How to get started with p*/ERGM

What’s all this about p*/ERGM? So you’ve just experienced Prof. Noshir Contractor’s keynote, and he was all over this new-fangled technique for the statistical modeling of social networks, and you’ve never heard of it. Curious? Try one of these articles from our collaborators, generally acknowledged as excellent starting points:

Read both – a slight edge to Robins, Pattison, Kalish and Lusher on the strength of their Figures which may elicit a genuine “Ah, ha!” moment, while the worked examples in Anderson, Wasserman, and Crouch are more substantial.

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Professor Contractor featured in NCA Communication Scholar video

Professor Contractor is one of four communication scholars featured in a video titled Grantseeking Basics: A Guide for the Communication Scholar prepared by the National Communication Association (NCA) and to be showcased at the NCA annual convention in New Orleans on Friday November 18 from 12:30-1:45 pm in LaGalerie 1 on the second floor of the Marriott Hotel, New Orleans. Video can be viewed at: http://www.natcom.org/Default.aspx?id=2147484475&libID=2147484475

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Roger Leenders SONIC Speaker Series

Prof. Roger LeendersOn Thursday, October 27, from 1:00-2:00 p.m. Prof. Dr. Roger Leenders will be giving a presentation in Room 1-483 of Frances Searle Building on the Northwestern University Evanston Campus. The talk is entitled “Competition and the Gender of Team Creativity”. The presentation reports on several studies on the effect of interteam competition on the creativity of teams. In particular, a recent study proposing that having groups go head-to-head is stimulating to the creativity of groups composed of men but detrimental to the creativity of groups composed of women. Lab studies showed differential effects of competition on the creativity of male versus female groups, especially at the higher end of the competition spectrum. The researchers also found that, based on network theory, these effects were mediated by in-group collaboration. The effects were also replicated in a field setting involving R&D teams.

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Creativity of Teams


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Bernard Hogan SONIC Speakers Series

On Friday, October 21, from 2:00-3:00 p.m. University of Oxford Research Fellow, Bernie Hogan will be giving a presentation in Room 1-483 of Frances Searle Building on the Northwestern University Evanston Campus. This presentation will provide an overview of several studies that explore the phenomena related to how social networks mirror offline networks, albeit not perfectly.

Bernie Hogan is a research fellow at the University of Oxford’s Internet Institute. His work focuses on online identity via real names and pseudonyms. He has published methods for analyzing networks and names in City and Communication, Communication & Society, Fields Methods and elsewhere. His tool for downloading Facebook networks (namegenweb) is used worldwide. His 2009 dissertation under Barry Wellman at the University of Toronto won best Dissertation from ICA’s Communivation and Technology Section.

Download the flyer here.

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Personal Networks and the Rise of the Real Name Web


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