Browse
Recent Submissions
Item Cracking the Code of Geo-Identifiers: Harnessing Data-Based Decision-Making for the Public Good(International Conference on Advanced Research Methods and Analytics, 2022) Herzog, Patricia SnellThe accessibility of official statistics to non-expert users could be aided by employing natural language processing and deep learning models to dataset lexicons. Specifically, the semantic structure of FIPS codes would offer a relatively standardized data dictionary of column names and string variable structure to identify: two-digits for states, followed by three-digits for counties. The technical, methodological contribution of this paper is a bibliometric analysis of scientific publications based on FIPS code analysis indicated that between 27,954 and 1,970,000 publications attend to this geo-identifier. Within a single dataset reporting national representative and longitudinal survey data, 141 publications utilize FIPS data. The high incidence shows the research impact. Yet, the low proportion of only 2.0 percent of all publications utilizing this dataset also shows a gap even among expert users. A data use case drawn from public health data implies that cracking the code of geo-identifiers could advance access by helping everyday users formulate data inquiries within intuitive language.Item Philanthropy(Sage, 2018) Herzog, Patricia SnellThis encyclopedia entry covers a definition of philanthropy, its history, participation rates, and impacts. Also covered are changes to philanthropy as the life course extends and Millennials become donors. Philanthropy is a practice of donating to foundations or non-profit organizations for the purposes of bettering the collective good.Item Social Fact(Wiley-Blackwell, 2018) Herzog, Patricia SnellA social fact consists of collective thoughts and shared expectations that influence individual actions. Examples of social facts include social roles, norms, laws, values, rituals, and customs. Violating social facts confirms their existence because people who act against social facts are typically sanctioned. Sociology is one of the primary disciplines in which social facts are studied.Item Chicago School: Social Change(Wiley-Blackwell, 2019) Herzog, Patricia SnellThe Chicago School of sociologists theorized social change primarily through a set of theories referred to as the “organism metaphor.” Organism metaphors of society have characterized society as a whole functioning together as a single organism, or have characterized societies as composed of a number of organisms functioning in an ecological system. Chicago School sociologists interpreted the organism metaphor as less functional and more conflict oriented. Their attention to the unequal distribution of social ills across cityscapes shifted away from a naturalistic, scientific, and cohesive view of social organisms toward a medical, interventionist, and struggling view of social organisms. The focus on eradication of social pathologies added a distinctly US style of sociology that viewed social life as in need of amelioration.Item Durkheim’s Impact on Social Theory: Context, Cooperation, Collectives(Sage, 2023) Herzog, Patricia SnellThis chapter provides a brief background on Émile Durkheim, who he was as a person and as a social theorist. Durkheim’s contributions to theories are grouped within their understanding for social contexts. The next section summarizes his contributions to theories regarding cooperation in society, and subsequently social collective. The chapter concludes by covering the lasting impacts of Durkheim’s social theories in contemporary studies.Item Bibliometric Applications in Social Science Research: The Social Network Context of Generosity(IntechOpen, 2023) Herzog, Patricia Snell; Ai, Jin; Osili, Una; Clark, Chelsea; Kou, XiaonanWhether or not a person chooses to act philanthropically can seem like a personal decision. Yet, giving is inherently a social act, minimally involving a giver and a receiver. The relational aspects of giving decisions can be studied by investigating social networks. What is known about the role of social networks in charitable giving? To answer this question, this study utilizes bibliometric techniques to review existing literature in a systematic manner. Applying these tools to social science research facilitates integration of knowledge across multiple disciplines and diverse methodological approaches. Across the reviewed research, there are five central themes. First, networks can shape values of efforts to support the public good. Second, networks can informally punish people for acting too self-interestedly. Third, networks can join together or exclude, contributing to social inequality and its reproduction over time. Fourth, networks can maintain group dynamics. Fifth, networks can pattern behaviors into habits, form interdependence, situate what is considered normal, and provide stability in times of crisis. Implications of existing research are drawn toward understanding young adulthood within its networked social contexts of generosity.Item The Future of Work: Professionalization of Clergy and Nonprofit Collaborations(SocArXiv, 2023) Herzog, Patricia Snell; Plasters, Ronnie; King, David P.Building upon research on the professionalization of clergy, this paper analyzes the future of work in the context of organizational change. Increasing prevalence and rising pressures on nonprofit organizations to collaborate have resulted in a greater need for interagency ties. In this context, engaging in collaborations can be viewed as an indicator of professionalization. Yet, questions remain regarding whether faith-based organizations align with or diverge from broader trends of nonprofits. Thus, this paper investigates the research question: Are nonprofit collaborations more common among professionalized religious leaders? Data are drawn from the National Survey of Religious Leaders (NSRL), which collected surveys from a nationally representative sample of 1,600 religious leaders. Two mechanisms are posited for professionalization in nonprofit collaborations: intergenerational change and information access. Findings have implications for religious leaders and professionals in nonprofit organizations.Item Civic Morality: Democracy and Social Good(Springer, 2023) Herzog, Patricia SnellThis chapter reviews the concept of civic morality and its role in democracy. The first section defines civic morality, including what it is as well as what it is not. Simply stated, civic morality is the belief that one should engage in efforts to promote social and public goods along with actions intended to promote the wellbeing of others beyond the self. These are neither solely personal individual beliefs that are not publicly shared nor government prescribed public acts. Second, the chapter explains why civic morality matters. Importance includes its role in fostering a social lubricant to collective action, trust in people and social institutions, and democratic participation. The third section summarizes major approaches to the study of civic morality. Interdisciplinary studies are best categorized across the levels of their units of analysis: micro, meso, and macro. Key takeaways are offered based on the findings of existing studies about the relationship of civic morality and other important social phenomena. Reviewed findings are related to philanthropy and generosity, generational changes and youth, socioeconomic inequalities, religiosity and culture, and social norms.Item Data-To-Question Generation Using Deep Learning(IEEE, 2023) Koshy, Nicole; Dixit, Anshuman; Jadhav, Siddhi Shrikant; Penmatsa, Arun V.; Samanthapudi, Sagar V.; Kumar, Mothi Gowtham Asok; Anuyah, Sydney Oghenetega; Vemula, Gourav; Herzog, Patricia Snell; Bolchini, DavideMany publicly available datasets exist that can provide factual answers to a wide range of questions that benefit the public. Indeed, datasets created by governmental and non- governmental organizations often have a mandate to share data with the public. However, these datasets are often underutilized by knowledge workers due to the cumbersome amount of expertise and embedded implicit information needed for everyday users to access, analyze, and utilize their information. To seek solutions to this problem, this paper discusses the design of an automated process for generating questions that provide insight into a dataset. Given a relational dataset, our prototype system architecture follows a five-step process from data extraction, cleaning, pre-processing, entity recognition using deep learning, and questions formulation. Through examples of our results, we show that the questions generated by our approach are similar and, in some cases, more accurate than the ones generated by an AI engine like ChatGPT, whose question outputs while more fluent, are often not true to the facts represented in the original data. We discuss key limitations of our approach and the work to be done to bring to life a fully generalized pipeline that can take any data set and automatically provide the user with factual questions that the data can answer.Item Peer Mentor Program Strategy for Improvement in First-Year Student Retention(ASEE, 2024) Matutes, Joan; Hacker, Shelby; Herzog, Patricia Snell; Spicklemire, Stephen; Reid, Kenneth; Martinez, Joan; Leonard, Brett; Herzog, JosephThis work studyies students in a small, private school in the Midwest that recently developed a peer mentoring program. The goal of the program is to improve retention among first-year engineering students by forming a strong sense of community within the school. Each individual peer mentoring group was composed of a single peer mentor guiding a small cohort of students. Once paired with a mentor, the mentees were strongly encouraged to engage in weekly interactions, either through attendance at a one-hour event or by maintaining regular communication with their mentor. With the goal of improving community bonds amongst first-year students, these events were typically fun, social events: meals together, game nights, sporting events, and so on. This arrangement provided first-year students with the opportunity to develop strong connections with peers and upper-class students, enabling them to ask questions they might not feel as comfortable posing to professors. In the academic year immediately following the initiation of the peer mentor program (Fall 2021 - Fall 2022), this program saw 14.5% points increase in overall first-year to second-year retention. This paper investigates changes in retention numbers at various points in time to better understand the success of this program and excavate its relevance for other programs seeking to implement peer mentoring. In addition to quantitative data, we gathered qualitative, open-ended survey data from mentees on how they feel the program helped them. This helps to understand experiences from the students’ perspectives. Additionally, metrics were analyzed to help optimize mentee attendance and participation in the peer mentor events.