A brief summary of the first Big Data Europe SC6 Workshop: The challenges of big data for societies in a changing world [via BDE-Europe in a changing world - inclusive, innovative and reflective societies Community Group]

The workshop took place at Eurostat in Luxembourg on 18 November 2015 and
attracted 42 participants. It hosted speakers with a policy and data
management/providing background (European Commission, Eurostat) and a technical
background from within the BDE project (Fraunhofer IAIS, SWC).

The aim of the workshop was twofold, on the one hand the to deliver some results
from the project and start a discussion on big data in the social sciences, and
on the other to gather input from the stakeholders present at the workshop in
order to influence the design of the new big data platform delivered by the
BigDataEurope project, and as they will ultimately benefit from the platform.

Through four parallel sessions, the workshop explored the data already in place
in the social sciences, the risks challenges of data management of big data, as
well as the potentials, touching next on the legal and policy issues associated
with big data, and the technological demands.

The workshop revealed that data is now much more than what it used to be when
it was just collected from surveys, with two main sources identified, digital
footprinting (mobile phones, online shopping, financial transactions, etc.) and
sensors. Furthermore, official statistics used to have a monopoly on data but
this is no longer the case, as there is an increasing ‘datafication’ of all
human activities.

The workshop also informed that there are three main elements of big data for
statisticians: data deluge, data analytics and a data-driven economy, populated
by industry. What’s more, the third “v” of big data, variety, was deemed
the most important topic for the social sciences, though the importance of the
real value of the data was also brought up (what to do with the data).
Participants learnt that the social sciences are a bit behind in terms of
investments in the area of big data.

A full report will follow, watch this space!

Please keep in touch:

 Subscribe to the BigDataEurope Newsletter;
 Join our social sciences W3C Community Group;
 Social Media (Twitter, LinkedIn, SlideShare, Flickr).



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'A brief summary of the first Big Data Europe SC6 Workshop:  The challenges of
big data for societies in a changing world'

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Received on Friday, 27 November 2015 15:07:49 UTC