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[log in to unmask]" type="cite">We have posted a variety of new sample datasets on PCAT (http://pcat.qdap.net) for researchers who want to experiment with comment analysis. The datasets were compiled using the "InfoExtractor" tool built by Chirag Shah. PCAT is a free text analysis platform that allows you or your team to search, sort, filter & classify the items in a dataset. Further, PCAT has on-board tools for the measurement of inter-coder reliability and validity, generating tag-clouds, and lots of other nifty stuff.

If you decise the techniques are useful, using InfoExtractor (http://www.infoextractor.org), you can go into YouTube, news sites, or blogs to scrape off the comments that you want to study in an XML format  that uploads easily into PCAT.

These new samples are already posted under "Sample Datasets" when you create a new account:

• Climate Change
  • Climate Change (1000 items)
  • HOME (English with subtitles) (1000 items)
  • How It All Ends (1000 items)
  • Global Warming 101 (1000 items)
  • Global Warming (1000 items)
• Gulf Oil Spill
  • Gulf Coast Oil Spill In-Situ Burn (1000 items)
  • Ocean currents likely to carry oil spill to Atlantic (841 items)
  • BP Slick Covers Dolphins and Whales (1000 items)
  • NASA | Satellites View Growing Gulf Oil Spil (999 items)
  • New Underwater footage of BP oil leak at the source (1000 items)
• Immigration
  • President Obama, No One in Arizona is Laughing (1000 items)
  • Shakira Speaks Out Against Arizona Immigration Law (1000 items)
  • Gabriella Speaks City Council Meeting April 27, 2010 (847 items)
  • Response to President Calderon (1000 items)
  • Illegals Threaten To Murder Americans With Axes and Shovels (1000 items)
• Job Market
  • Video Essay: Jobless in America (50 items)
  • Veterans Jobless Rate Doubles Civilians (97 items)
  • First Person: Being Unemployed Is 'Devastating' (142 items)
  • The Truth About the Economy: Total Collapse (1000 items)

To try it out, set up a free account at http://pcat.qdap.net. There is a 9 minute PCAT overview video online at:

http://www.screencast.com/t/ZDczNmE3Mz



--
Dr. Stuart W. Shulman
Assistant Professor
Department of Political Science
University of Massachusetts Amherst
200 Hicks Way
Amherst, MA 01003

http://people.umass.edu/stu/
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413-545-5375

Editor, Journal of Information Technology and Politics
http://www.jitp.net

Director, QDAP-UMass
http://www.umass.edu/qdap/

Associate Director, National Center for Digital Government
http://www.umass.edu/digitalcenter/