This talk aims to give a user’s perspective on FLOSS tools for open research in social science. It will be based on personal experience with a team project that aimed to analyze the Twitter follow graph of last year’s FOSDEM and CHAOSScon participants. The project used open source tools and agile management: data was collected with a command line tool (Twarc), network visualization was done with Gephi, and Framagit provided a collaborative framework for managing code, data, visualization and text.

Implementing this project led to insight about what it takes for social scientists who have minimal tech knowledge and culture, to practice open research with FLOSS tools. This talk will specifically address three types of challenges I faced : training, documenting, and collaborating.