The purpose of the CASOS summer institute is to provide an intense and hands-on introduction to dynamic network analysis and computational modeling of complex socio-technical systems. Both network analysis and multi-agent modeling will be covered. Participants will be able to complete the institute without programming skills or in-depth understanding of particular social theories. Computer programming and basic social or organizational theory are not included under the topics covered.
Participants learn about current trends, practices, and tools available for social networks analysis, link analysis, simulation, and multi-agent modeling. Basic social network and dynamic network representations, statistics, analysis and visualization techniques are covered.Techniques for designing, analyzing, and validating computational models with and without network components are presented. There is also an emphasis on appropriate and inappropriate ways to critique computational models and network analyses. The strengths and weaknesses of computational and network approaches to examining complex socio-technical issues are discussed. Multiple computational platforms are explored and hands-on experience are provided.An examination of social network methods, complexity theory and procedures for integrating network-based metrics and statistics into computational models completes the program.The platforms students will work with include ORA, AutoMap, Construct, and UCINET.
Students are encouraged to bring their own data and to learn to use these tools to code, analyze, reason about and visualize there data. Students will work through a tool chain where they extract networks from texts, analyze those networks, and the using simulation techniques evolve those networks.
The curriculum builds on both social network and computational analysis techniques, and illustrates how to use these techniques to study social, organizational and policy issues.