Profile

I am a PhD student in the Department of Sociology. I hold an MA in Sociology from the University of Leipzig and a BA in Social Sciences and Computer Science from the University of Bern.

My PhD research, supervised by Prof Ulf Liebe and Dr Andreas Murr, focuses on the online community Wikipedia. I am interested in the effects offline gatherings between Wikipedians have on their online behaviour, in particular in regard to their contribution, norm-enforcing and voting behaviour in the context of their social network. This research project is partly funded by a Wikimedia Project Grant.

Besides my PhD research, I have also been working on topics regarding social status and prosociality, ethnic violence, and using web data in the social sciences. I have been working with Oxfam GB and their impact evaluation team to support them in exploring how to use digital data, in particular on Twitter, for impact evaluations.

Research Interests

• Computational social science
• Network analysis
• Ethnic violence
• Prosocial behaviour

Publications

Schwitter, Nicole, Alexia Pretari, William Marwa, Simone Lombardini and Ulf Liebe (2022). Big data and development sociology: An overview and application on governance and accountability through digitalization in Tanzania. Frontiers in Sociology.

Liebe, Ulf, Nicole Schwitter and Andreas Tutić (2022). Individuals of high socioeconomic status are altruistic in sharing money but egoistic in sharing time. Scientific Reports, 12, 1083.

Schwitter, Nicole and Ulf Liebe (2022). Does living in districts with higher levels of ethnic violence affect refugees’ attitudes towards the host country? Empirical evidence from Germany. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 45(15), 2793-2821.

Schwitter, Nicole (2022). Social capital in retirement villages: A literature review. Ageing&Society, 42(7), 1560-1588.

Liebe, Ulf and Nicole Schwitter (2021). Explaining Ethnic Violence: On the Relevance of Geographic, Social, Economic, and Political Factors in Hate Crimes on Refugees. European Sociological Review, 37(3), 429-448.

Schwitter, Nicole and Ulf Liebe (2020). Going Digital: Web data collection using Twitter as an example. Oxford: Oxfam GB.

Schwitter, Nicole and Ulf Liebe (2019). Twitter Data Analysis. In A. Pretari, Active Citizenship in Tanzania: Impact Evaluation of the 'Governance and Accountability through Digitalization' project. Impact Evaluation Report 2017-2019: Chapters 3.4 and 4.3. Oxford: Oxfam GB.

Liebe, Ulf, Nicole Schwitter and Andreas Tutić (2019). Objective Status, Subjective Status and Prosociality of Swiss Apprentices. Swiss Journal of Sociology, 45(1), 57-81.

Conference Presentations and Talks

Web Conference: WikiWorkshop (Lyon, France), 2022. Presentation: Offline Meetups of German Wikipedians: Boosting or Breaking Activity?

Frühjahrstagung der DGS-Sektion Soziologische Netzwerkforschung (University of Wuppertal), 2022. Presentation: Social norm enforcement on Wikipedia: The role of offline and online networks.

Joint Sunbelt and NetSci Conference. Washington D.C. (Indiana University), 2021. Presentation: If I know you offline, I will vote for you online? The effect of Wikipedians' offline meetups on online voting behaviour.

Mind Odyssey Café, London, 2021. Presentation: Explaining Ethnic Violence.

Frühjahrstagung der DGS-Sektion Soziologische Netzwerkforschung (University of Wuppertal), 2021. Presentation: If I know you offline, I will vote for you online? The effect of Wikipedians' offline meetups on online voting behaviour.

Teaching

Masterclass: Automated Web Data Collection, Q-step centre, University of Warwick (One-day workshop, 2021).

Introduction to Quantitative Empirical Social Research, University of Mainz (Seminar instructor in 2021).

Network Analysis II: Advanced Topics, ICPSR Summer Program, University of Michigan (TA in 2020, 2021).

Intermediate Social Analytics: Survey Design and Data Collection, QS204, University of Warwick (TA in 2018/19, 2019/20, 2020/21).

Intermediate Social Analytics: Survey Analysis and Reporting, QS205, University of Warwick (TA in 2018/19, 2019/20, 2020/21).