Summary

The interactive session offers participants a chance to ask questions about the course content, including the Infra4NextGen harmonised datasets, and learn more about the AI-driven tool Harmony from its project leaders.

Description

This kick-off session marks the launch of the Infra4NextGen training course: Creating and working with ex-post harmonised survey data.

The session includes a short talk by the Harmony team. Harmony is a Natural Language Processing (NLP)-based tool that helps researchers find conceptually similar survey questions across different datasets.

With demonstrations of the tool’s key functionalities, participants will gain an idea of how it can improve their data management processes for increased efficiency and accuracy of outputs. 

Participants are encouraged to bring any questions they have concerning the online training course, the I4NG Harmonised Data Gateway, or the applicability of Harmony. 

Agenda

• Course Introduction: Overview of the training modules
• Meet the Harmony Team: A short talk on using the Harmony tool to accelerate finding harmonisable survey items
• Q&A: Open office hour for questions on the course, harmonised data, harmonisation strategies, and the Harmony tool

After this session, participants will:

• Have a clear picture of the course structure and available support.
• Understand how the Harmony Tool can identify conceptually similar items across diverse sources of surveys.

Further Support Slots

Following this kick-off session, the team will offer additional open Q&A sessions: 

• 30 June 2026, 11-11.30am (CEST)
• 28 October 2026, 11-11.30am (CET) 
• 1 December 2026, 11-11.30am (CET) 

Another session from 11am-12.30pm (CEST) on 29 September 2026 will feature a talk by Dr. Rabia Karatoprak Ersen on the evaluation of test equating and linking methods for harmonisation. 

Speakers:

• I4NG team leading the harmonisation work: Insa Bechert, Rabia Karatoprak Ersen and Nidanur Basturk (GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences)
• Harmony team: Bettina Moltrecht, PhD (UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies), Eoin McElroy (Ulster University) and Thomas Wood (Fast Data Science)

Register here