The Science of Communities and Networks

For-profit and nonprofit organizations, alike, are embracing networks to share insights and data, act as a voting block, serve customers, foster pluralism, and innovate. For example, realtor COMPASS, the World Health Organization, the World Bank, and electric cooperatives are all leveraging networks. The ideas of “open” and “collective” are no longer seen as a rarified university experiment. Now these present a viable means for a growing number of purposes: get to market faster, thwart climate change, clean the oceans, and find cures to intractable diseases.

“The Science of Communities and Networks” presents the structure, impacts, and practical work of networks. There are many different forms of network, varying in size, shape and purpose. Yet there are some common practices and behavior models that trace their origins back to the science of the human brain, evolution and social and behavioral psychology. We will use the Knowledge Network Effectiveness Framework, a logic model flowing backwards from outcomes, to individual and social behavior, to dynamics, to design. Our lenses will also include social network analysis (SNA), complex spreading phenomena, behavioral insights, and cooperation. These lenses we bring to discuss practical cases in each of several network forms:

• social networks
• communities of practice (or knowledge-networks),
• open source,
• open data, and
• open innovation.

Students will envision, diagnose and design networks for “cooperative advantage.” We will do that while considering that networks operate in the context of human bias, social influence, sustainability challenges, and technology advancement.