Dynamic Network Actor Models (DyNAMs) using the Goldfish package in R (POSTPONED)

Our workshop is currently postponed until further notice, new dates for this are yet to be determined.

Workshop content and objectives

The advent of electronic communication, social media, and human sensor technologies have brought about a wealth of fine-grained social interaction data that are often easily accessible to social scientists. Archival network data sources also often come with detailed information about duration and order of relational ties. This workshop introduces and compares different approaches for the analysis of relational event data. The goal is to provide an overview of research problems that relate to relational event data, to enable participants to conduct basic analyses with the Goldfish package, and to introduce conceptual and practical differences between actor-oriented and tie-oriented network event models. 

In particular, the workshop introduces two types of Dynamic Network Actor Models (DyNAMs), one for directed event data and one for time-stamped coordination networks. Both actor-oriented models are compared to tie-oriented Relational Event Models.

Software

The workshop is taught using R and RStudio. Please install both before coming to the workshop. The latest version of goldfish is available on Github: https://github.com/snlab-​ch/goldfish.

Prerequisites

Participants taking this course are expected to be familiar with the basic concepts of descriptive statistics, and have an active interest in dynamic networks. The basic elements of the R programming language needed to specify, estimate, and interpret network models in Goldfish will be introduced in the early stages of the seminar.

Instructor

Christoph Stadtfeld is Assistant Professor of Social Networks at ETH Zürich, Switzerland. He holds a PhD from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and has been postdoctoral researcher and Marie-​Curie fellow at the University of Groningen, the Social Network Analysis Research Center in Lugano, and the MIT Media Lab. His research focuses on the development and application of theories and methods for social network dynamics.

References

• Stadtfeld, C., Hollway, J. & Block, P.  2017. Dynamic Network Actor Models: Investigating Coordination Ties through Time. Sociological Methodology, 47(1): 1-40
• Stadtfeld, C. & Block, P. 2017. Interactions, Actors and Time: Dynamic Network Actor Models for Relational Events. Sociological Science, 4: 318-352.