BigSurv 2023

As a gold sponsor of BigSurv23, RTI International is both proud and excited to play a prominent role in this year’s conference, which aims to connect innovations in data science, survey research, and the social sciences.

The 2023 conference marks the third of its kind for BigSurv, but the first in-person event since the inaugural meeting in 2018. For hundreds of computer and data scientists from around the world, that means meeting, exchanging ideas, working together and learning from one another.

The goal of BigSurv23 is to help attendees improve the collection and analysis of statistics that inform and impact a range of societal issues.

RTI experts will be moderating or presenting more than 10 sessions over the four-day event. Sessions topics include evaluating and leveraging surveys and alternate data sources for improving estimation to advances in data privacy to processing, compliance and estimation using smartphone and wearable device data.

RTI At BigSurv 2023

Thursday, Oct 26

17:00–18:45 Welcome and Opening Plenary Panel

My Chatbot is Hallucinating about your Digital Trace. A discussion about the future of computational social sciences in the era of AI. 

Moderator: Craig Hill

Panelists: Emily Hadley

Friday, Oct 27

11:45–13:15 CONCURRENT SESSIONS A 

Session 1:  My "socials" like your surveys! Exploring alignment, consistency and divergence of estimates based on survey, social media and digital trace data 

Ground Truth References for Trends Estimated from Social Media Using Automated Entity Extraction: Example of Substance Use Discussions on Reddit 

• Georgiy Bobashev (RTI International) - Presenting Author 

Session 2: Adept Adaptation: Using auxiliary data and advanced modelling methods to predict eligibility, contact, participation and response 

Age-Eligibility Oversampling to Reduce Screening Costs in a Multimode Survey 

• Stephanie Zimmer (RTI International) - Presenting Author 

Optimizing Data Collection Interventions Using Personalized Models 

• Michael Duprey (RTI International) - Presenting Author 

Session 4: You Will Brag about this LAG: Modern Methods for Creating Labels, Asking Questions and Gathering Data 

A Conceptual Model of Labeling in Supervised Learning (with Implications for Survey Coding) 

• Rob Chew (RTI International) - Presenting Author

16:30–18:00 CONCURRENT SESSIONS C 

Session 1: Heads AND Tails! Evaluating and leveraging survey and alternate data sources for improving estimation 

Using Machine Learning to Downscale Projected Land Conversion: Application to Bioenergy Expansion 

• Jon Holt (RTI International) - Presenting Author

Session 2: Going Public About What's Private! New Observations, Methods and Advances in Data Privacy 

Synthetic Population Generation for Nested Data Using Differentially Private Posteriors 

• Matt Williams (RTI International) - Presenting Author

Saturday, Oct 28

09:00–10:30 CONCURRENT SESSIONS D 

Session 1: What Did the Robots Hear the Humans Say? Advances in Coding Survey Open-Ends Using ML Methods 

Machine Learning Assisted Auto-Coding Tools for Improving the Experience of Manual Coding of Real-World Big Text Data

• Emily Hadley (RTI International) - Presenting Author

Session 2: The Methodologists talked with the Data Scientists, and it wasn't fair! Here's What to Do About It! 

Applied Strategies for Advancing Racial Equity and Addressing Bias in Big Data Research 

• Emily Hadley (RTI International) - Presenting Author

11:00–12:30 CONCURRENT SESSIONS E 

Session 1: Watch Out - Your Phone Answered My Survey! Processing, Compliance and Estimation Using Data Captured via Smartphone Meters and Wearable Devices 

Provide or Bring Your Own Wearable Device? An assessment of compliance, adherence, and representation in a national study. 

• Heidi Guyer (RTI International) - Presenting Author

Continuous Monitoring of Health and Wellness Using Wearable Sensors: New Data Source for Social Science 

• Dorota Temple (RTI International) - Presenting Author 

Wearables Research and Analytics Platform (WRAP?) Demo: Integrating wearables, surveys and monitoring systems 

• Heidi Guyer (RTI International) - Presenting Author

Session 4: I'm Biased Towards Accuracy! Advances in Evaluating and Adjusting Estimates within Finite Population Frameworks 

Rethinking the Test Set: A Finite Population Perspective 

• Rob Chew (RTI International) - Presenting Author

14:00–15:30 CONCURRENT (ORGANIZED) SESSIONS F 

Session 3: Missing Data: The Where, the How, and the Why 

Understand, Detect, and Treat Missing Data in Administrative Data 

• Dan Liao (RTI International) 

Likelihood-Based Inference for the Finite Population Mean with Post-Stratification Information Under Non-Ignorable Non-Response 

• Sahar Zangeneh (RTI International) - Presenting Author