Welcome!

Hi everyone, welcome to the blog! This is where you should publish your blog posts. Social and information networks are absolutely everywhere, including your favourite areas, interests, and hobbies. The blog posts are an opportunity for you to explore how others (or you!) have used the language of network analysis to explore interconnection in something that interests you. Here is some information that should help you get started:

Each post should be centred around a recent news article, academic paper, online essay, new company, or organization that is related to the material in the class. Your goal is to provide commentary that engages with the subject, and your audience is your peers in the course, as well as interested outside observers. What is interesting or novel about your subject? Why did you choose to write about it?

Posts should be at least two paragraphs long, clearly articulate the relation to the class material, and contain at least one picture/graphic and at least one web link on that subject. 

Blog posts will be graded on their relevance to the class material, the quality of their commentary on the topic, and the use of plots/graphics/tables/links to communicate the main ideas to the reader. They are to be written individually.

One of the purposes of these writing assignments is to practice communicating your thoughts in a public forum. Your audience is each other, not just the course staff. Posts that dialogue with earlier posts from the course are encouraged, but they should add significantly to the previous points made (in part by referencing a new paper/article/essay). Participating in this blog — writing posts, leaving comments on others’ posts, etc. — is part of the participation grade in this class. Feel free to comment on each other’s posts!

Keep in mind that the blog is a public forum, and that people, organizations, and research projects in the outside world that you refer to may well end up reading what you write. Please be respectful.

Have fun!