CASOS Training Program - Summer Institute Component
June 16-21, 2003
Carnegie Mellon University

Purpose:
The purpose of this institute is to provide an intense and hands-on introduction to dynamic network analysis and computational organization
theory. Both network analysis and computational analysis of complex social, organizational, and network systems 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 computational social science, networks analysis, and computational organization theory. 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 the social and organizational sciences are discussed. Multiple computational platforms are explored and hands-on experience are provided. The platforms students will work with include SimVision, ORGAHEAD, CONSTRUCT, ORGCON and TrustMe. The network representation and theory underlying SimVision, ORGAHEAD, CONSTRUCT and TrustMe is presented. Basic network representations, statistics, and network analysis and visualization techniques for standard and dynamic networks are covered.. The computational curriculum also covers standard representation schemes for tasks, agents, and culture;
optimization techniques, and learning algorithms. An examination of social network methods, complexity theory and procedures for
integrating network-based metrics and statistics into computational models completes the program.
Sponsored by the National Science Foundation IGERT.

Institute Curriculum:
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.

Topics covered include:

• Social Network Analysis
• Dynamic Network Analysis
• Organizational Network Analysis
• MRQAP, Cliques
• Optimization Techniques - e.g., simulated annealing
• Adaptive, Evolutionary, and Learning Systems
• Emulative models; SimVision
• Data intensive models; ORGCON
• Intellective models and statistical analysis
• Validation and Docking
• Institute Participants:
  Participation is open to graduate students, faculty, and personnel from industry and government. Due to space restrictions we are limited
  to approximately 35 students per year.
  
  Faculty:
  Faculty are drawn from various institutions throughout the U.S.
  
• Agenda
  
• Pictures
  
• Reading List