Small, open, big: i dati e la conoscenza scientifica

The paper is an introduction to a series of essays discussed in two parallel sessions during a conference organized in Rome on the 25th and 26th of September 2016 by the department of Methodology of the AIS (Italian Association of Sociology). Given the introductory nature of the presentation to the contributions that have accepted the challenge of Big Data, trying to integrate these powerful research instruments with official statistics, surveys and data stores, the goal here is to retrace, through the submitted essays, some of the most noteworthy aspects of Big Data that require careful epistemological and methodological reflection.