FYI: ICPSR Summer Courses

ICPSR courses are oriented toward faculty and graduate students but some are open to advanced undergraduates.  In any case, folks who might be interested in graduate school in the social sciences should probably know about ICPSR (a source of lots of secondary data) and their educational program.  You can get almost a semester's worth of training in just one or two weeks sometimes. The introduction courses below would be especially accessible.

The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) Summer Program in Quantitative Methods of Social Research is pleased to announce its current course offerings on network analysis. This is an excellent opportunity to learn about this increasingly important and expanding field from internationally-recognized instructors who are not only first-rate scholars but also excellent teachers.

In 2010, we will be offering three five-day workshops in three different locations:

Network Analysis: An Introduction. June 7-11, Ann Arbor, MI. Instructors: Stanley Wasserman (Psychology and Statistics, Indiana University) and Ann McCranie (Sociology, Indiana University).

Social Network Analysis: An Introduction. July 12-16, Chapel Hill, NC. Instructor: Katherine Faust (Sociology, University of California, Irvine).

Network Analysis: Theory and Methods. August 16-20, Bloomington, IN.
Instructors: Bernice Pescosolido (Sociology, Indiana University);
Stanley Wasserman (Psychology and Statistics, Indiana University); Ann
McCranie (Sociology, Indiana University).

All three of these courses will cover similar material. The two introductory workshops will focus primarily on methods for analyzing relational data measured on groups of actors, along with the software tools for estimating network models. The theory and methods workshop will cover substantive considerations regarding networks, as well as methodological strategies for analyzing them.

Unlike other workshops on network analysis being offered this summer at sites around the world, these ICPSR workshop offerings have been taught in this format for more than 25 years. ICPSR workshops are known for their small class sizes, easy access to very expert instructors, and hands-on computing exercises. Detailed software instruction illustrates how to construct, visualize, and analyze networks in several major software packages: UCINET, Pajek, PNet, Netdraw, and Network Workbench. Instructors meet with students face-to-face to discuss individual projects (bring your own data!). These workshops are simply the best around.

Course descriptions, registration information, and the fee structure are all available on the ICPSR Summer Program web site:http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/sumprog/

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us by e-mail ( sumprog@icpsr.umich.edu) or telephone (734.763.7400).