Social Network Analysis: Description and Inference (Online)

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This one-day course will be offered via Zoom. Attendance is required as the course will not be recorded.

This course will provide an introduction to descriptive and inferential network analysis. In the morning we will cover descriptive network analysis, including: terminology, data collection/management, position (e.g., centrality) analysis, visualization, and community detection. In the afternoon we will cover statistical network analysis. Do actor attributes such as gender, race, or political preferences salary predict tie formation in a network? Does the network exhibit a tendency towards reciprocal tie formation? Statistical network models can be used to empirically study network structure and answer questions such as these. We will cover both empirical analysis and network simulation using statistical network models. Real-world network data and R code will be presented through interactive workshop sessions in both the morning and afternoon. There are no formal prerequisites for the course, but a background in basic statistical analysis (e.g., regression) will be useful.
 

Instructor: Bruce Desmarais

Dr. Desmarais is the DeGrandis-McCourtney Early Career Professor in Political Science, Associate Director of the Center for Social Data Analytics, and an Affiliate of the Institute for Computational and Data Sciences at Penn State University. His research is focused on methodological development and applications that further our understanding of the complex interdependence that underlies politics and public policy. Methodologically, he focuses on methods for modeling networks, analyzing text, and running experiments on social systems. Primary application areas of interest to Bruce include public policy diffusion and digital communications involving political elites.
Dr. Desmarais holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2010). Prior to coming to Penn State, he was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and an Affiliate of the Computational Social Science Institute at UMass Amherst (2010-2015)

Registration fees

• UNC-CH Students: $0, with a $20 deposit to hold your spot (deposit is refundable upon your attendance for at least 66% of the course)
• UNC-CH Faculty/Staff/Postdoc/Residents/Visiting Scholars: $45
• Non UNC-CH: $85

Additional course information:

• Registration closes at 12:01am, October 22, 2022. Once registration closes, no late registrations will be accepted, no exceptions.
• Cancellation/ Refund Policy: A full refund will be given to those who cancel their registration no later than 10 days prior to the course. If you cancel within the 10 days prior to the class, no refund will be given. Please allow 30 days to receive your refund.
• Zoom link for this course will be sent prior to the course. Registration must be made at least 3 days prior to the course date to receive the Zoom link.