From September 26th through 28th, COSMOS will host a hybrid in-person and virtual training course, taught by Dr. Nitin Agarwal and based on his US Department of Defense-funded research, on social media analysis techniques; each day will have scheduled instruction from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM (US Central time zone), with lunch and coffee breaks.

The training course, supported by grants from the US Army Research Office, will introduce basic social science concepts, theories, and principles that guide model development, data analysis, AI/ML, and inference. Attendees will learn about state-of-the-art developments in mining social media to support business intelligence and decision-making, and about the emerging challenges and opportunities within social media. Participants will be prepared to learn innovative applications of multidisciplinary problem-solving approaches, and come away from the course with the analytical skills to enhance their understanding of the data.

Social media platforms connect people, enabling shared consumption of content, opinions, and experiences, and analyzing this wealth of data can help discover the behaviors of individuals, communities, and organizations. Businesses, academic researchers, and governments can use the study of this data to guide decision-making and to advance the understanding of social and cultural dynamics through the lens of contemporary information and communication tools (ICTs). The training course will show attendees how to conduct such research, with a near-limitless number of applications—how to analyze social media data about products, services, campaigns, markets, events, customers, and employees; how to segment audiences by geography, demographics, influencers, recommenders, or detractors; and how to measure social media activities. The training will discuss case studies that show the impact of the analyses on domains like security, health, business, policy-making, strategic communication, public affairs, and socio-political and cultural assessment.

All that is required is a computer with an internet connection and a familiarity with programming languages such as Python. Limited participation scholarships, supported by the US Army Research Office, up to $1,000 will be available.

View the event agenda, read more about the material, or register for the upcoming event at https://cosmos.ualr.edu/training/.