how to properly make use of them, and in section 2, we will share cases of utilizing various election data and analyzing aggregate opinion polls.

Korea Social Science Data Archive (KOSSDA) held the 8th Data Fair with under the topic, ‘Understanding and Using Election Data’ on February 5th at Samick Hall of SNUAC. Over 140 people including graduate students, researchers, media experts and researchers at poll survey institutes joined the event, which was planned prior to the upcoming general elections to be held in April this year.

In section 1, Prof. Seokho Kim (Dept. of Sociology) gave the presentation <The Light and Shadows of Election Data in Korea> in which he introduced major election data produced at home and abroad and talked about the problems of election data in Korea. In <Utilizing Election Data>, Prof. Sang Eu Ha (Dept. of Political Science & International Relations, Sogang University) explained the problems faced by researchers when analyzing election data with nine virtual scenarios on research questions.

Section 2 was devoted to examining the specific methods of utilizing election data. Dr. Jung Ah Kil (Institute of Governmental Studies, Korea University) gave the presentation <Utilizing Election Panel Survey> to talk about the structure of election panel data and how to select an appropriate model. Prof. Wonho Park (Dept. of Political Science & International Relations) gave the presentation <Aggregate Election Data and the Expansion of Election Research> in which he introduced cases of utilizing aggregate election data and emphasized the need of the researcher’s creative thinking for utilizing data for the expansion of election research. Lastly, Dr. Junsik Hwang (Nexon Korea) presented his experience of analyzing the public data of National Election Survey Deliberation Commission by web crawling in his presentation, <A Simple Analysis of Opinion Poll Using Python>.

Review by KOSSDA

The Award Ceremony for the 8th KOSSDA Research Paper Competition

On this day, the award ceremony for the 8th KOSSDA Research Paper Competition was held as well. Two master’s theses were selected as outstanding papers. The winners of the competitions are “The relationship between household debt and the big five personality” by Taehyun Lee (Dept. of Economics, Sogang University) and “The Influence of Experiencing and Witnessing Discrimination on the Attitude Toward Minorities” by Dongeon Kim (Dept. of Ethics Education).

Lee’s thesis was evaluated highly for its unique topic with empirical research and Kim’s for the timeliness of its topic and appropriate choices of data and statistical method. Lee thanked her advisor and others for their help and also KOSSDA for reading and evaluating her thesis. Kim thanked KOSSDA for the help she got in the process of writing her thesis. KOSSDA holds research paper competitions every year for theses written with resources from KOSSDA, in order to heighten the awareness for the data archive and activate empirical study based on data.

Review and photos for the award ceremony by DooWon Chang (Academic Reporter)