What next?

You have finished the course. Thank you for participating!

We hope that at this stage you are able to:

• Explain how humans make decisions, according to classic and more contemporary theories on human decision making from different disciplines: economics, psychology and sociology.
• Apply a simple algorithm / model describing a decision process in a chosen situation.
• Explain how the environment and societal clues can shape choices and the other way around.
• Debate the need for accurate representation of individual choice and decision behaviour when analysing social phenomena.
• Experiment with different individual decision processes and their impact on the social level.
• Identify which human behaviour has been included in a (computational) model.

Learn more

This course is a part of an educational initiative Action for Computational Thinking in Social Sciences. This project is carried out by a strategic partnership formed by enthusiasts of modelling and simulations and opening-up education and includes partners from Warsaw, Groningen and Berlin. It was co-funded by Erasmus+.

If you are interested in exploring computational social sciences further (and we sincerely hope you do), we encourage you to:

• visit the project website and learn more about the initiative;
• try out our other courses, including People, Networks and Neighbours: Understanding Social Dynamics, Understanding Human Behaviour and about social network analysis.

If you are a student, we also encourage you to look for computational social sciences courses, both within your educational institution and online (try looking for topics such as: computational models, computational social science, modelling and simulations, agent-based models or social network analysis).

If you are a teacher or academic teacher, we encourage you to use the materials from the course (and other ACTISS courses) in your teaching. You will be able to download the materials and find YouTube videos and models from the courses here. We’ll be very happy if you do!

More to explore

If you are looking to read more about social computation, we recommend having a look at the following resources:

The Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation (JASSS) is the leading journal in the field of social computation. It is an open-source on-line journal giving you access to the most recent applications of social computational models.

CoMSES Net is an international network of researchers, educators and professionals with the common goal of improving the way we develop, share, and use computational modeling in the social and ecological sciences.

Studying at University of Groningen or University College Groningen

University College Groningen is a Faculty of the University of Groningen, one of the world’s top 100 universities. We offer a Bachelor in Liberal Arts and Sciences, which will provide students an academic degree with a genuinely interdisciplinary outlook, freedom of choice and a collaborative and guided approach to learning in a stimulating and globally challenging environment.

Our Liberal Arts and Sciences programme offers students the opportunity to study a broad range of subjects whilst developing specialist knowledge in their major discipline (Humanities, Sciences, Social Sciences). Throughout the degree students will work in interdisciplinary teams on a series of projects that take them outside of the classroom. This will enable students to learn how to apply a creative approach in finding solutions for complex global challenges.

Studying at University of Warsaw

University of Warsaw is the leading research university and the largest higher education institution in Poland, with a comprehensive portfolio of research and teaching activities. Faculty of Sociology offers BA and MA level studies in Sociology and has recently launched a new MA programme of Digital Sociology.

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