Quick Facts about GEOG 479
- Instructor: Dr. Panagiotis Giannakis
- Course Structure: Online, 10-12 hours a week for 10 weeks
- Prerequisite: GEOG 160, GEOG 482 or permission of the program
Overview
Curious about how the notion of place and space is affected by social media, or how the Web differs from location to location? Spatial Data Science for Cyber and Human Social Networks looks at the geographies of cyberspace, the geopolitics of cyberwar, and at techniques that might be employed in such conflicts. Wondering how this all relates to censorship on the Internet? This course explores ideas on governance and network architecture, the politics of censorship and hacking, and the politics of grassroots activism enabled by the internet. Students in this course will use a range of information systems, engage with the emerging landscape as defined by the geographies of the Internet, and will examine the impact as new technologies and intelligence intersect with one another.
Learn more about GEOG 479, Spatial Data Science for Cyber and Human Social Networks (2 min 8 sec)
My name is Panagiotis Giannakis and I am an Assistant Teaching Professor at the Pennsylvania State University. I'm also the lead instructor of the course, Spatial Data Science for Cyber and Human Social Networks". This course focuses on the fundamentals of social network analysis and also examines the intersection of social networks with spatial data. You might have noticed that the most powerful and influential entities in the network are not always obvious or visible, at least to an untrained observer.
In this course you will learn the basic methodologies to be able to distinguish and identify network structures that will allow you to peek behind the curtain and discover these powerful actors. More than that, you will get a better understanding of these actors, behaviors, relationships, and their overall network.
To better give you the opportunity to comprehend these tools and concepts, we have designed this course around several projects. This way, you will get to use what you’ve learned on an actual project. These projects have been designed to resemble real-life scenarios and that's why we have used real-life data. To give you an example, two of the projects that you will encounter are the use of Twitter data in an effort to analyze and possibly identify the spatial strategy of a political party just before the elections and also to analyze a terrorist network in an effort to identify the true powerful individuals that might be hiding behind their co-conspirators.
Social Network Analysis is something that you will have the chance to use in your professional or even everyday life. It is a very interesting course which I believe will give you the opportunity to approach some familiar, or even some new concepts, from a new and unique point of view.
Meet your instructor: Panos Giannakis (2:38)
Hello everyone. My name is Panagiotis Giannakis but everyone around here knows me and calls me Panos. I am a faculty member in the Geography Department at the Pennsylvania State University, and I did several online courses including Database Development, GIS Programming, and Open Web Mapping.
The road that led me to State College and Penn State has been a rather long one. I grew up in Greece. I came in 2013 to the United States in order to study and get my Ph.D. from the University of Arkansas. I spent more or less all my life inside academic institutions studying, working, and teaching, so when I got the opportunity to come here to Penn State, I was more than excited.
As a geographer, I truly love traveling and exploring new places and so far I have managed to visit more than 20 countries. While in the United States, the goal that me and my wife have set is to visit all 50 states and we're already more than halfway done. I honestly think that this is a wonderful program and I really hope that I will see you in one of my classes in the future.
Want to join us? Students who register for this Penn State course gain access to assignments and instructor feedback and earn academic credit. For more information, visit Penn State's Online Geospatial Education Program website. Official course descriptions and curricular details can be reviewed in the University Bulletin.