CASOS 2004 Summer Institute

June 21 - 26, 2004

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 ORGAHEAD, CONSTRUCT, ORGCON and TrustMe. The network representation and theory underlying these tools e is presented. Basic social network and dynamic network representations, statistics, analysis and visualization techniques are covered including the tools UCINET, ORA, and NetDraw. 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.

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; e.g., BioWar
Data intensive models; ORGCON
Intellective model; e.g. trustme
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.
Faculty List: To be announced soon

Scholarships:

A limited number of scholarships have been made available by the NSF for Ph.D students who are US Nationals or have permanent resident status. Women and minority students are especially encouraged to apply. To apply, mark your interest on the registration form and eligibility.

Costs

650-grad student
950-faculty
1300-industry