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Introduction -- "Have you assaulted a politician?" Measuring political engagement using the simple Rasch model -- Expectations and residuals -- "All we need is love (and money)!" An introduction to the rating scale Rasch model -- Relaxing the common scale: the partial credit model -- Observations or subjective interpretations? A many-facets Rasch model -- The Rasch model as a generalized linear mixed model -- Publishing a paper: detection of online hate speech.

The article outlines a methodological concept of political sensibility, building upon the political difference theory. Merging the ideas of the associative and dissociative theoretical branches of political difference literature, first, an integrated framework of the political condition is presented. From this, analytical dimensions are derived, namely, the associative/dissociative, the political/apolitical/discontentious, the static/processual, and the vertical/horizontal dimensions of the political. Second, the interpretive and ontological turns in social science are conceptualized, according to this framework, as a politicization of science. Taking this motion further, third, ideas to enact a politically sensible science are developed along the methodologically turned dimensions (merging the second and the third to an acknowledging/acting dimension). A political sensibility could deliver analytical categories to look upon political phenomena beyond structurally limited conceptions of "politics." Methodologically, it could ease designing situated social science research, that is, research that consciously conceives of itself as part of the social realities it studies.

This article is premised on the idea that were we able to articulate a positive vision of the social scientist's professional ethics, this would enable us to reframe social science research ethics as something internal to the profession. As such, rather than suffering under the imperialism of a research ethics constructed for the purposes of governing biomedical research, social scientists might argue for ethical self-regulation with greater force. I seek to provide the requisite basis for such an 'ethics' by, first, suggesting that the conditions which gave rise to biomedical research ethics are not replicated within the social sciences. Second, I argue that social science research can be considered as the moral equivalent of the 'true professions.' Not only does it have an ultimate end, but it is one that is – or, at least, should be – shared by the state and society as a whole. I then present a reading of confidentiality as a methodological – and not simply ethical – aspect of research, one that offers further support for the view that social scientists should attend to their professional ethics and the internal standards of their disciplines, rather than the contemporary discourse of research ethics that is rooted in the bioethical literature. Finally, and by way of a conclusion, I consider the consequences of the idea that social scientists should adopt a professional ethics and propose that the Clinical Ethics Committee might provide an alternative model for the governance of social science research.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the social science associations (anthropology, sociology, economics, political science, and history) were faced by a string of academic freedom controversies. I review debates at association meetings and the reports and policy statements of committees on ethics and political discrimination. The ethics committees dealt with the involvement of association members with nonuniversity patrons, in the wake of revelations about Project Camelot. The committees on political discrimination examined allegations that university administrations were discriminating against radical scholars for their advocacy against the war in Vietnam and other revolutionary causes of the time. I argue that in both instances social scientists sought to accommodate the new roles of universities in American society by developing codes of conduct for social scientists that were voluntary and nonenforceable. Implied in the response of social science associations was that threats to academic freedom arose in social scientists' misguided behavior and not by fault of the new institutional setting of the university in the 1960s.

What is Online Research? is a straightforward, accessible introduction to social research online. The book covers the key issues and concerns, with sections on design,ethics and good practice. It will be key reading for social scientists of all levels

This volume explores how researchers made innovative use of online technologies to innovate, define, and transform research methodologies in light of the varying impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially those related to the ability to conduct qualitative research.