How technology supports the work of social sciences researchers
Foto de Vlada Karpovich
Trigger Warning: The following article discusses Dr. Lori Handrahan's most recent paper on child sex trafficking. Reader discretion is advised.
When we talk about technology and software development, it is normal to think of robots, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and virtual worlds. We rarely, or never, think about the social sciences. We do not associate the humanities with technology; they seem like opposing fields that never come together.
However, and despite the reluctance of some, most if not all researchers who work in any branch of humanities need technological tools to carry out their research. Databases, information processors, tables, and notes are usually kept digitally. Without them, it would be almost impossible to successfully complete the publication of a paper, a book, or an investigation.
We love to collaborate with different fields, accept new challenges, and approach projects not only as developers but as human beings who understand a problem and want to contribute to solving it. That is why we are proud to talk about this project and how, from our field, we were able to contribute a little bit to the visibility of the huge problem that is child sexual abuse.
The person who contacted us was Dr. Lori Handrahan. In the work of her research on child sex trafficking in higher education, she needed help to develop a database, where she could organize all the information and obtain relevant quantitative data that would allow her to find patterns and draw statistics to write the hypotheses of his research. The Soluntech team was honored to work with her.
The project itself was a database on Knack, in which all the judicial information of previous cases of higher education teachers arrested for sexual crimes against children was entered. The database and its manipulation made it possible to get quantifiable data and repetitive patterns that can be considered red flags when finding a possible abuser in work environments. The information Dr. Handrahan used resulted in the publication of a paper “Child Sex Trafficking in Higher Education” in the Journal of Human Trafficking.
Beyond our contribution to developing the database and its operation, we consider it especially important to spread this research. Dr. Handrahan focused on a specific sector -university professors and academic circles of researchers-; however, this work can be extrapolated to all the world's jobs and raises the question of whether we really know who we have next to us at the office.
One of the characteristics that Dr. Handrahan found is that many of these abusers seem like good people. They work with children in the community, and on many occasions, they have influential positions or put up a facade of loving and responsible parents to hide their crimes.
In conclusion, at Soluntech, we are proud that our work helps visualize a problem. We hope that Dr. Handrahan's research will continue to grow and obtain the funding it needs. We are willing to continue collaborating with her, since this experience has also been enriching for us.
Listen to the entire interview with Dr. Lori Handrahan
Likewise, we invite other researchers and academics in the social sciences to explore the possibilities that custom software development can offer them: streamline processes, improve data collection and analysis, or even carry out simulation tests. Technology and custom software can be great allies in your research.