Social Network Analysis for Computer Scientists
This course deals with computer science (CS) aspects of social network analysis (SNA), and is open to all students in the master computer science programme at Leiden University.
This page is being prepared for the Fall 2026 edition of the course...
Course information
Lectures: Fridays from 9:00 to 10:45 in Gorlaeus lecture room CM 1.26
Lab sessions: Fridays from 11:00 to 12:45 in Gorlaeus lab room DM0.09 and DM0.17
Prerequisites: a CS bachelor with courses on Algorithms, Data Structures, and, Machine Learning or Data Mining
Literature: provided papers and book chapters (free and digitally available)
Examination: assignments throughout the semester and final exam at the end of the semester
Brightspace link: 2526-S1 Social Network Analysis for Computer Scientists
Study guide link: Social Network Analysis for Computer Scientists
Study points: 6 ECTS
Course staff: prof. dr. Frank Takes (f.w.takes@liacs.leidenuniv.nl, BE 3.07),
Rachel de Jong MSc (BE 3.03)
Assistants:
Gamal Adel Elgamal MSc (BE 2.23),
Bart Holterman, ... (TBA)
![[Network visualization image]](yeast_eccs.jpg)
Network with 1458 nodes and 1948 edges.
Course schedule
| Date | Lecture (9:00-10:45) | Lab session (11:00-12:45) | |
| 1. | Fri Sep 4, 2026 |
Lecture 0: Course information Lecture 1: Introduction and small world phenomenon |
Instruction: Introduction to Gephi Work on Assignment 1 |
| ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Fri Dec 11, 2026 | Exam (in USC) | ||
| Jan 29, 2027 | Retake exam (in USC) |
Reading material
In the past, students have expressed interest in additional reading material to help freshen up on skills and knowledge required for this course.
- To brush up on your Python programming skills, you could do Lecture 0, 1 and 4 of these Scientific Python Lectures.
- To freshen up your LaTeX skills, you could do for example this LaTeX tutorial by Overleaf.
- MIT has a nice online course on discrete mathematics. Relevant chapters: 5, 6 and 7.
- The (Dutch) Leiden courses Algoritmiek (Algorithms) and Datastructuren (Data structures) might be also interesting to browse through.
- Basic knowledge of concepts in machine learning and data mining are provided, e.g., at the Wikipedia machine learning page.