New research using large-scale online experiments suggests that rewarding people to contribute to a virtual public good, such as a simulated online rating for a ferry system, increased the accuracy of the ratings and improved the overall quality of that resource.
While social media platforms are the primary source of political information for a growing number of people, a majority of Twitter users do not follow either members of Congress, their president or news media, a new study suggests.
Data increasingly drives research and policy on a broad array of pressing global issues, including climate change, misinformation in social media, and the future of the social safety net in our aging society. A new mathematics course in the works at UC Davis will help to prepare the next generation of social scientists to analyze and use data in mathematical models.
Faculty in the College of Letters and Science were awarded $62.5 million to support research across the liberal arts and sciences in 2018-19, the College’s strongest research funding year ever.
For four years, an institute in the UC Davis College of Letters and Science worked to bring together experts from diverse fields across the campus and beyond to tackle big questions facing society.
The Institute for Social Sciences (ISS), from fall 2014 through spring 2018, provided research seed funding, hosted conferences and talks, and offered graduate seminars and other student programs.
The Institute for Social Sciences (ISS) hosted its inaugural Noon Lecture in November with a joint talk by two UC Davis professors of political science presenting an analysis of the 2014 midterm elections.
In their talk on Nov. 12, 2014 — “2014 in the Rear View Mirror: What Have We Learned?” — Professor Benjamin Highton and Distinguished Professor Robert Huckfeldt discussed the implications these midterm elections have for California and the 2016 presidential race.
Kathy Olmsted, chair of the history department, kicked off the 2015–16 ISS Noon Lecture series with a discussion of her newest book, Right Out of California.
Speaking to a capacity audience on Oct. 20, 2015, Olmsted argued that modern conservatism—the "New Right"—originated in New Deal-era California as a business-backed response to the farmworker unionization movement in the Central Valley.
The proliferation of smartphones and other personal electronics has led to a booming demand for rare earth minerals. Yet recent legal and corporate interventions designed to eliminate “conflict minerals” from high-tech supply chains have proven equally violent and destructive to people on the ground.
What can the Great Depression and its aftermath teach us about “current unpleasantness” in the U.S. economy? On May 11, 2016, Professor of History Eric Rauchway offered some clues through a discussion of his latest book The Money Makers.
Moderated by Professor of Economics Christopher M. Meissner, the event represented a combining of two series: ISS Noon Lectures and DHI Brown Bag Book Chats.
Unlike the enslavement of Africans, Native American slavery was historically illegal across much of North America. Yet, as UC Davis historian Andrés Reséndez explained to a colloquium held October 12, 2016, in honor of Indigenous Peoples’ Day, it was practiced for centuries—sometimes by Indians themselves.
Reséndez began by framing the enslavement of Native Americans against popular historical perceptions of slavery in North America—perceptions that typically focus on African slavery.