Network analysis is a popular approach for discovering and understanding connections among people or variables within a group or system. Applications are diverse, including studying social networks among peers, relationships among questionnaire items, and patterns of brain activity. This workshop will introduce you to fundamental concepts in network analysis, including:
- Working with and constructing network data
- Understanding the building blocks of a network: nodes and edges
- Learning the difference between directed versus undirected networks
- Describing the structure of a network by density, connection strength, and more
- Exploring relationships among network members through betweenness, centrality, and closeness
- Identifying communities and clusters within a network
We will use network data visualization tools throughout to explore and communicate analyses. Methods will be illustrated through examples in R using packages including igraph and tidygraph. This workshop is intended for people who have the equivalent of one semester of statistics.