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Introduction to Social Network Analysis

Instructor:
Anuška Ferligoj, University of Ljubljana

Time:
13.00-16.00 July 17th 2017

Course Description:
Social network analysis has attracted considerable interest from social and behavioral science community in recent decades. Much of this interest can be attributed to the focus of social network analysis on relationship among units, and on the patterns of these relationships. Social network analysis is a rapidly expanding and changing field with broad range of approaches, methods, models and substantive applications. In the course, special attention will be given to:

  1. General introduction to social network analysis:
    • What are social networks?
    • Data collection issues.
    • Basic network concepts: network representation; types of networks; size and density.
    • Walks and paths in networks: length and value of path; the shortest path, k-neighbours; acyclic networks.
    • Connectivity: weakly, strongly and bi-connected components; contraction; extraction.
  2. Overview of tasks and corresponding methods:
    • Network/node properties: centrality (degree, closeness, betweenness); hubs and authorities.
    • Cohesion: triads, cliques, cores, islands.
    • Partitioning: blockmodeling (direct and indirect approaches; structural, regular equivalence; generalised blockmodeling); clustering.
    • Statistical models.
  3. Software for social network analysis (UCINET, PAJEK,…).

About the instructor:
Anuška Ferligoj is Professor of statistics at the Faculty of Social Sciences at University of Ljubljana, head of the graduate program on Applied Statistics at the University of Ljubljana. She is a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Mathematical Sociology, Journal of Classification, Advances in Data Analysis and Classification, Methodology, Structure and Dynamics: eJournal of Anthropology and Related Sciences, Statistics in transition, Metodološki zvezeki, BMS, and Corvinus Journal of Sociology and Social Policy. She was a Fulbright scholar in 1990/91, visiting professor at the University of Pittsburgh in 1996 and at the University of Vienna in 2009/10. She was awarded the title of Ambassador of Science of the Republic of Slovenia in 1997 and obtained the Simmel Award in 2007, given by the International Network for Social Network Analysis (INSNA). In 2010 she received Doctor et Professor Honoris Causa at Eotvos Lorand University (ELTE) in Budapest. She is elected member of the European Academy of Sociology and the International Statistical Institute. Her interests include multivariate analysis, social networks, and survey methodology. She is the coauthor of the monograph “Generalized Blockmodeling” published by Cambridge University Press (2005), which obtained the Harrison White Outstanding Book Award 2007, given by the Mathematical Sociology Section at the American Sociological Association.