Intermediate SNA

Overview

This course is taught by Steve Borgatti. It is a more technical and in-depth workshop than the Introductory workshop, but covers many of the same concepts. It focuses on the concepts and methods of SNA, particularly as they apply to specific research objectives. In this course, everything is related back to the research questions -- how the network analysis relates to consequences of interest. In addition, the mathematics and algorithms behind the measures and techniques is explained. Prior familiarity with network analysis and research in general is assumed.

UCINET software is used extensively. Please visit our software page long in advance of the workshop. Important note: UCINET is Windows software.

The course meets four times starting June 22: Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Monday from 9:30-11:30 and 1:30-3:30 (16 contact hours). On the off days, students work on homework assignments with the help of the TAs (scroll down for contact info). For the homework assignments, students are encouraged to use their own data in addition to the Ucinet datasets.

Schedule

Monday morning - Fundamentals from an advanced point of view

  • What are we trying to do? The network perspective

  • Graph traversals

Monday afternoon - Working with data

  • Entering data in UCINET

  • 2-mode to 1-mode conversions

  • Data management and visualization

Tuesday

  • Homework assignments

  • Work with TA

Wednesday morning – Node-level constructs

  • Centrality

Wednesday afternoon – Node-level constructs

  • More centrality

  • Ego network measures

Thursday

  • Homework assignments

  • Work with TA

Friday morning – Testing hypotheses

  • MR-QAP & LR-QAP

Friday afternoon – Testing hypotheses

  • Panel QAP

  • ERGMs, SAOMs, REMs

Saturday

  • Homework assignments

  • Work with TA

Monday morning - Groups

  • Characterizing groups

  • Detecting groups/communities

Monday afternoon – Wrap-up

  • Parting comments

  • Questions

Recommended Readings

  • Borgatti, SP and Everett, MG. (Accepted, to appear in 2020). “Three Perspectives on Centrality.” In The Oxford Handbook of Social Networks, edited by James Moody. Oxford University Press [pdf]

TA contact information