On the third day of SICSS Saarbrücken, we had the pleasure of learning from @ezagheni.bsky.social (@mpidr.bsky.social), who shared his expertise on “𝑀𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑏𝑖𝑎𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑑𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑒 𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎”.

The session explored crucial topics for handling biases when working with digital trace data, such as how to identify trends over time and filter out biases.

Emilio also discussed the challenges of surveys and non-representative samples, as well as techniques for calibration and weighting to make digital trace data more reliable. It was certainly a very engaging lecture with many practical examples.

In the afternoon, @theiletom.bsky.social (@mpidr.bsky.social) guided participants through a hands-on tutorial on the LinkedIn Campaign Manager, where everyone had the chance to set up and run their own data collection.

This was a great opportunity to see in practice how digital platforms can be used to gather data for research.

The day ended with a great keynote presentation by Uwe Albrecht from the Adolf-Bender-Zentrum e.V. on "𝑅𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡-𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑒𝑥𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑚 𝑖𝑛 𝐺𝑒𝑟𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑦 - 𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑦, 𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑔𝑖𝑒𝑠, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑠". His on-the-ground perspective offered an important reminder of where our efforts to counter extremism should be directed.