About the ASSM – The Arab Council for the Social Sciences

The Arab Social Science Monitor (ASSM) seeks to understand the social science and humanities landscape in the Arab region and to identify capacities and needs by surveying and analyzing the infrastructures and conditions of social science and humanities knowledge production and dissemination.

The ASSM focuses on three main research areas

– The infrastructures of knowledge production in the social sciences and humanities

– The career trajectories of the social science and humanities research communities

– The uses of social science and humanities in the region

Governance

A 26-member Advisory Committee guides the technical and programmatic aspects of the ASSM. The committee includes current and former ACSS board of Trustees members and country focal points.

Framework and Databases

The ASSM documents the infrastructures of social science and humanities knowledge production in the Arab region and compiles them in databases that can be found at https://dataverse.theacss.org/dataverse/assm

A 5-component framework guides ASSM research: Individuals, Institutions, Products, Practices and

Individuals: Individual researchers working in the Arab region who hold a Masters or Doctoral degree in social science or humanities from any university in the world and/or are involved in social science and humanities research.

Institutions: Universities, Research Centers and Professional Societies

Products: Libraries, Archives, Publishing houses, Ph.D. directories and depositories, Scientific journals, Curricula

Practices: Selection committees, Peer review committees, governance and resource allocation in universities and research institutions, promotion, tenure, scholarships, fellowships.

Uses: Policy making, public discourses, conferences and dissemination.

Disciplines covered by the ASSM are core social sciences and humanities disciplines (Anthropology, Archaeology, Economics, Education, Geography, History, Linguistics, Literature, Philosophy, Political Sciences, Psychology, Religious Studies, and Sociology), and related multi-disciplinary fields (Cultural Studies, Demography/Population Studies, Development Studies, Gender Studies, Regional & International Studies, and Urban Studies).

Geographic coverage: 22 Arab countries that are member states in the League of Arab States: Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Emirates, Iraq, Jordan, KSA, Kuwait, Libya, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen.

Dataverse committee

ACSS Dataverse: Knowledge as a Public Good

The Arab Public Data Initiative, a sub-project of the ASSM, was launched in June 2018 and works to promote the norm and practice of data management and sharing among social scientists and humanists and research institutions in the Arab region. This Initiative is being implemented in collaboration with the Odum Institute for Research in Social Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (http://odum.unc.edu) and is guided by a 7-member advisory committee co-chaired by the ACSS and UNC.

The Initiative has two main objectives:

Preserving and facilitating access to social science research data on and in the Arab region

An online public-access interdisciplinary social science data archive ACSS Dataverse (www.dataverse.theacss.org) went live in June 2019. Some of the benefits to data depositors are long-term storage, enhanced discoverability and automatic generation of formal data citations with persistent identifiers. Datasets that are deposited in the ACSS Dataverse are de-identified to protect the confidentiality of study participants and processed in keeping with global data archiving standards.

Those interested in depositing their social science datasets in the ACSS Dataverse, please contact dataverse@thecss.org

Capacity building in managing and sharing data

The ACSS organizes training workshops on Data Management and Sharing for the Social Sciences. These workshops present principles, best practices and tools of data management and sharing and include practical exercises on how to create tidy and reusable datasets fit for analysis and publication. They also include applications for archiving research data for long-term preservation, discovery, access and use.

The trainings bring together researchers, administrators, librarians, and archivists from academic and non-academic institutions from across the Arab region.

Training workshops held to-date:

November 30 to December 2, 2018 – Beirut, Lebanon
April 9 to 11, 2019 – Beirut, Lebanon
October 1 to 4, 2019 – Amman, Jordan
November 16 to 19, 2020 – Online
May 3o to June 1, 2021 – Online
November 28 to 30, 2021 – Online
March 27 to 29, 2022 – Online (training of trainers)

Data Collection and Compilation

The ASSM uses a matrix of indicators to compile information on the National context, Institutions, Products, Practices and Uses. In addition, we employ a questionnaire to collect data on Individuals through an online survey, which is conducted biennially.

Learn More

The questionnaire consists of five sections:

Personal data (e.g. name, nationality)
Academic education background (e.g. universities attended)
Career path (e.g. job positions held)
Research topics, paradigms and methodology (e.g. publications)
Research funding

As the Monitor develops, new tools of data collection will be developed and different types of data sources will be mined.

Databases

The Monitor framework consists of five components: Individuals, Institutions, Products, Practices and Uses. Each component focuses on different units of study and employs different data collection tools.

Individuals

Individual researchers working in the Arab region or living in the diaspora, those who hold a Master’s or Doctoral degree in social science from any university in the world, and/or are involved in social science research.

Institutions

Universities, research centers and professional societies.

Products

Libraries, archives, publishing houses, PhD directories and depositories, scientific journals, curricula.

Uses

Policymaking, public discourses, conferences and dissemination.

Practices

Selection committees, peer review committees, governance and resource allocation in universities and research institutions, promotion, tenure, scholarships, fellowships.