Introduction to Relational/Network Data Collection
An ISSR Short Course by Chris Smith
Date: Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Time: 3:00-5:00 pm
Location: ISSR Training Lab W37E Machmer Hall (3rd Floor, West Wing)
Click here to register for this workshop
Description:
Do you think there might be a network component to your research project? Are you interested in how to design a network research project? This workshop introduces the basics of network project design. We will learn how to collect and code for relational data and how to organize relational data for network analysis. We will discuss network issues of boundary specification, vertex and edge coding, and ego networks versus population networks. Chris will provide examples of network data. As a group we will brainstorm the network potential of participants’ own research projects and ideas. We will generate an edgelist in Excel and load it into R. Participants will leave this short course with the tools to start their own network data collection and will be prepared for a follow- up workshop that introduces basic network statistics and graphics in R on February 25, 2013.
Course Objectives:
There are five related goals of this workshop:
1. Learn what network data look like and where you can find them.
2. Generate ideas for original network data collection.
3. Design a plan and data management system for original network data collection.
4. Load network data into R.
5. Build a community around network-oriented social science researchers.