First seminar of Research Group "Machine Learning and Social Computing": trajectories of development and research of online games
On January 21 the first adjusting seminar of Research Group "Machine Learning and Social Computing" took a place. Current plans and the main ideas about future work were discussed; design and some results of researches on social algorithms in online games and eSports were presented.
The first meeting was attended not only by participants of Research Group, but also by students of Data Science minor and BA "Sociology and Social Informatics". Alexander Sirotkin, the chairman of the Research Group, started the discussion with organizational matters: topics of seminars, expected results, functions of participants of the Research Group. Ilya Musabirov told about scientific plans, key conferences, which our Group is going to participate in and current working progress on the different directions. Also the importance of inclusion of our Group to scientific community was mentioned.
"The seminar has made quite strong impression on me. It was interesting to listen about the researches of online games conducted by my colleagues. Besides, the program of the Research Group looks very promising. My studies are far from computer sciences, but I hope that the opportunity to attend these further seminars would help me to get new skills which I could combine with the disciplines studied on my BA program"
Darya Chuprina,
3d year student of BA “Asian and African Studies”
In spite of the fact that new year has just started, we already have first deadlines. Therefore the participants of the Research Group are planning to present researches of media ratings and online communities in eSports.
“I had found out about the seminar from the organizers just a few days before it took place. Being the youngest student there, at first I felt a bit nervous («they all do know how to code in R here" — these words kept spinning in my mind). However, the atmosphere of unity and the fact that all of were there here for the big deal, made me calm. All works presented on the seminar seemed fascinating and unique for me. The research on behavior of people in Twitch-chats during broadcasts was the thing I remembered the most, as I rather often visit this resource and watch discussions of games. I am very glad that I had an opportunity to take part in this seminar and I am looking forward to the following ones.”
Ilya Zisman,
1st year student of BA “Sociology and Social Informatics”
Denis Bulygin and Ksenia Konstantinova have told about design of the current research. Also Anna Batayeva (2nd year student of BA "Sociology") has shared the ideas about media ecosystems in eSports.
Denis already has some researches on eSports and online-games. He presented results of work about value formation of virtual goods in Dota2. Ksenia Konstantinova provided the first results of the work in which she analyzes communication of the audience in online games during broadcastings using topic modeling. Next she is going to perform the dynamic analysis of key participants of chats and understand the process of communication during eSports broadcastings in general.
Anna Batayeva told about the ideas of the expansion and modification of the list of media-metrics in Dota2. She is developing previous research by I. Musabirov and D. Bulygin. Her aim is to classify media by subject with LDA and also to add information from Twitch-channels of players. In the long term Anna will include the analysis of interrelation of media metrics and popularity of professional players, shedding the light on social process of value designing of brands.
"In spite of the fact that the subject of metrics and algorithms of community in eSports and forming of value in online-games was already enriched with the first important formal results. The aim of the seminar was not simply reporting the results, because our work with Denis and Alexander was accepted on one of the key Computer Science conferences ACM CHI, we focused at works which are in the initial stage. We investigated them to make the format and content more clear. It is very pleasant Ksenia and Anna has already shown excellent performance and answered all questions. It gives a hope that, they would not become puzzled and will prove their works while presenting it to specialists.”
Ilya Musabirov,
Lecturer at the Department of Sociology