FIN-CLARIAH Milestone Meeting 28.11.2025

The FIN-CLARIAH Milestone Meeting (M4), titled Annotating Social Data, brings together researchers, infrastructure developers, and social scientists to explore current practices and future needs in annotating data sets in social sciences for further analysis. Hosted by the Centre for Social Data Science (CSDS), Faculty of Social Science, University of Helsinki, this milestone event delves into the methodological, technical, and ethical dimensions of annotating sensitive and small-scale textual data such as interviews, policy documents or social media posts, extending up to very large data sets typical in social media studies.

The day opens with a keynote by Salla-Maaria Laaksonen on collecting, annotating, and analyzing social media data, followed by insight talks from Krista Lagus on theory-based annotation using large language models (LLMs) and Hisayo Katsui. Afternoon sessions offer practical perspectives on secure environments for handling sensitive data, hands-on demonstrations with the CSC Secure Desktop environment, and discussions on ethical agreements and algorithmic transparency.

The event supports the broader goals of FIN-CLARIAH in developing national infrastructure for digital humanities and social sciences, and welcomes researchers and students from across disciplines interested in qualitative data, narrative analysis, secure practices for sensitive data, and the responsible use of AI tools in the annotation pipeline.