International Summer School for Network Analyses (SNA)

On June, 22-28 International Summer School on Social Network Analysis (SNA), organized by the Laboratory "Sociology of Education and Science" was held in St. Petersburg.

On June, 22-28 International Summer School on Social Network Analysis (SNA), organized by the Laboratory "Sociology of Education and Science" was held in St. Petersburg.

The school was attended by 25 students and young scientists from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Hungary, USA, Colombia and Mexico. All lectures and practical courses were in English. Classes were organized in an intensive mode, each day was divided into four sections. Morning started with a lecture of Professor Jeroen Bruggeman, the author of numerous articles and several books on SNA. Jeroen not only explained the theory of network analysis, but also showed the potential of this method, which allows to combine a variety of scientific fields from physics to ethnography.

The second session was held by Benjamin Lind, a young American teacher who now works in Moscow HSE. Lind conducted workshops in R statistical programming environment, His task was to teach students to apply network analysis to their own data. Despite the fact that not all the participants were familiar with R, Benjamin was able to quickly explain the features of this program to include all the students in active learning process.

 The third daily session - discussion of the articles - was held by Nina O'Brien from the United States. Nina managed to create a very easy and free atmosphere of discussion, where everyone wanted to share impressions about reading material. This part of the school was very valuable for many participants, as in-depth analysis (one article per lesson) gave an opportunity to understand the capacity of network analysis and its applicability to a variety of scientific problems better.

In the evening school participants were discussing their own projects. Speakers presented their research designed with the help of network analysis, students and teachers commented and gave advice on how to improve or supplement the study.

Along with the HSE summer school in the St. Petersburg State University held a conference on social network analysis, and many well-known experts in this field were in St.Petersburg at the same time. One of them, Professor Martin Everett, devivered a lecture for school participants on the assessment of negative ties in networks.

In general, the school was very intense and interesting, the atmosphere was very pleasant, many participants become friends, and organized a new social network.

Impressions of school participants:

 - Konstantin Tarasov, European University:

 I am a historian. I study the structures of power during the Revolution of 1917 in Russia. I thought it would be very productive to study the revolutionary process through a system of networks. It seems to me that teachers were chosen simply brilliant, it's a dream team. The school is absolutely and completely justified then what I expected when I was here and it is very much promoted my knowledges. And it gaves a lot of ideas, is not applicable to what I'm doing now, but for those studies, which I plan to do in the future.

 - Anna Shirokanova, Minsk University:

 The work was well organized; all of us so harmoniously distributed every day. Although we learn a lot of new things, readtextsand listen lectures, there was no congestion. I hear guys talk about it – we all are imbued, we start looking something like that. It's really nice complemented by a good company that to pick up here

 - Alina Vladimirova, HSE - Moscow:

 As a result of visiting this school, I got a very clear idea how SNA can be used for my specific problems. I likedthe teachers, especially Ben, who fineteaches R. Also Jeroen lectures were remarkable; Nina is really laid out to make us understand these articles. All was great. In this school, I liked the people who are gathered here, this is a new social network, and it was surprisingly successful, we had a community on Facebook, and participants have already begun to put back some interesting information, books on R, photographs.

 - Olga Suprunenko, Kiev National University named after Shevchenko:

 I am very glad to have found people who are interested in similar problems. I immediately found a partner, Michelle from Hungary. I was surprised by a very high level of teaching. I do not quite been ready for the summer school - this is usually a relaxed atmosphere. Here it was needed to read a lot, todiscusa lot. Everything here are tight, you got many things to understand and many things to think about at home.

 -Michelle Crossby, Washington DC:

I am studying innovation networks; I learn network analysis to measure ties between firms and venture organizations. This school was invigorating, it really met my expectations. I’ve learned a lot of new information in a short period of time, which was a goal of this school and I feel I was able to accomplish it.  

 - Ruben Flores, Mexico, HSE (Moscow):

For me it has been a crash course in SNA. I think that the school was very comprehensive, it was more than I expected, I don’t know what I was expecting. The course was elaborated very thoroughly. It was great that we had different lectures, and each of them brought his or her own perspective, this combination of different people was really helpful, diversity of teachers really enriched the school.

 -Ben Lind:

The school has been great. Great people other than me were working there; I am kind of below the average. Students are very-very good, they are doing interesting projects, and they are coming to class well prepared. It was very intense, but it was quite rewarding that people know that they learned things. It was very good time which challenged me.

 by Veronica Kostenko