Politics

Mathematics and Programming Skills for Social Scientists
Module SSIM905 for 2017/8

Undergraduate Module Descriptor

SSIM905: Mathematics and Programming Skills for Social Scientists

This module descriptor refers to the 2017/8 academic year.

Module Content

Syllabus Plan

This course is delivered via three full-day sessions, one in each institution (Bath, Bristol and Exeter) plus pre-reading delivered online in advance of each full-day session. Additional computer lab sessions also take place within ‘home’ institutions to prepare the coursework. The main topics covered are programming statistical and graphical techniques using R; dynamic programming and coding using Python; multi-level modelling theory and application using MLwiN. Each day-long session will involve lectures outlining the theory behind a technique or the rudiments of a programming language, its application and use, along with practical sessions implementing the skills learned on a common dataset that will be used for each of the three day-long sessions and with each of the different computing packages.

Learning and Teaching

This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:

Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	Guided independent study	Placement / study abroad
25	125	0

...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:

Category	Hours of study time	Description
Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	9	2 x 1.5 hour lectures in each full-day session These lectures cover the main concepts of the course.
Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	12	2 x 2 hour practical classes in the computer labin each full-day session: These practical sessions cover the application of techniques
Scheduled Learning and Teaching activities	4	2 x 2 hour additional practical classes in home institution outside of co-taught full-days.
Guided independent study	30	Reading the relevant literature discussed in class
Guided independent study	50	Reading and preparing materials for the research project that constitutes the modules summative assessment
Guided Independent Study	45	Acquiring additional experience with software and computing tools required to conduct the type of analyses discussed in class

Online Resources

This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).

Maths Refresher Course (Gary King) http://projects.iq.harvard.edu/prefresher

UK Data Services - https://www.ukdataservice.ac.uk

NCRM - http://www.ncrm.ac.uk