Frequently Asked Questions Help Center Learn more.

General

• How does this course compare to the Networked Life offered by Coursera and network courses in general?

Funny you should ask. When I saw Michael Kearns a few months ago, the conversation went something like this: 'Hi Michael, how's it going?' 'Good, I'm going to be teaching a Coursera course.' 'Really? Me too. What are you teaching?' 'Networks'. 'Me too!'. We briefly contemplated co-teaching the course, but our schedules were incompatible. So yes, 'Networked Life' and 'Social Network Analysis' cover much of the same ground, but are bound to be different (e.g. I'm guessing that Networked Life has more extensive reading, SNA tinkers with demos and tools more). Try them both and see which one fits your interests.

• How can we apply this course practically? Can social network analysis be applied to my industry?

Yes, as part of the course I will be including several short interviews with people in industry about their use of SNA. However, we won't have time to delve into different fields too deeply. I hope that once you understand the general concepts you will be equipped to apply them to whatever discipline or area you are interested in.

• How do I collect social network analysis data? Will you teach us how to collect data?

Data collection is a topic in and of itself (and I have taught such a course, separately). It is out of scope here, however, I have created a forum where you can both post about data collection you have done and give tips to others, and you can ask for help on data collection and formatting.

• Why is the course focused on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, etc? What about other types of networks?

We will be analyzing other networks, including e.g. international trade and ingredient networks.

Background

• What is the necessary preparation for this course?

There is no preparation necessary. The course is intended to be self-contained.

• How much math/programming/graph theory experience is required? What if I do not have XYZ requirement?

No prior experience is required, although you should be open to learning basic math functions such as logarithms. If you do know how to program already, you will likely find the light programming assignments interesting. If you do not have a programming background, simply don't do the optional programming assignments!

Class logistics

• What happens if I fail the course? What happens if I fail a particular assignment? Can I still continue?

You can't "fail" the course. On the other hand, if you obtain at least 80% of the points, you will have earned a certificate. We drop the assignment with the lowest score when calculating the points earned, so you can skip an entire assignment without your grade being affected.

• Are there any required meetings?

No, you watch the lectures on your own time.

• I will be away during XYZ period. Is it possible to get the assignments early?

Yes, we will work on getting assignments and materials posted early, so that you can work through them at your own pace. The due date will be staggered.

• How much time should I put to reading? How much time should I put in each assignment?

Each assignment should typically take 1-3 hours. The (optional) readings would take another 1-2. Since the readings are optional, you can adjust the amount to fit your schedule. If you are doing the programming assignments, they might take an additional couple of hours.

• How do I form study groups with other students?

You can create a local group in the forum, or follow the 'Join a Meetup' tool linked to from the left navigation bar.

• *Will we be able to connect with the professor? *

The teaching staff and I will regularly monitor the forums, so please post your questions there. The experience in other Coursera courses has been that students are often able to resolve questions by the time the instructor checks in. Email just doesn't scale to a class this size, and Lada and the TA's will not be responding to email sent to their individual accounts. We do plan to have several Google Hangouts during the course.

• I don’t speak English well. Will there be subtitles in the videos?

Yes.

• I don’t speak English well. Is it OK if I make grammatical errors?

There won't be much opportunity for you to make grammatical errors since the assignments will be autograded.

• • I won't be able to finish the course on time, can I keep studying the materials on my own?*

Yes, if you are registered for the course, you will be able to access the materials after the course ends, although of course, any work you do after the conclusion of the course will not count toward the course certificate.

Reference list:

• Can you provide a list of tutorials / references we can use to prepare for the course?

Yes, the list will be updated as the course goes on, please refer to the course wiki and feel free to contribute to it as you encounter useful tutorials.

• What are good tutorials you recommend for R, Gephi, NetLogo, etc?

Ditto.